ARCTIC SEAWEEDS 75 
It was impossible. with the limited time at our 
disposal to obtain a representative collection of the 
seaweeds that occur among the rocks or on sandy 
beaches. The number of different kinds was com- 
paratively small and the majority were familiar. 
Floating on the waters of the Davis Strait, the 
Vaigat, and elsewhere, and washed up on the 
shore, were innumerable Laminarias which had 
been torn from rocks below tide-level. The genus 
Laminaria includes large brown seaweeds that are 
common objects on our coasts, especially those 
with long flat ribbons or broader flattened ex- 
pansions, like great leaves deeply cut into finger- 
like lobes, attached to the surface of submerged 
rocks by tufts of strong holdfasts at the base of 
long stems. The Greenland seas are characterised 
by the abundance and large size of these marine 
plants. A fairly large specimen of one of the 
commoner forms (Laminaria longicruris) is shown 
in the photograph taken at Godthaab (Fig. 33); 
the broad ribbon-like frond has strongly crinkled 
edges and, including the supporting flexible stem, 
it reached a length of several yards. 
It has already been pointed out that a comparison 
of many of the plants obtained from the rocks in 
Greenland, more especially from Cretaceous strata, 
with plants which still exist in other parts of the 
world compels the inference that the Arctic vege- 
tation of many million years ago resembled very 
closely, at least in some of its constituents, that of 
tropical or sub-tropical regions to-day. As we scan 
the impressions of leaves and twigs on the surface 
