82- KJELLMAN, THE ALGA OF THE ARCTIC SEA. 
On the other hand, it is during the winter-months that the reproductive function 
attains its maximum of energy in the arctic alee. At least this was the case on the 
north coast of Spitzbergen, and I suppose that the same state of things prevails also 
in other parts of the arctic region. 
To begin with, it may be remarked that with regard to this branch of vital 
activity there is a sharp difference between the marine vegetation and the arctic land- 
flora, especially the cryptogamic. It has been asserted that the phanerogams seldom, 
nay only quite exceptionally, produce ripe fruit within the arctic regions. This assertion 
is certainly quite unfounded, but it is true, indeed, that the production of seeds is 
less rich here than farther southwards, and that the arctic phanerogams are endowed 
with a peculiar conformation of their own, in order to get time, during the short 
season, to form reproductive organs. Mosses *) and lichens *) rarely fructify, but in- 
crease in the vegetative way. It must therefore be concluded that the plants of the 
arctic sea live under more advantageous conditions than the land-plants in the formid- 
able climate of the Polar countries. 
On the north coast of Spitzbergen, during the winter 1872—73, I had the oppor- 
tunity of following 27 species in their development, almost day by day. As I have 
mentioned in my account of these researches, 22 of these species, belonging to various 
classes and various families, were furnished with organs of propagation during the whole 
or some part of the winter. Carpospores, tetraspores, egg-cells, brown and green z00- 
spores were produced and ripened. Some species, as Rhodomela lycopodioides, Lami- 
naria solidungula, Llachista lubrica, and Chetopteris plumosa formed reproductive organs 
in a surprisingly great number, at least as great as the same or nearly related species 
farther to the south. 
What has been said now, must not be thus understood as if the development of 
reproductive organs were in all the arctic alge relegated to the winter-months. In 
this respect great variety prevails. There are to be found species, as Rhodomela lyco- 
podioides f. tenuissima, Delesseria sinuosa, Rhodymenia palmata, Phyllophora interrupta, 
Ptilota pectinata, Fucus evanescens, Laminaria Agardhi, Laminaria nigripes, Chordaria 
flagelliformis, Elachista lubrica, Pylaiella litoralis which bear such organs of some kind 
or other at all times of the year, although, in many of them, this function is most 
energetic in winter. In other species as Lithoderma fatiscens, Chatopteris plumosa, Spha- 
celaria arctica, Laminaria solidungula, Alaria grandifolia a. 0., the development of re- 
productive organs is decidedly limited to or chiefly carried on in late autumn and in 
winter; again others have been found hitherto with propagative organs only during the 
summer-months, as Odonthalia dentata, Chantransia efflorescens, Ceramium rubrum, Anti- 
thamnion boreale, Dictyosiphon foeniculaceus, Ectocarpus confervoides, Monostroma fuscum, 
M. Blytta ete. 
I have shown above, that arctic species occur also in the northern Atlantic. It 
is a startling fact that most of them, when growing within the arctic region, are found 
1) Cp. Breracren, Musci Spetsb., p. 19. 
*) Cp. Tu. Fries. Lich. Spetsb., p. 5. 
3) Ksetiman, Vinteraleveg. 
