Dr Lauder Lindsay on the Flora of Iceland. 85 
the lava fields, growing in crevices of the lava in all directions, 
and in great profusion about Havnafjord. Of the lichens, 
Platysma nivale was very common on the deserts to the 
south-east of the cemetery of Reykjavik, occurring frequently 
where no other cryptogams or phanerogams could grow. 
It was usually associated in tufts with Cetraria aculeata, 
both plants being sterile in all the cases in which I exa- 
mined them. The Cetraria islandica and Cladonia rangi- 
ferina, which might be expected here in profusion, I found 
only sparingly, and usually growing in tufts, especially the 
former, with Racomitrium lanuginosum. Seen from any dis- 
tance, the surface of the district about Reykjavik has a brown 
or blackish-brown colour, and a bleak, sterile aspect. Vege- 
tation is not so luxuriant, or of such a character as to give rise 
to verdure, unless in such localities as the alluvial banks of 
rivers, streams, or lakes—occasional marshes—the farm-lands 
enclosed by or immediately surrounding farms, and designated 
the “tun,’—and the pasture-lands in the vicinity of towns 
and villages. In such situations the verdure generally formed 
a more or less striking contrast to the earth-brown colour and 
bleakness of the surrounding deserts or moors. There was 
frequently an excellent though very irregular sward, and the 
same lowland plants were met with as occur under similar 
circumstances in Britain. 
But the strongest and strangest contrast to the general 
vegetation of the Reykjavik district was to me that of the 
hot springs at Laugarness. The ground immediately sur- 
rounding the springs, as well as the banks of the Laugar 
(stream), to which the said springs give rise,—at least for 
some hundred feet of its course towards the sea,—formed quite 
an ‘oasis in the desert.” Unfortunately the pocket thermo- 
meter I had with me was not marked higher than 130°. But 
the water of the springs was so hot that my finger or hand was 
once severely scalded on being immersed: I could not retain 
either submerged for an instant. ‘The water was boiling and 
bubbling up from the bed of the springs, and was steaming 
copiously on its surface ; eggs might be cooked in the water 
in the course of four or five minutes, and fish and fowls ina 
correspondingly short time. The water of the Laugar, which 
