KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 50. N:0 3- 119 



D. Port Stanley, stream crossing an ^s/eZta-association with patches of grasses 

 and Carices (see above): Breutelia graminicola, Bryum, Icevigatutn, Sphagnum nano- 

 porosum; Aneura granulata, pinguis, Balantiopsis erinacea, Lepidozia blepharostoma. 



In Lafonia, some other species are also of importance. 



19. Hydrocotyle-Sissoci&tion by a small stream near Arrow Harbour Hoiise, in 



Cortaderia-mendow : 



Soc. Hydrocotyle hirta Spårs. Carcx canescens var. Sol. Banunculus liydropliilus 



Cop. Stellaria dehilis » macloviana » frulUfolius, 



Cortaderia pilosa 



all of tliem growing on the bank right down to the water. 



Many brooks in Lafonia, flowing slowly över the level plains, are ± filled up 

 with mosses and liverworts. In the mosscarpet we met with Carex caduca var., 

 macloviana, Epilohium valdiviense, Heleocharis melanostachys, Hydrocotyle hirta and 

 Banunculus hydrophilus. 



The vegetation of tlie se.a-coast. 



The nature of the coast is verv varied. There are steep cliffs without a beach, 

 rocky shores with or without a beach of pebbles, gravel or sand ; there are also, in 

 some places, väst fields of drift-sand. It was evident that several different plant- 

 associations would occnr side by side. 



I suppose that the tussock grass, Poa flabellata, once formed the most important 

 feature of the coastal plant-life. At present it is frequent on small, unstocked islands; 

 except on these it is hardly found except on rocky, inaccessible places all round the 

 islands, where I believe it has remained in undisputed possession of the ground, as 

 the sheep have been unable to reach it. But did it really ever cover all the coast 

 round the islands? One would then expect to find traces of it every where, for there 

 have been sheep in considerable number only within the last sixty years. Surely also 

 cattle or pigs are injurious to the grass, but in spite of their prolonged presence in 

 the islands, the tussock was very abundant at IIooker's time, i. e. before the »era of 

 sheep». It grew much on sandy soil and even luxuriated on pure sand, getting manured 

 by thrown-up kelp and by excrements of the animals living among the tussocks (sea- 

 lions, penguins). When the grass had become extirpated on such places, the sand 

 became mobile, and it is not stränge, that, in sixty years, every trace of it could 

 disappear. For mostly one sees nothing at all of Poa flabellata on sandy sea-shores. 

 When growing on a beach of pebbles, the pedestals of the killed plants have remained 

 to decay slowly; sometimes fields of drifthumus, where Rumex acetosella has found 

 one of its favourite grounds, arose, över which the heath and meadow slowly advances. 

 I was fortunate in finding some places where this process was still going on, where 

 the tussock had been killed some 20 or 30 years before and where species from the 

 heath had come to occupy the fresh ground, which was still more like a desert tlian 

 anything else. If we thus imagine most of the beaches with shingle or sand as 



