PROF. MARTINS : VEGETATION OF SPITZBERGEN. 



141 



Let not the reader hasten to admit the theory of multiple centres 

 of creation, and to suppose that the twenty-eight French species, had not a 

 common origin with their brethren of Spitzhergen, but may have appeared 

 simultaneously, or at different epochs, around the pole, on the French moors, 

 and on the snowy summits of the Alps and Pyrenees. The recent progress of 

 botanical geography does not admit of such a conclusion. We remark firstly 

 that the flora of all the glacial countries that surround the pole, is remark- 

 ably uniform. M. Malmgren inform.s us that of the ninety-three species of 

 Spitzbergen, eighty-one are found in Greenland. More to the west, the 

 islands which border Lancaster, Barrow, and Melville straits, in IST. America, 

 situate under the 78° K. Lat., have fifty-eight species in common with 

 northern Spitzbergen. Those which are missing in America, are generally 

 such species as grow on the western coast of the island, and belong more par- 

 ticularly to the continental flora of northern Europe. More to the east, in 

 Siberia, on the peninsula of Tajrmir, (100° E. Long, and 75° Lat.) M. 

 Middendort gathered one hundred and twenty-four flowering plants of which 

 fifty-three are also found in Spitzbergen. 



"We thus see, that the crown of modest flowers which encircles the 

 northern pole, is not varied, under different meridians, in the same manner as 

 the other vegetable zones which encircle the globe ; they are throughout, the 

 same plants, or species belonging to the same genera, and the same families ; 

 they are always the grasses, Crudferce, Caryophyllaceoe, and Saxifragacem^ 

 which prevail j and amongst the genera, Draha, Saxifraga, Ranunculus, 

 Carex, and Poa, All these species are perennial ; this is a condition of their 

 existence, for it is not to be expected, that they should, each year, perfect 

 their fruit and ripen their seeds ; an annual plant totally disappears from 

 any country, if in any single year it fails to bring its seeds to maturity. 



We have then an Arctic Flora ; but that of Spitzbergen is also a pro- 

 longation of the Scandinavian flora, which intermixes in this island with the 

 arctic flora proper ; indeed the two regions have sixty-nine species in com- 

 mon. There remains then twenty-four species forSpitzbergen,but the whole of 

 these are found in America, North of Siberia, and IsTova Zemla ; these 

 are, par excellence, the arctic flora, those which best characterize the ciucum- 

 polar vegetation. They are distinguished from the others in the list, by an 

 asterisk. Thus the flora of Spitzbergen consists of two floras, the one 

 European, the prevailing one on account of the proximity of Scandinavia ; 

 the other, Arctic, that is American and Siberian. 



