NOVA ZEMBLA. 



158 



or finely grained, is able to withstand the effects of a climate where the sum- 

 mer is so wet and the winter so severe. Nowhere in Nova Zembla is a grass- 

 covered spot to be found deserving the name of a meadow. Even the folia- 

 ceous lichens, which grow so luxuriantly in Lapland, have here a stunted ap- 

 pearance ; but, as Von Baer remarks, this is owing less to the climate than to 

 the nature of the soil, as plants of this description thrive best on chalky ground. 

 The crustaceous lichens, however, cover the blocks of augite and porphyry with 

 a motley vesture, and the dingy carpet with which Dryas octopetala invests 

 here and there the dry slopes, formed of rocky detritus, reminds one of the 

 tundras of Lapland. 



The scanty vegetable covering which this only true social plant of Nova 

 Zembla affords is, however, but an inch thick, and can easily be detached like 

 a cap from the rock beneath. 



On a clayey ground in moist and low situations, the mosses afford a pro- 

 tection to the polar willow {Salix polaris), which raises but two leaves and a 

 catkin over the surface of its covering. 



Even the most sparing sheet of humus has great difficulty to form in Nova 

 Zembla, as in a great number of the plants which grow there the discolored 

 leaf dries on the stalk, and is then swept away by the winds, so that the land 

 would appear still more naked if many plants, such as the snow ranunculus 

 {Ranunculus nivalis), were not so extremely abstemious as to require no hu- 

 mus at all, but merely a rocky crevice or some loose gravel capable of retaining 

 moisture in its interstices. 



But even in Nova Zembla there are some more favored spots. Thus when 

 Yon Baer landed at the foot of a high slate mountain fronting the south-west, 

 and reflecting the rays of the sun, he was astonished and delighted to see a gay 

 mixture of purple silenes, golden ranunculuses, peach-colored parryas, white 

 cerastias, and blue palemones, and was particularly pleased at finding the well- 

 known forget-me-not among the ornaments of this Arctic pasture. Between 

 these various flowers the soil was everywhere visible, for the dicotyledonous 

 plants of the high latitudes produce no more foliage than is necessary to set 

 off the colors of the blossoms, and have generally more flowers than leaves. 



The entire vegetation of the island is confined to the superficial layer of the 

 soil and to the lower stratum of the air. Even those plants which in warm 

 climates have a descending or vertical root have here a horizontal one, and 

 none, whether grasses or shrubs, grow higher than a span above the ground. 



In the polar willow, a single pair of leaves sits on a stem about as thick as 

 a straw, although the whole plant forms an extensive shrub with numerous ram- 

 ifications. Another species of willow {Salix lanata) attains the considerable 

 height of a span, and is a perfect giant among the Nova Zembla plants, for the 

 thick subterranean trunk sometimes measures two inches in diameter, and can 

 be laid bare for a length of ten or twelve feet without finding the end. Thus 

 in this country the forests are more in than above the earth. 



This horizontal development of vegetation is caused by the sun principally 

 heating the superficial sheet of earth, which imparts its warmth to the stratum 

 of air immediately above it, and thus confines the plants within the narrow 



