160 
to one or two single stations or to a very small area. They are enumerated below, 
the letters indicating: S one station in tho Jones Sound i^egion, E on the east 
coast, H in the Hayes Sound region, N in the north; figures in brackets mean stations 
close together. The doubtless rehcts are: 
If all species o)ily appearing in sheltered localities, or being more or less Kingua- 
plants, should be included we would have to look upon nearly one half of the 
flora as relicts. But I think that would be an exaggeration ; the transportation of 
the seeds of these species may, indeed, encounter such difficulties as to be very 
rarely effected from one sheltered place directly to another, and that is necessary if 
they shall develop, but occasionally they may reach a convenient station. In the 
case of most of the 29 plants, enumerated above, I think, however, that actually a 
migration to another sufficiently favoured station is out of the question, because it 
would involve a transport over, perhaps in many cases, hundreds of miles. The 
circumstance that most of the above species certainly produce seed quite regularly, 
or at least in favourable years, ujay seem to contend against lookiug upon them as 
relicts, but I have another conception of the relict state than that whieh is now 
generally embraced. When Nathorst thirty years ago in bis study of the Spitz- 
bergen flora (Spetsb. kärlv.) found the vegetation of that arctic archipelago to show 
signs of having immigrated over land at a time when a warmer cHmate than the 
present ruled, he saw a support for bis theory in the circumstance that a consi- 
derable number of its species do not fruit, or at least not ripen their seed, because 
they receive too Httle warmth during the time of vegetation. The ingenious idea 
he then put forth bas since from a valuable working hypothesis advanced to an 
estabhshed fact, holding good for large parts at least, and most probably for the 
whole arctic and subarctic region. 
As far as isolated islauds, such as Spitzbergen, are concerned I cannot but 
agree with Nathorst and with Gunnar Andersson, who bas lately studied the 
problem more closely (Quartärfl. Spitzb.), but I think the reduction or even the 
entire absence of power of fructification or production of nature seed not to be, by 
itself alone, a secure proof of a relict. The rare and extremely sporadic occurrence 
of several Spitzbergen plants I look upon as purporting more about their relict- 
nature than the absence of seed. When therefore B. Högbom (Sp. xMytilustid) is 
incUned to deny tlie relict-nature of Empetrum in Spitzbergen because it is twice 
