The Arctic Flora. 
8 1 
ECOLOGICAL NOTES. 
The Arctic Flora. 
T HE vegetation of the circumpolar lands presents many 
attractive features to the botanist who cares for the wider 
biological aspects of his science. In the first place the extremely 
unfavourable conditions of life which obtain in the very cold regions 
of the earth furnish the completest contrast to the circumstances 
which have developed the unparalled richness and diversity of 
tropical floras. Again, the likeness that can be traced between the 
arctic and alpine floras, the conditions of which are closely similar 
though by no means identical, forms one of the most interesting 
studies in comparative ecology. In common with high alpine (sub¬ 
glacial) vegetation, the vegetation of the tropical desert, and indeed 
with all plant-communities exposed to very severe physical 
conditions, the arctic flora is characteristically an “open” flora, 
the individual plants usually growing some distance apart, with 
spaces of unclothed soil between. In such communities the plants 
have to struggle, so to speak, directly with inorganic nature, and 
only succeed in gaining a footing here and there, while the 
competition of plant with plant for space and light and air, a 
competition so enormously important in the life and evolution of 
the complex floras of the moist temperate and tropical areas, is 
largely or entiielv absent. These “open” floras have a fascination 
of their own; to borrow an artistic phrase, they are “seen” far 
more easily than the confused, tangled masses of vegetation of 
more favoured regions, and the problem of their adaptation is a 
simpler one. 
The fundamental features of the ecology of the arctic com- 
munites have been made clear mainly by the researches of Swedish 
naturalists, among whom Kjellman, Warming and Kihlman take 
the foremost place. Excellent accounts of their results may be 
found in Warming’s “ Plantesamfund” ( 1895 )—German edition, 
“ CEcologische Pflanzengeographie,” translated by Knoblauch—and 
Schimper’s “ Pflanzengeographie” ( 1898 ). The latest addition to our 
knowledge comes from Thorild Wulff, who gives, under the title of 
“ Botanische Beobachtungen aus Spitzbergen” (Lund, 1902 ), a most 
interesting account of some researches made on that island with 
the Russo-Swedish expedition in the summer of 1899 , 
