Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/329

] to the Falklands, grows here, though not abundantly. Like its Scottish congener, it is the favourite food of a species of grouse. Small shrubs, chiefly of Arbutus, or an Aster-like Composita, with white flowers, diversify the ground; but the vegetation consists mainly of species belonging to the European genera Caltha, Gentiana, Pinguicula, Primula, Saxifraga, Senecio, Juncus, Carex, Viola, Oxalis, and various grasses. In moist places, Sphagnum, or bog-moss, is very common, with many of the allied kinds of moss which compose peat in the alpine districts of Europe.

"The mountain-tops are very bare; affording only Mosses and Lichens, which cling with astonishing pertinacity to the rugged faces of the sharp peaks and piles of rock. On the south and south-western sides of these weather-beaten precipices that handsomest of all Lichens (Usnea melaxantha) braves the perennial blasts and snow-storms of the Antarctic Ocean; spreading out its slender bright sulphur-coloured branches, which seem as if expressly formed of a rigid leathery substance, so stiff as to resist the force of the elements. In the clefts of the very pinnacles of the mountains a few plants may still be detected, which have crept upward from regions more congenial to their development.

"As Hermite Island is situated close to Cape Horn, and there are no flowering plants to be found in any higher southern latitude, a list is