Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/343

 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 315

was mentioned that in Smith's Sound only fifty-two species were found. Cyperacea was the largest Order. Plants sometimes reached under fa- vourable circumstances as high as -iOOO ft., though more frequently 2000 was the limit. The Gmsiope tetracjona arul Papaiwr midlcaiUe «ere the hardiest. There was no connection between the present and pre- existing floras of Greenland. The Cryptogamic plants were much less kuoAvn. Already 268 species of Lichens were described from Greenland, though many more were vet to be discovered, as Lauder Lindsay had found upwards of twenty species entirely new to science in his collection (Linn. Trans. 1870). UiiibUlcnria had the effect of giving an aspect to the scenery, but Lecidea had the largest number of species, viz., sixty- three. The Mosses known from Greenland were not many. Prof. Lawson, of Oxford, only found between forty and fifty species in Dr. Brown's collection, though doubtless many more were yet to be discovered. Only twenty-six Hepatlca were yet known from Greenland. Tlie Al(/ft; described, number between forty and fifty, and left room for many new discoveries.

The Fungi were few and the DiatoraacecB were little known. Prof.

Dickie remarked with regard to the Algrp, they were abundant not in species but in individuals. DiatomacetB abounded; they largely composed a material obtained from cracks in the ice and resembling bread soaked in water, and they had also been obtained from the stomachs of moUusca. The land flora consisted of plants of the Scandinavian type, and these

it was well known had the widest range of all plants. Prof. Lawson

thought that from birds sitting on icebergs there might be a greater deposit upon them ; but the birds chiefly fed on fishes and would not necessarily bring seeds. The plants carried by icebergs would be chiefly Mosses and lower plants : these fall on glaciers from adjacent rocks and ulti- mately reach icebergs. The space examined in Greenland had been very small. The 270 plants chiefly represented a coast flora ; of the vegetation of the interior, nothing was known. The Mosses from Greenland, princi- pally belonging to the genus Bn/um, were all common English forms.

The collection was probably very imperfect. Prof. Thiselton Dyer said

that more exact information as to the carrying power of icebergs was nnich to be desired. Darwin stated that they had been known to carry brushwood (' Origin of Species,' 4th edition, p. 432), but he had never

been able to ascertain the authority on which this statement rested.

Mr. Birkbeck Nevins had never seen in Hudson's Straits either land- birds. Mosses, or plants upon icebergs. Dr. Brown, in reply, said that

the transporting power of bergs had been much exaggerated. For flowering plants it was certainly small ; as to Cryptogams it Avas different, since their spores might be carried considerable distances bv the wind. Birds were the chief transporting agents of Arctic plants, all the passerine

birds of Greenland were birds of passage. Prof. A. Dickson, " Sufo-es-

tions on Fruit Classification " [printed in full at p. 309], Prof. Dickie

objected to the treatment of drupes in the paper. The shallow groove in

the fruits of the Plum, etc., was a very important point. Prof. Balfour

liked the primary divisions j)roposed. He was cpiite prepared to accept some improvement, but he thought that after all Professor Dickson had

not reduced the nund)er of names very materially. Prof. Thiselton

Dyer pointed out that fruit classifications had to be judged from two points of view. Writers on structural botany naturally desired a symme- trical classification ; on the other, systematists would not use a cninbrous

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