Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/103

Rh Although there are many barren stretches in Arctic lands, especially those regions that are open, exposed, and wind-blown, yet even on such places stunted desert-like tufts of some of the commoner species will be found, especially the Arctic poppy and purple saxifrage. These were growing on a narrow strip of ground only a few yards long, and at the most four or five yards in breadth, on an island in Franz Josef Land, north of the 80th degree of latitude, that was otherwise completely covered with permanent ice and snow. I have also found these plants growing on the tops of the mountains of Spitsbergen north of the 79th degree of latitude, at an altitude of more than 3,000 feet—as bleak exposed places as any on the face of the globe. Give these plants the least bit of fair play as regards environment—a sheltered glen, or the shores of a loch or firth, where there is sufficient moisture, plenty of sun, and good soil enriched by the water running down from the wonderful bird cliffs inhabited by hundreds of thousands if not millions of birds, or by the droppings of reindeer, musk-oxen, and other animals, and a veritable paradise of verdure is produced. I have basked in the sun on wide stretches of the purple saxifrage, and have wandered over meadows green with the Arctic willow, and many different species of saxifrage and