Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/96

92 flowering stage, while the maturation of its fruit would be next to impossible" ("Antarctic Botany," by R. N. Rudmose Brown, Scottish National Antarctic Expedition: Scottish Geographical Magazine, 1906, vol. xxii, No. 9). Another very serious factor against plant life in the Antarctic Regions is the presence of enormous numbers of penguins on almost every available piece of ground on which plants could grow. It is only occasional out-of-the-way spots, not readily accessible to the sea, and so free from penguins, that are available for plant growth. On Mossman Peninsula, in Scotia Bay, there was one very favourable place, where about an acre of rocky ground was covered with 6 or 8 inches of moss and vegetable soil derived from the moss that had grown there for many a year. Such mossy grounds, however, are very late in losing their winter snow, so that if the seeds of flowering plants reached such a nidus they would have very little chance, even if they germinated, of securing a sufficiently firm foothold before the summer was gone. Owing to a prevalence of north-west winds, Dr. Rudmose Brown is of opinion that some wind-blown seeds of Fuegian plants may reach Graham Land, the South Shetlands, and the South Orkneys; but the absence of driftwood on these lands shows that there is much less chance of their reaching these lands,