Rit Landbúnaðardeildar : B-flokkur - 01.05.1947, Blaðsíða 7

1. Introduction.
The Icelandic type of Cakile was observed for the first time by Muller
(1770), who listed it under the name of Bunicis Cakile, without any
remarks on possible differences between the Icelandic material and the
material frorn the beaches of Northern Europe. Babington (1871) also
listed the species, using the name Cakile maritima L., without any re-
marks on its habit. The first observations on the variation of the Ice-
landic material were made by Grönlund (1881) in his lcelandic Flora,
in which he assumed that the plants were identical with Cakile maritima
var. integrifolia Hornem., a variety described on Ihe basis of material
from western Scandinavia and Denmark. That variety is most probably
identical with var. latifolia Desf., and in the Flora of Iceland by Stefáns-
son (1901, 1924), the Flora of Iceland and the Faeroes by Ostenfeld and
Gröntved (1934) as well as in the book on the Pteridophyta and Sper-
matophyta of Iceland by Gröntved (1942) all the Icelandic material is
referred to var. latifolia. The same name is used in the paper on the flora
of Northwest-Iceland by Steindórsson (1946).
None of the above-mentioned authors seem to have thought of the pos-
sibility that the Icelandic material of Cakile does not belong to the same
species as that found on the coasts of Scandinavia. But Hultén (1945) and
Löve (1945) observed that at least the Icelandic material found in the
herbaria in Denmark and Sweden does not belong to the species Cakile
maritima but to the species Cakile edentula (Bigel.) Hook., which is
a native of America.
During the last summer the present writers have been able to confirm
this observation in the field. All the Icelandic plants observed in nature
or collected by the writers are of the same type and belong to the ssp.
tgpica (Fern.) Hultén of the species Cakile edentula, but not a single
specimen belonging to the European species C. maritima has been met
with in Iceland.
During our stay in Lund and Svalöv, Sweden, during the last war we
made some fixations on material of C. maritima from the beaches of