Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1939, Page 23

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to be a mixture of puffin colony formation and angelica
clusters, but in some places there must be some pure puffin
coloné growth as mentioned in p. 106 on Nolsö (Ostenf.,
1906). Festuca rubra L., Agrostis tenuis Sibth., Stellaria
media (L.), Cyrill, Cerastum cæspitosum Gilib. and C. tet-
randum Gurt., Montia rivularis Gmel., Rumex acetosa L.
and Sagina procumbens L. also make this puffin colony
very like the dry meadow land in ”Bjarnarey”.
Characteristic of the puffin colony in the Westmann Is-
lands are the few species, only 9, and six of them form
the main part of the formation, i.e. Poa trivialis L., Poa
pratensis L., Festuca rubra L., Agrostis tenuis Sibth., Cera-
situm cæspitosum Gilib. and Stellaria media L., Cyrill. The
comparatively great amount of Poa trivialis L. is especi-
ally noticeable because otherwise it grows in very few
places in the islands, only in a few places on the old culti-
vated lands and is nowhere really well represented. Montia
rivialis is also found nowhere save on the very tops of the
islands where the soil is deep, manured and always moist.
The biological spectrum shows the influence of the good
temperate conditions on the species, A = 0 %, E =
100 %, but E 1 is also 0, so that the vegetation is very
much differentiated with regard to species. On the other
hand the soil seems to offer about equal conditions to the
life-forms Ch, G, and Th, in this order the average is
18,7 %, 18,7 % and 17,9 %.
3. In the Dry meadow land the soil is on the whole
the same as in the puffin colony, indeed these two areas
are always contiguous.
Birds do not nest in the dry meadow land but they are,
if the weather permits, i.e. if there is a slight breeze, al-
ways circling around and over the tops of the islands.
The dry meadow land also shows the same biological
spectrum, also the characteristic plants are the same
though the number of species is on the whole rather
greater, i.e. 13.
4. In the cultivated meadow land the soil is deep and