Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1975, Qupperneq 6

refers to mires in his Book of Travels and in his paper in “The
Botany of Iceland” he compiles a short survey on mire vegetation
where he relies in the main on research by Dr. Helgi Jónsson.
In 1907 the German M. Gruner travelled a great deal about the
country in order to investigate vegetation and cultivation. Later, i.e.
in 1912, he published an extensive work, entitled Die Bodenkultm:
Islands, which deals with his observations. It includes a fairly ac-
curate description of mire vegetation together with an estimate of
its extent and it also contains a vegetation chart on mire distribu-
tion in South-West Iceland embracing the districts from Melasveit
eastwards to Landeyjar.
During 1909, 1912 and 1914 the Dane August Hesselbo travelled
widely across the country to study moss vegetation. He compiled
a comprehensive paper on his research, The Bryophyta of Iceland
1918. This paper contains much information about mire vegetation
and is the most exhaustive survey of moss vegetation in Iceland.
Apparently this period was followed by a lull in the research of
Icelandic mire-vegetation until the Dane H. Molholm Hansen began
his studies. His Ph.D. thesis: “Studies on the Vegetation of Iceland”,
was published in 1930. The mires are thoroughly dealt with in this
paper, which is a fundamental study of Icelandic plant sociology.
I began the study of Icelandic mire-vegetation in 1930 in Flói;
I explored the Flói, Skeið and Safamýri districts during that year
and in 1931. Subsequently I published results of this research. Since
that time I have not concentrated on the research of mires, but I
have, however, paid more attention to mire-vegetation than other
plant sociations on my practically annual expeditions until 1967.
During that time I was very much occupied with research into
vegetation of the highland areas, which considerably impeded my
studies of the mires. In these years I have covered a large part of
the country; in many places I have only managed a brief stay, but
the vegetation descriptions which appear here show in some detail
the area which I have explored. This paper is the condensed result
of all these studies. As a matter of fact, many of the things men-
tioned here have appeared earlier in my special papers — see Biblio-
graphy — but the bulk of the studies has never been published before,
and there has been no exhaustive survey comprising practically the
entire country.
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