Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1975, Blaðsíða 133

elevated and sometimes sandy Salix lanata often becomes conspicu-
ous in physiognomy.
The flæðimýri is homogenous in formation and appearance all
over the country, whether it be Safamýri, Hvanneyrarfit, the mead-
ows alongside the rivers Hnausakvísl, Héraðsvötn and Eyjafjarðará,
or the lakes Víkingavatn in Kelduhverfi and Eldvatn in Meðalland,
to name but a few of the country’s sedgemeadows. Carex Lyngbyei
is a dominant species everywhere, both in physiognomy and cover-
ing, far surpassing any other species. It lends its hue and colour
to the flæðimýri, giving it a bright green appearance during the
early summer, but later on it begins to tum yellow, and in late
summer it has a bleak-yellowish look; cf. the Icelandic names of
C. Lyngbyei, gulstör (yellow-sedge) and bleikja (pale-sedge). Usu-
ally C. Lyngbyei is mostly sterile, and although it may blossom
there is either no seed formation or else the seeds have little fertiliz-
hig power. The size of C. Lyngbyei fluctuates greatly; its height
spanning from a few centimetres up to over a metre, but the taller
it is the fewer individuals occur in each blossom. It usually grows
tallest in shallow rills, swampy tracts or lake inlets where it often
has a different colour, tums a darker green and withers later in
the summer. There it probably benefits from a richer supply of
minerals than in the main mire. The same phenomenon appears
when streams carry fertilizer into flæðimýri tracts, in which case
it grows tall and dark green along the streams. The flæðimýri al-
ways has a small number of species, resembling flói in that respect,
although the number of species is largely dependent upon the
moisture content. The drier it is the richer it is in species. There
is often considerable moss, particularly in the drier areas. But it
also happens that the moss is mostly or completely absent, parti-
cularly in tracts which are submerged during the better part of
the year.
The flæðimýri has been of great practical value. It may be said
to grow like a self-sown field and there is no other uncultivated
vegetation tract which yields such a rich harvest and in this re-
spect it can hardly be said to fall behind cultivated land. Its fer-
tility is apparently unaffected in spite of annual harvesting for
centuries. And even when the grass yield failed all over the coun-
hy, the flæðimýri remained true to form as long as it was flooded
133