The Botany of Iceland - 01.12.1914, Page 63

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
247
From hcre proceed broad, ramified channels containing blown sand,
which are continued and widened, and whicli constantljr encroach
on the remaining piece of grassland. The north-eastern part of this
district was formerlj7 covered with heather and coppice wood, which
the inhabitants, with incomprehensible lack of foresight, destroyed
and used for fuel. Skarðsfjall, which stands in the centre of Land-
sveit, has protected the areas situated in its shelter towards the
south-west. Some streams have also checked the advance of tlie
drifting sand and have thus acted as a protection. Most of the blown
sand which in various ways devastales the cultivated districts,
originates from the wastes of the plateau. There is indeed enough
and to spare of it, at least 3—4 tliousand square km. of the interior
being covered by blown sand of various thickness. On the plateau
the blown-sand tracts appear rarely or never to become “örfoka,”
therefore they are almost always quite bare of vegetation with the
exception of the scattered tufts of Iyme grass and a few small wil-
lows in more favourable localities. In the elevated districts, the
surface of which we have been describing, many plants cannot be
expected to thrive. As we shall have occasion to mention later on,
the highest part of the interior of Iceland, at a height of 650—1000
metres, is a waste extremely poor in plant-life.
The lowlands, as mentioned above, cover only a very small
area (Vis) of the entire surface of Iceland; and a considerable part
of this small area consists moreover ol' barren soil, of lava-streams,
of stonjr rocks and ridges poor in plant-life, and of glacial and
blown sand. Therefore the area which may properly be regarded
as densely covered witli plants, is very small compared with the
entire area of the country, and with the present method of cultiva-
tion it could scarcely maintain the rural population if the moun-
tains and parts of the plateau could not be utilized as pastures for
sheep during tlie summer. The extent of plant-distribution differs,
however, greatly in the diíferent parts of the lowlands. While some
of the districts are almost entirely or for the greater part covered
by a dense vegetation of grass, sedges, heather or coppice-wood, as
Ölfus, Flói, Skeið, Landeyjar, Mýrdalur, etc., great parts of other
inhabited districts have not even half of their area grass-covered.
Several inhabited areas in Skaftafellssysla, Mulasyslur and Thing-
eyjarsyslur contain very large tracts of rocky flats, poor in plant-
life, lava-streams, sandy wastes, etc.; and in some districts only a
very small fraction of the surface is of any use for the sheep- and