The Botany of Iceland - 01.12.1930, Qupperneq 105

STUDIES ON THE VEGETATION OF ICELAND
95
Polygonum viviparum, Silene acaulis, Armeria marilima, Salix her-
hacea, Arabis petrœa, A. alpina, Saxifraga cernua and S. nivalis.
The third type of vegetation mentioned by Stefánsson is the
mýri vegetation. This is described as follows in pp. 201—203.
“On Grimstungnaheiði 'to the south-west of Vatnsdalur I met with
a rather widespread form of vegetation which somewhat resembled
the usual heather mo by its uneven, more or less knolty surface
and its greyish hue, but the soil is rather damp, at least in the early
summer, and here Grimmia hypnoides is entirely dominant, covering
large areas completely.” These moss moes “which must in the
main be regarded as transitional between the heather mo and the
extensive vegetation of the pools” are poor in llowering plants,
though Cassiope hgpnoides and Pedicularis flammea are of common
occurrence.
On the vegetation proper of the pools Stefánsson writes:
“even at a distance two variations of this vegetation may easily be
distinguished, the brownish Eriophorum pools characterised by Erio-
phorum angustifolium and the bluish-green Carex pools, where the
bluish or greyish-green C. ampullacea is the dominant plant. This
difference is so striking tliat the peasants have a special term for
each of these; the former, the Eriophorum pools, are called “Brok-
llá’ while the latter pools are called “Ljosastarar flá”. They also
differ somewdiat with regard to composition of species. In the
Eriophorum pools Carex pulla, C. alpina, C. vulgaris, and C. hyper-
borea are the most conspicuous, whereas, in the Carex pools, Carex
i’ariflora, C. vaginata, and C. vulgaris are very common, likewise
duncus biglumis. But as a w'hole this vegetation of the highland
pools is extremely poor in species, and of dicotyledons I only ob-
served very few” e. g. Cardamine pratensis and Stellaria crassifolia.
“Below', on Vatnsdalshals the vegetation of the pools is somewhat
richer and more like that of the pools at the bottom of the valley,
though not nearly so luxuriant. Jt consists in the main of the
common sedges, e. g. Carex vulgaris, C. chordorrhiza, C. rariflora and
C. rigida, Eriophorum pohjstachyum, and Scirpus cœspitosus.”
These are the three types of vegetation, mo, melar, and mýri,
occurring in the highland tracts around Vatnsdalur. However, from
the descriptions we must assume that, in addition to these three,
there occurs a fourth type viz. the geiri or snow patch vegeta-
Hon. Thus Stefánsson, when dealing with the vegetation on Viði-
dalsfjall, on p. 196, writes as follow's: “Some of Ihe little grooves