Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Some remarks upon the geographical distribution of vegetation in the colder Southern Hemisphere. By Carl Skottsberg. Botanist of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition 1901—1903. With 2 maps, tabl. 8 and 9.
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CARL SKOTTSBERG.
scheuchzerioides, Nothofagus, Oreomyrrhis, Phyllacne, Rostkovia,
»tussockgrass», etc. have identical or corresponding species on Fuegian
and New Zealand shores, but are more or less wanting on the North
Island and in Australia. Here I must call attention to the relation
between the floras of Kerguelen and Macquarie, sharply pointed out
by Cockayne (11, p. 317, 326), for this shows that all the widely
spread isles of the southern oceans round the polar continent are
related to each other. From a zoological point of view we find
the same opinion expressed by different authors, as Studer (48,
p. 168), who believes in the existence of a circumpolar antarctic (in
the old sense) fauna, and Vanhoffen (42).
In my above-mentioned paper (36) I tried to fix a north limit
for the »austral zone» and used the parallel of 40°, but certainly
this is not quite accurate either in South America or in New Zealand.
We will return later on to this question. But first I take the liberty
.of saying a few words in reply to Mr. P. Ohlson-SefFer, who seems
to me to have completely misunderstood my article (33). He accuses
me of having used the terms »antarctic» and »austral» for local
geographical areas, and has consequently inferred that the lands treated
by me represented everything included in these zones. But I have
never – and that might have been seen from the title of the paper
- claimed to describe other than the countries visited by myself,
and they all belong to the Atlantic area of the Southern ocean.
And further, at the close of my article I enumerated all the lands
that, in my opinion, were to be considered as austral or antarctic,
but this passage Seffer must have overlooked.
In the annotations made on board the »Antarctic» we often,
especially during the expedition to South Georgia, used the word
subantarctic. Of course the word is quite accurate to designate
these lands, because they lie nearer to the antarctic than any other
land, and are also perhaps closer related to them than any other
part of the world. But I myself was not quite content with the
term; »subantarctic» means »almost antarctic», and this I hold to
be not quite exact. The climate is not subantarctic, being distincly
insular in comparison with the antarctic, which must be considered
as continental, even if not especially strongly marked. And the
vegetation of, for instance, Fuegia or the Falklands is hardly »almost
antarctic»; South Georgia and certainly the South Sandwiches remind
one more of the true antarctic regions, and I once thought of calling
them a subantarctic transition between the austral and the antarctic
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