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animal. Judging from Norman’s investigations, it is therefore
probably the reindeer that disseminates it.
The above-mentioned arctic plants do not occur everywhere
on the mountains in the same abundance. Most of the mountain
wastes have a very poor and uniform flora. The greatest wealth
of species is found in the most continental part of the country,
where the climate is comparatively dry, and the summer warm.
According to the results of A. Blytt’s investigations, the
geological sub-stratum has a great deal to do with the welfare of
these species. The mountains where the arctic flora is developed
in greatest abundance, consist of loose, easily disintegrated
mica-schist. The harder kinds of rock, on the other hand (granite,
gneiss, quartzite), have a very poor flora. Dovre is especially famous
for its rich arctic flora; at Kongsvold, in particular, every
summer, even foreign botanists come to stay, as the locality affords
easy opportunity for the study of the arctic plants in their typical
development. Among the rare forms found may be named
Artemisia norvegica and Campanula uniflora.
While south-eastern Norway consists of great undulating
mountain wastes intersected by fairly wide, fruitful valleys, the
western part is a rugged fjord-region, where the mountains rise
in wild peaks, and where the sides of the deep fjords are only
precipitous slopes with very little soil, the valley-bottom being
occupied by the fjords themselves. At the mouth of the fjords,
and on the great belt of islands, the mountains are not so high,
but are even barer; the climate, owing to the influence of the
Gulf Stream, is quite insular, and the flora has therefore an
altogether different character to that of the east country.
At the upper end of the fjords, the influence of the sea is
scarcely perceptible. Here we find for the most part the same
species as in the east country. On warm slopes grow the same
boreal deciduous trees that characterise the lower-lying regions
of the east country, and with them several other typical east
country plants (e. g. Aconitum septentrionale, Struthopteris germanica).
In one respect, however, even the innermost fjord districts
differ essentially from the east country, namely, in the almost total
absence of the spruce as a forest tree all over the west country.
Single specimens are found here and there, and it grows well when
planted; but palæontological investigations have shown that it is
only in recent times that it has migrated into the country from
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