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70
I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
The kinds of cereals that occur in Sweden are rye, wheat, oats, and barley.
Wheat belongs chiefly to the central and southern parts of the country; rye is
cultivated with good results as far up as Norrbotten, but in Norrland has to
yield to barley, which is the most important grain-crop there. Oats also occur
in the province of Norrbotten; but in those parts of Norrland that are
climatically less favourable they are cultivated only as a green-fodder plant. The
cultivation of the potato extends over the whole country, up to its most
northerly parts. As fodder-plants timothy and clover are cultivated on permanent
pasture-land; but in large parts of Norrland these are replaced by hardy pasture
meadows with a highly variegated composition, where a number of plants with
beautiful flowers but of little value as fodder are often found in great
luxuriance. Through cultivation the flora of Sweden has been enriched by a large
number of so-called weeds, which often derive from the Mediterranean lands or
Western Asia, such as the corn-flower, various kinds of poppy etc. Not a few
of the weeds, however, come from the original vegetation, where their home is
on the shores, rocks, and open places in the forests which have been cleared
or burnt etc.
A peculiar position in Sweden is taken by the dwarf-shrub heaths. These
are in Sweden a kind of cultivated formation determined by climate. They
have come into existence through the attacks of man on the forests
with axe and fire, and they are preserved by grazing and heather-burning
against the re-growth of the forests. This type of vegetation belongs
to South-West Sweden, whose comparatively moist climate, with plentiful
precipitation, favours its development when the forest disappears. For
if the vegetation developes itself undisturbed, both coniferous and
deciduous trees push into the dwarf-shrub heaths; and the latter would soon
disappear if the young trees were not destroyed by fire, which is often
kindled in order to obtain grazing ground.
In the dwarf-shrub heaths the ordinary ling (Calluna vulgaris) covers the
ground with a close and even carpet, gray-green in spring and summer,
violet-red in låte summer and autumn. In addition to this there occur blueberries,
whortleberries, bellheather (Erica tetralix), crowberries (Empetrum nigrum), and
bearberries (Arctostaphylos uva ursi) and scanty grasses and herbs. The area
of the dwarf-shrub heaths is calculated at 180 000 hectares; they are annually
diminished by extensive afforestation.
The edaphic plant-formations in Sweden occur on such ground or in
such spots where tree-vegetation is rendered impossible by excessive
moisture or water — such as peat-lands, lakes, shores etc. — or where
the soil is so shallow that trees cannot get a sufficient roothold, as on
cliffs etc.
The Swedish lake-vegetation is not marked by many species, but is
often luxuriant. The shores are bordered by a tall-grass belt of common
reed (Pliragmites communis), the common bulrush (Scirpus lacustris),
the marsh horsetail (Equisetum limosum), high-growing species of
sedges (Carices), cat’s tail (species of Typha), and others. Further out
in the water we come to yellow and white water-lilies, species of
pond-weed (Potamogeton), species of Batrachium and Myriophyllum etc.
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