Text-book of structural and physiological botany / by Otto W. Thomé ... and Alfred W. Bennett.

  • Thomé, Otto W. (Otto Wilhelm), 1840-1925.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Text-book of structural and physiological botany / by Otto W. Thomé ... and Alfred W. Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    The Falkland Islands are densely covered with lofty grasses which have extended themselves over immense layers, of peat. The vegetation of the basaltic Kerguelen's Land, like that of the Falkland Islands, consists of a few Grasses inter- mixed with tufts of an UmbelHfer. There are no woody plants. The most interesting species is the ' Kerguelen's land cabbage,' a Crucifer, Prifiglea antisco7-butica [differing from most of the Cruciferse of Europe by being chiefly wind- fertilised]. In the extreme southern latitudes south winds laden with snow alternate with northerly currents of air saturated with aqueous vapour, and perpetual white fogs of unparal- leled density spread over the surface of the sea. These fogs are formed also on the islands which lie near this zone^ almost entirely depriving them of the rays of the sun. Both flora and fauna are extremely scanty. The remarkable difference between the climates of the two polar zones depends on the great excess of water in the extreme southern latitudes, on the consequent cloudy sky, and on the masses of icebergs which break loose in the summer, and, in melting, reduce the temperature of the better part of the year. But in these southern latitudes, where life is now so scanty, there was once a warmer prehistoric epoch ; for, like the extinct forests of Greenland, the evidence of well-preserved fossil stems proves that a luxuriant arborescent vegetation once inhabited Kerguelen's Land.