Morning journal and courier., 1888-02-09
FLOWERS OF THE SNOW.
What Schwatka Found Blooming 1
 fho Arctic RegiOna.

What Schwatka Found Blooming in
 tho Arctic Regions.
 Lieutenant Schwatka writes in Woman of Arctic vegetation. Among other things he remarks that an English botanist estimates that the tropics have from 40, 900 to 50,000 species of plants, the north temperate zone about 10000 species, and the Arctic gives about or less than 1000, with some 1000 among the Alpine fors, or about 2, GOO spec iss enjoying @ an Arctic climate. Small as this cold weather class is, it amounts to more than most people give it credit for having, the popular opinion being that the polar re- gions and snew-clad mountain tops are prac- tically devoid of vegetation. It is singular, too, that while there are 762 kinds of flowers in the Arctic regions, within the Antarctic Circle Towering plant has never yet been found. Everything is against plant life at that end of the earth's axlstree The weath- CT is more severe throughout the year, and there are few tracts of land of great extent on which plant life can flourish; and we have already seen that it is well inland on large land areas where such life hourishss the best in the Arctic, where it can absorb some of the little heat that is coming dewn, with out being chilled to death by contiguous ice fields.
 But or these f0S k1nQS or 1OWSTlD& in the Arctic, only some 50 of them, as far as we know, or about one fifteenth, are who'll ly residents of that zone. Thus it is seen that a nival or Alpine flora, as compared with that of the Arctic, is a much more distinctive one or has more species wholly it's own in propor ton to the total number found. The polar flowers seldom have any perfume and the few feeble, are, think, from that class that have crept over the cold border marked by the Arctic Circle; or, in short, none of the fifty mentioned-Esquimeau flowers we might call them in popular way-have any appreciable odor.
 The colors of these boreal blossoms are generally of the cold tints, as if in har- mony with the chilly surroundings, instead of the warm hues that would break in up- on the desolation with double effect by sheer contrast where so few cheering sights are to be seen. White and light yellow pre- doninate, and these colors seem associated with frcsts and cold weather, for it appears that those flowers we call everlasting :" and which are the longest to defy the nip pings of the coming winter weather, are mostly tinted like the northern snows and yellow northern lights. It is in the depths largest expressions of plant life in the polar zone. Here, within 8 short distance of shore, are colossal kelps and other life that grow throughout the year; of course, vegetating the most in the short summer months.
 Land plants, as already said, are pigmies compared with those of the sea, or even the corresponding class in lower attitudes, and this dwarfed condition, 8 naturalist tells us, is not due so much to the intense cold in the Arctic winter, as to the fact they do not get enough warmth in summer to develop them perfectly. Dr. Joseph Hooper mentions it as rare property of one of the grarninee (the ! grasses), Trisetum Subspieatum, that 1t is ly an inhabitant of the Arctic and Antarctic region.
 Nearly all of the plants of these cold coun- tries are of the biennial or perennial sorts, as
 the season is too short to give annuals the l whole length of time they demand for the maturing of their fruit to insure the next seasons growth. These perennia!s act like our hardy spring flora, by rapidly pushing