Lachesis Lapponica Part 17

6. Next come the snowy alps, where are patches of snow that never melt.

The bare places between still produce a few dark shrubby plants, such as _Empetrum nigrum_, but dest.i.tute of berries, _Andromeda tetragona_ and _hypnoides_, as well as _Diapensia lapponica_. Green precipices exposed to the sun are decorated with the vivid azure tints of _Gentiana tenella_ and _nivalis_, and _Campanula uniflora_, accompanied by the yellow _Draba alpina_. Colder and marshy situations, where there is no reflected heat, produce _Pedicularis hirsuta_ and _flammea_, with _Dryas octopetala_. This zone extends to 200 feet below the limits of perpetual and almost uninterrupted snow.

7. Beyond it perpetual snow begins to cover the greatest part of the ground, and we soon arrive at a point where only a few dark spots are here and there to be seen. This takes place on the Alps of Quickjock at the elevation of 4100 feet above the sea; but nearer the highest ridge, and particularly on the Norway side of that ridge, at 3100 feet. Some few plants, with succulent leaves, are thinly scattered over the spongy brown surface of the ground, where the reflected heat is strongest, quite up to the line of uninterrupted snow. These are _Saxifraga stellaris_, _rivularis_ and _oppositifolia_, _Ranunculus nivalis_ and _glacialis_, _Rumex digynus_, _Juncus curvatus_[18] and _Silene acaulis_. The mean temperature at the boundary of perpetual snow is +0,4 of Celsius, (32-3/4 of Fahrenheit).

8. Above the line of perpetual snow, the cold is occasionally so much diminished, that a few plants of _Ranunculus glacialis_, and other similar ones, may now and then be found, in the clefts of some dark rock rising through the snow. This happens even to the height of 500 feet above that line. Further up the snow is very rarely moistened. Yet some umbilicated Lichens (_Gyrophorae_), &c., still occur in the crevices of perpendicular rocks, even to the height of 2000 feet above the line of perpetual snow. These are the utmost limits of all vegetation, where the mean temperature seems to be +1,1 of Celsius (30 of Fahrenheit). The Snow Bunting, _Emberiza nivalis_, is the only living being that visits this elevated spot.