Book Review

The author has an impressive experience of several decennia in botanical investigation in the Nearctic. In this publication he gives a survey of the present knowledge of the relationship of plants in the Arctic to their physical environment, notably in terms of late Pleistocene history, viz. of their geographical distribution and the effective means of dispersal and survival on which phytogeographic patterns depend. The literature on this subject of the past four years has not been fully incorporated, but, as the author emphasizes, this loss is perhaps not very serious, for the study was originally planned as an expression of his personal ideas and observations, rather than as an encyclopedic review of the world literature on plant life in cold climates. The great merits of the publication are in particular the very clear, systematic, and didactically exemplary arrangement and treatment of the various aspects of the subject, especially if the inequality of the present knowledge of these aspects is considered.