Notes on the Tundra of Russian Lapland

Abstract

HAVING been invited by Professor N. I. Vavilov, Director of the Bureau of Applied Botany and Plant Breeding in Leningrad, to visit the plant breeding stations of Russia, I availed myself of the opportunity in the summer of 1926. My observations on the vegetation in the far North were made incidentally during a short visit to the Plant Breeding Station at Khibiny, which is the most northerly plant breeding laboratory in the world. I left Leningrad, August 24th, 1926, and travelled north by train two days to Khibiny, past Lake Onega and the White Sea, into the Kola Peninsula, through a country of lakes, woods and swamps, which had been heavily glaciated, and was much like parts of northern Canada. Many plant species are the same as in Canada, and many of the common plants are rarities in the British flora, often found only in the Highlands of Scotland or in the north of England. Many of the species are circumpolar in high latitudes, and a large number bear the name of Linnaeus himself. The distance from Leningrad to Khibiny is nearly 1000 -miles. Dr Eichfeld, Director of the Plant Breeding Laboratory at Khibiny, came down to Leningrad to meet me and take me north. He was an Esthonian and spoke German fluently, so we had no language difficulty. He lives at the Khibiny Laboratory from April to November and spends the winter in Leningrad. The Laboratory is one of many in different parts of the vast Russian territory, controlled from the central Bureau in Leningrad. Fromthis Bureau varieties of agricultural plants are sent out for testing to all these stations, and many valuable comparative results are being accumulated. Their mention here is not out of place, because they have, particularly in this instance, an ecological as well as a genetical bearing; for the comparative effects of the great range of climates to be found within Russian territory upon a wide range of identical crop plants are being determined, and in the extreme conditions of the North these climatic effects are most marked. The site of the Laboratory seems to have been well chosen, since, while in the tundra, it is considerably sheltered by the surrounding mountains, being on the eastern side of Lake Ymandra. Nevertheless, the winds are exceedingly strong and penetrating, reminding one of a mid-Atlantic gale. Khibiny is north of the Arctic Circle, in lat. about 67? 44'. The station is chiefly devoted to the breeding of vegetables suitable for this northern climate. Many varieties of potatoes are being tested, also beets, sugar beets, radishes, and other