The Nival Flora of Switzerland

Abstract

IN the spring of 1883 (the last year of his life), the eminent Swiss naturalist, Prof. Oswald Heer, having finished his “Flora fossilis Arctica,” resumed a work with which he had been long occupied before—viz. the preparation of a Nival Flora of Switzerland, in which he proposed to give an account of all the plants found above 8000 feet in that country, and a comparison of these with the Nival flora of other countries. This work, based on very abundant material, was nearly completed before the author's lamented death;—he anticipated being able to finish it in about eight days more had health allowed. The work has now been published in full (as he left it) in the Nouveaux Mémoires de la Société Helvétique des Sciences Naturelles (vol. xxix. part i) The summary of results of this research, which were communicated at a gathering of Swiss naturalists in Zurich, we will here reproduce.