An intensive life unfolds itself by day, but differing greatly from that of the spring. The country lies baking under the sun, and a fine, warm air swells up from the heated plants. Big tussocks of yellow lichens or green-brown moss spread like a continuous, deep and soft carpet over the gentle undulations of the moraine hills, down in the valleys, practically everywhere. Here and there it is interwoven with dwarf birch (Betula nana), crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), marsh whortleberry (Vaccinium uliginosum), cloudberry (Rubus chamæmorus), and bear-berry (Arctostaphylos alpina) etc. Cassiope tetragona lifts its small, white bells in thousands, and often Ledum is also in bloom, while Rhododendron lapponicum has great red-violet clusters. Some places are entirely covered with flowering Dryas integrifolia which spread out their white wheels with the golden stamens in the sun. Louse-worts (Pedicularis lanata, P. lapponica) raise their straight, violet and yellow inflorescences over the low moss. There is also the yellow, arctic poppy (Papaver nudicaule), and a little later broad-leafed rose-bay (Chamænerium latifolium) begins. Up on the hill tops, where it is dry and windy, one plant after the other disappears. Empetrum and Ledum last longest with moss and reindeer moss; at some places, however, even these hardy plants cannot live, and there is only the naked gravel or sand, at the most with a thin growth of black, leaf-shaped lichens.
In the moist depressions the formation changes. Sometimes mosses have the upper hand, at others it is dwarf birch and, in particular, various willows with large, shaggy catkins and leaves that are still tiny and protected by long, silky hair. Among the willows there is grass in some places, and round about lakes and ponds the grass often forms small meadows with cotton-grass, rush and sedge. In the middle of July most of the grass is still withered, but there are fresh green shoots everywhere among the old blades. Large, flat stretches of meadow, which early in summer are almost flooded, are to be found at the outlet of Kazan River from Hikoligjuaq. Where the soil is very sandy there are other plants. The sand is spotted with small, round and green cushions on which the tiny, pale-lilac flowers of Silene acaulis describe patterns, and there are milk-vetch, thrift and masses of yellow cinque-foil. At the beginning of August a new batch. of plants appears, characterised for instance by various kinds of Compositæ, whereas many others, such as Ledum and Dryas, are now dying off. The Eskimos' employment of vegetable foodstuffs is not great. Apart from the root of a plant with whitish flowers, which I unfortunately did not have an opportunity of identifying (Pedicularis lapponica?), they only eat various berries. No plants are used for medicinal purposes.
