Summary
Included here is the northern treeless regions of Europe, Siberia and North America, and all of the islands north of the Arctic Circle including Greenland and Iceland. In the Bering Sea its southern boundary includes the Aleutian Islands and Kodiak Island
Of the endemic and near endemic plants so far recorded for this zone there are 301 species in 98 genera and 35 families. There are 4 endemic genera (marked red) but no endemic families. However, Melanthiaceae, a family of flowering perennial herbs, is confined to the Northern Hemisphere.
References
Hooker, J. D. 1862. Outlines of the distribution of Arctic plants. Transactions of the Linnaean Society, London, 23:251-348.
Polunin, N. 1959. Circumpolar Arctic Flora. Oxford at the Clarenden Press.
Savile, D. B. O. 1959. The botany of Somerset Island, district of Franklin. Canadian Journal of Botany, 37: 959-1002.
Savile, D. B. O. 1964. General ecology and vascular plants of the Hazen Camp area. Arctic, 17: 237-256.
Talbot, S. S. et al. 1999. Atlas of the rare endemic vascular plants of the Arctic. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) Technical Report No. 3.