Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
The concept of a firm fixed point of a selfmap of a metric space is introduced. Loosely speaking a fixed point is firm if it cannot be moved to a point nearby with the help of a map which is arbitrarily close to the given map. It is shown that a continuum always admits a selfmap with a firm fixed point if the continuum contains a triod and if the vertex of the triod has a neighbourhood which is a dendrite. This condition holds in particular for local dendrites. Hence a local dendrite is an arc or a simple closed curve if and only if it does not admit a selfmap which has a firm fixed point.