On our walks and hikes around Hesteyrarfjörður and its surrounding environs, I came across a lot of diverse plants and flowers. Although there aren't many tall trees in Iceland, there are a lot of low-lying shrubs and plants. I was impressed by their ability to survive in such harsh conditions, and figure that most of them must have a hibernation period (as either adult plants or as seeds) during the winter months, with a very quick growing and reproduction cycles during the warmer spring and summer
I tried to name the plants in my images by consulting a couple of specialist websites which list Icelandic flora, but came up short on about half of them. It's most likely that I took images of the plants at different stages in their cycles when compared to the images on the other websites, or that I was simply crap at identifying them - a bit of both, I think!
In the end I decided not to label any of them and just post the pics of the pretty flowers and plants for you to enjoy.
So go ahead - enjoy!
Click on images to enlarge
These ferns looked similar to ones found in New Zealand
This plant was like a vine with very woody trunks
Little scenes of rock and plants were everywhere
Yellow was a popular colour
Some looked alien
Pale mauve was pretty - these were tiny flowers
This vivid green ground cover was beautiful
Blue-black flowers were not common
Plants clung to rock faces 
Cracks in rocks provided popular places to grow
Not magic - and I have no idea what the black berries are
This plant looked like a succulent of some kind
Soft prickles
This flower popped out in the middle of another plant
This stuff was really soft and cushiony
White cottony type flowers grew wherever there was water
Tiny streams had micro-ecosystems around them
Some plants even grew underwater
These were hard and spiky
It was difficult to walk 10 paces without seeing another photo op
Blueberries grew everywhere over the hills at lower altitudes
These were so tiny that we stepped on some before we saw them
The pathways were not exempt from flora
Big flowers from small plants
Green ferns contrasted with the rock colours
These flowers were so delicate and the plant had red stems and leaves
5 comments:
Amazing shots!
Thanks Mory!
Hello Icelandic photo-takers! I was browsing for some plant biologist eye-candy and really enjoyed your photos. The "alien" plant is a kind of sphagnum moss, while the white cottony flowers are cotton grass of some kind (Eriophorum sp. ). The weird black berries are Empetrum nigrum, crowberry, a very widespread species and the flowering vine with woody stems is actually a really, really, really small dwarf willow tree! If you are interested in identifying the rest I can reccomend Fjällflora, by Mossberg and Stenberg-- in Swedish, but a comprehensive and incredibly beautifully illustrated guide to the plants of Iceland, Svlabard, and Fennoscandia.
terveisin,
Raakel
raakel: welcome to our blog and thank you so much for your plant identification and your book recommendation.
When I was trying to identify the plants back when I wrote this post, I could find some descriptions and names, but not all of them, so I gave up!
That book would have come in very handy!
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