Palanderbukta, Nordaustlandet, Svalbard
If you have been aboard the Sea Lion or Sea Bird in Alaska you have seen towering Sitka spruce, Western Hemlock, and Western Red-cedars rising 200 plus feet above your head. In Central America aboard the Sea Voyager you marveled at giant flowering Ceiba or Kapok trees. In the Galapagos: the Opuntias trees grazed by giant land tortoises, and mangroves with their roots in salt water, their branches adorned with red-footed boobies and frigatebirds. Here in Arctic Svalbard the plants are of a different scale. Above is a Polar willow lying prostrate on the tundra surface. It is, in fact, a shrub with woody stems, but it rises but a few centimeters above the ground. This individual is a female plant covered with red capsules containing the developing seeds. Soon the capsules will burst and the seeds, each attached to a cottony filament, will waft with the wind. A few will find a suitable site for germination and a new generation of Polar willows will result. Below, an almost unbelievably tiny Arctic whitlow grass, a member of the mustard family, pokes up between the beach stones. Not just a seedling, it is covered with miniscule yellow flowers, struggling to pass on its genes in the severe Arctic environment. This tiny plant is actually a long-lived perennial, surviving many harsh Arctic winters, growing and flowering in the continuous daylight of the brief Arctic summers.
