Monthly Archives: July 2016

Thick

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Plants in the Crassulaceae, or stonecrop family, are characterized in part by succulent leaves (crassus means “thick” in Latin).  About 1,400 species can be found throughout the northern hemisphere and in southern Africa. In Iceland there are five species (possibly a few more). I found three.

 

Rhodiola rosea
roseroot stonecrop
Icelandic: burnirót
seen at Dynjandi

 

This is a real showstopper of a plant, growing up to a foot tall, with thick, pale leaves contrasting a tight cluster of bright yellow flowers. Although widespread in Iceland, it cannot withstand grazing by sheep, so it’s found only in areas sheep can’t reach. I only saw one specimen, growing at the base of a waterfall.

Roseroot stonecrop is native to North America, from Hudson Bay east into Greenland, as well as Fennoscandia and Russia. In the US it can be found in a few New England counties and in the mountains of North Carolina. There are about 50 species of Rhodiola worldwide; three can be found n the US, but none in Maryland.

 

Sedum villosum
hairy stonecrop, purple stonecrop
Icelandic: flagahnoðri
seen at Mt. Esja and Sólheimajökull

 

This species is native to Iceland, where it’s widely distributed, as well as Greenland, Canada, and Fennoscandia. It’s easily distinguished from the other Icelandic Sedum species by the pink flowers (the other species have yellow flowers). This picture doesn’t give a good sense of scale, but this is a belly flower. Those rocks next to the plant are thumbnail-size.

 

Sedum annuum
annual stonecrop
Icelandic: skriðuhnoðri
seen at Ísafjorður and Sólheimajökull

This species is not seen in the US or Canada, but is found in Greenland, Jan Mayen, and Fennoscandia. In Iceland it grows in the warmer areas in the south and east of the country, as well as some parts of the Westfjords, the Snæfellsnes peninsula, and the general area around Akureyri. Seen here, on black volcanic rubble at the snout end of a glacier, it’s quite striking.

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Neither of these Sedum species is found in Maryland; for similar plants you can look to Allegheny stonecrop and wild stonecrop. The latter is one of my all time favorites, so I’ll re-post a picture:

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I don’t find them crass at all.

Icelandic or Arctic?

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Papaver radicatum
arctic poppy, rooted poppy
Icelandic: melasól
Papaveraceae

If you’re a gardener or flower enthusiast of any sort, you’re probably familiar with Icelandic poppies, popular in the florist trade. These are not Icelandic poppies. They’re arctic poppies.

Because the two common names seem to be tossed around with abandon, I’m going to stick with the Latin here. P. radicatum has four subspecies (according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System), which may explain why I found conflicting data from various sources. Some claim the species is endemic to Iceland. Others claim it’s endemic to Norway and Sweden. And still others say its native range includes Iceland, Jan Mayen, and North America (Greenland, Canada and the US). Probably what’s going on here is each of the subspecies is endemic or native to a particular area.

I can’t say which subspecies this is, but for sure it’s P. radicatum: the hairy leaves and stem are the signs. This species is found in the western and eastern regions of Iceland, with a few scattered occurrences elsewhere. I saw it in the Westfjords near the waterfall Dynjandi, and in the Snæfellsnes penninsula. In the US it can be found in a few counties in the Rocky Mountain states (and in Alaska).

As for the so-called Icelandic poppy of the florist trade, that’s P. nudicaule (or P. croceum in some older sources). It’s hairless – nudicaule means “naked stem”. This species is not native to Iceland, but rather to North America. Sources disagree on its range, though. BONAP shows it as a native in part of eastern Canada only, while USDA shows it as a native in Alaska, Utah, Colorado, and Virginia, and introduced in parts of western Canada.

We did see Icelandic poppies in Iceland:

 

They grow there in gardens.

 

 

 

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still life with poppy

Spikes and Spheres

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Small flowers in small inflorescences on two small plants, both very common in Iceland.

 

Bistorta vivipara
aka Persicaria bistorta
aka Polygonum viviparum
alpine bistort
Icelandic: kornsúra
Polygonaceae

 

Arctic bistort is found in subarctic regions around the northern hemisphere; in the US, there are a few scattered occurrences in northern New England and the upper Midwest, as well as in the Rocky Mountains south to New Mexico. In Iceland it grows in a variety of habitats at elevations from sea level to over 3,000 feet.

Considering how many different binomial names this plant has, it may be a stretch to say that there are relatives in Maryland, but jumpseed (Persicaria virginiana, which should be blooming about now), is very common here, and another dozen plus species of Persicaria can be found here.

There isn’t much interesting about this plant except that it mostly reproduces vegetatively (instead of sexually) by means of bulbils. If you zoom in on the picture you can see bulbils at the bottom end of the inflorescence. The bulbils will drop off and form new plants that are clones of the parent. The specific epithet vivipara refers to this floral analog of giving birth to live young.

 

Tofieldia pusilla
Scottish asphodel,
Scotch false asphodel
Icelandic: sýkigras
Tofieldiaceae

 

Despite the descriptor “Scottish” in the common name, this plant is native to subarctic zones around the globe. In the US it’s limited to four counties, in Montana, Minnesota, and Michigan. It’s not quite as widespread in Iceland as the bistort is, but is still pretty common. Only one member of the family Tofieldia is known to have grown in Maryland, but sadly it’s been extirpated.

By the way the leaves are not visible in this picture, which is a shame, but this was one of several plants I saw by mistake while photographing something else. If I’d realized what I’d seen… oh well.

Beautiful Little Things

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These three plants have nothing in common other than I found them to be delightful.

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Veronica fruticans
rock speedwell
Icelandic: steindepla
Plantaginaceae

Despite being common and distributed through much of Iceland, I only saw these two flowers, on a mountainside south of Akureyri. The species is also found in Greenland and Fennoscandia. The flower is small (about half an inch across), but the blue is so intense that it really stands out.

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Thymus praecox ssp. arcticus
creeping thyme
Icelandic: blóðberg
Lamiaceae

This ground-hugging plant was almost everywhere, as delightful to smell as it is to see. It’s another Fennoscandia native, but its introduced ranged includes Greenland, much of Canada, various parts of the US as far south as Mississippi, and even Venezuela.

belly flower!
–>

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Pinguicula vulgaris
common butterwort
Icelandic: lyfjagras
Lentibulariaceae

Another very common plant, growing almost everywhere in Iceland, and indeed almost everywhere in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere. In the US it’s found in the upper Great Lakes areas and New England. Butterworts are insectivorous: sticky hairs on the leaves trap insects, which are then digested by enzymes the leaves excrete. There’s more information at Luonto Portti (Nature Gate) website, a resource I’ve been using quite a bit, since so many Icelandic plants are also found in Finland. None of the 80 or so Pinguicula species are found in Maryland, but there are a dozen of their close relatives, Utricularia, aka bladderworts, here.