The Botanic Garden of Reykjavic is an interesting and immense park where there are a lot of curious and wonderful bushes, trees, flowers and musks like Azorella Trifurcata.One of the biggest problem of icelandic flora is the importation of lupins.

 -BOTANIC GARDEN OF REYKJAVIK

The first day of this journey we went to visit the botanic garden of Reykjavik. It’s an interesting and immense park near our camping, in this garden there are a lot of curious and wonderful bushes, trees, flowers and musks like Azorella Trifurcata. Inmediatly they sparked of our interest, so we decided to take pictures and notes. We also chose icelandic plants as the subject of our article.

 -PLANTS WHEREVER

During the trip in this incredible island, we noted many and different plants wherever. We had a lot of fun taking information about these. We were stricken by the incredible ability of these plants : they can grow in very strange and inhospitable places ; we found musks and lichens in the crater of an extinct volcano. We found yellow and violet flowers on the top of a rocky mountain, one of the biggest near the Landmannalaugar camping. We also found vigourous bushes near the base of the biggest european glacier (Vatnajokull).

 -TYPICAL VEGETATION

We noted sommething interesting : in Iceland there are just a few of tall trees but the short vegetation it’s typical. We red up about this particular subject and we discovered the answer : when Iceland was colonized there were a lot of woods but they disappeared because of the herds of sheeps and boatyard. Currently the icelandic governament is applying for the reforestation and in the new national parks you can find flowers, trees and mushrooms, particulary Boletus.

 -CURIOSITIES ABOUT ICELANDIC FLORA

1) A big part of icelandic flora is not originary of the island, in fact they were imported from other countries during the second world war. In fact during the visit of the botanic garden we found a lot of foreing flowers : from Chile, UK, China, Caucasus …

2) Admirable the big variety of flowers and musks in this island which grow despite the cold weather. Unfortunately this unfavourable weather conditions prevent from growing tall and big trees.

 -LUPINS ALARM

One of the biggest problem of icelandic flora is the importation of lupins, it started about in 1885. Lupins are originary of Europe and America. They can be white, blue or violet, so they are beautiful but they are also invasive : actually there are lupins everywhere in Iceland. In fact they expand as much as they kill a lot of other autochthonous plants.

Jerome MATHEY,
date de publication : 7 mai 2012,
date de dernière mise à jour : 27 décembre 2011