The Arctic desert is a place with a harsh climate in which only the most enduring representatives of flora and fauna can survive. In snow and ice, you have to adapt to extreme conditions. Therefore, plants of Arctic deserts differ markedly from most others. They have a special appearance and increased adaptability.
What are they arctic plants?
As a rule, in the conditions of the polar desert mosses, lichens and grasses survive. Sometimes in the snow and ice there are real oases with flowers. Nevertheless, there are not too many species — a little over sixty, and they are distributed in about half of the Arctic. The rest of the territory is lifeless soil with fragments of stones on which only lichens grow. In areas with very poor soil, cereals, sedge and moss grow. Special mention deserves microscopic algae, living on eternal ice and every spring painting their surface in pale green. In the warmest and most sheltered from the wind places even roses bloom - of course, of a special, arctic appearance, known as icy novosversiya. And in the far north, you can find flowers of the polar poppy.
Features of flora in the Arctic
Plants of the Arctic deserts are characterized by intense photosynthesis at low temperatures - in frosts of up to five degrees, they fix half of the possible amount of carbon dioxide and continue to do this even with more severe cooling.
The most successful in this are salmon cladonia and Alpine stereocaulon, which cope with temperatures below twenty degrees Celsius. So lichens survive even in the most severe zones of the tundra. Another unique feature is the cushion-like, creeping structure, thanks to which the plants are pressed to the soil. On land, air temperature is higher than at a height of several meters, so it is much easier to survive there. Dead leaves and shoots remain in the bush, which trap snow, protecting live parts from ice crystals carried by the wind. In addition, many plants of the Arctic deserts of Russia and other regions are distinguished by a purple color, which contributes to the preservation of heat - inside the stems the temperature can be ten degrees higher than outside.
Unusual crowberry bush
Many tundra plants belong to shrubbery. But shiksha, also called crowberry, is special - its branches remind of coniferous trees and are covered with small foliage resembling needles.
But still this flowering plant and in fact its leaves are not at all needles. It's just that they are narrow, not closed tubes with stomata - such a structure minimizes evaporation from the sheet. With its long shoots, the crowberry spreads far on the ground, retaining its appearance throughout the year, with frosts only changing color to violet-black. As soon as the snow melts in the spring, the shiksha bush blooms with small flowers, and by the end of summer large black berries with a bluish bloom and red juice appear in their place. They are edible, but completely inexpressive in taste, which is why the locals call the plant “ovodnika”. In the Far North, berries are mixed with seal fat and stockfish in a dish called pusher.
Tundra blueberries
Even those who know everything about the Arctic deserts are sometimes surprised that blueberries grow there. This is true - bushes with bluish leaves can easily be found in the tundra. The shape and size of the leaves resemble lingonberries, but, unlike it, in blueberries the leaves fall in autumn. In spring, it blooms with white or pinkish flowers no larger than a pea in shape resembling jugs. The fruits resemble large blueberries, but the flesh has a greenish color.
The berries are sweet, they contain more than six percent sugar, so the locals use blueberries in jelly, pies and for jam. By the end of summer, some sections of the tundra turn blue from berries, so many of them can grow.
Partridge grass
Listing plants of the Arctic deserts, it is worth mentioning the dryad, or partridge grass. This is a branchy plant with a strong stalk that seems shaggy, and its leaves resemble oak foliage, only no more than a match long. They are dense and dark green, and remain throughout the winter, which is not always typical of a plant in the Arctic deserts. A discussion of the dryad would not be complete without a story about its flowers - they are large and white, with long pedicels and wide-open petals. Everyone who sees partridge grass for the first time is surprised by the difference in the size of the plant itself and its colors. By the way, the dryad owes its second name to the fact that its leaves are readily eaten by partridges, especially in winter, when it is often impossible to find other fresh herbs in the tundra. Especially a lot of partridge grass in the north of the tundra. Often it is used as an ornamental plant and planted on alpine hills.
