Náttúrufræðingurinn - 1988, Qupperneq 32

SUMMARY
Bog rosemary (Andromeda
polifolia L.) found in Iceland
by
Hjörleifur Guttormsson
Museum of Natural History
Mýrargata 37
IS-740 NESKAUPSTAÐUR
Iceland
The author describes the first record
of bog rosemary (Andromeda polifolia
L.) in Iceland. The species was found
by a local farmer in Brúnavík, Eastern
Iceland. The locality is near the coast
in a sphagnum-rich fen at the foot of a
landslide at an altitude of 100 m. There
the bog rosemary grows together with
several wetland species, the flora also
indicating thick snow cover in winter.
A short description is given of the
morphology of the plant based on
specimens collected from Brúnavík,
showing that we have here the subspe-
cies polifolia
Other rare phanerogams are known
from this same area in Iceland, such as
Listera ovata, Phyllodoce coerulea and
Oxalis acetosella.
With this finding of Andromeda po-
lifolia in Iceland a gap in the circum-
polar distribution of the species is
closed, bog rosemary being common in
Scandinavia and recorded earlier from
several sites in Greenland.
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