Flóra: tímarit um íslenzka grasafræði - 01.06.1968, Page 47

PIETER OESTERVELD:
A BOTANICAL SUMMER IN ICELAND
In April when I arrived; in the South all was brown and dead, in the
North all was covered with snow. Only the mosses were green and
these I collected, together with lichens, on my way from Reykjavik to
Akureyri. In the beginning of
May it was still -h 6° C. in the
North and I realized I was in
Iceland indeed. The time was
spent identifying and study-
ing Icelandic cryptogams at
the Museurn of Natural Hi-
story in Akureyri.
Not until June did I start
the real work, a phytoecologi-
cal study of heath vegetation.
There was yet a lot of snow
in several places and I noticed
that in the ,moa’heath the de-
pressions were full of snow
while the hummocks werebar-
ren, thus forming two extre-
mely different milieus close to
eacli other. In the heath north
of Laxamyri (S. Þ.) it was stri-
king to see the north/south
effect; looking north a heath
green with'Arctostaphylos uva-
ursi, looking south a black Author in his study.
and white pattern of mud and
an epiphytical lichen in a heath broken up by tvind, rain and frost. In
sheltered valleys the hummocks are undamaged. (fig. 1)
This breaking of the heath is very puzzling and I woncler whether
TÍMARIT UM ÍSLENZKA GRASAFRÆÐI - FlÓra 45