We came back from a two week trip to Iceland and Greenland and as I am happily busy sifting through my ca 1000 photos of of pretty vistas, people, food and blooms, I hope you might enjoy a sampling of my Wildflower photos. Some of these are hopefully properly identified, on a few I am perhaps guessing the name.
Iceland is very green and very beautiful, it will be very difficult to pick the prettiest picture for posting. But let me start with two native Orchids:
First- Platanthera hyperborea
We toured Godafoss waterfall in the district of Mývatn near Akureyri in the North of Iceland. I was still busy taking pictures of the gorgeous waterfall when Klaus alerted me to a wonderful sight: he found a tiny Orchid on the windswept plain next to the waterfall, it looked short and quite stocky. I was thrilled and laid on the ground to take some pictures and then, as we walked along and our eyes became tuned to these little spikes, we encountered many many more plants in bloom.
We took a nice walk the next morning around the area of Skutustadir/Lake Mývatn and there the same Orchid was present in many places, a lot more numerous and also the spikes were taller. Happiness!
Let me start by showing some of the environments:
and now on to the Orchid, starting with Klaus' (aka Best Orchid-spotter
) find:
I also had found a different Orchid, the spikes are as tall as Platanthera hyperborea, but the blooms are smaller. I just learned that this is
Pseudorchis albida.
The lip on these smaller blooms is 3lobed, in contrast to Platanthera hyperborea having an entire lip.
Both Orchids were growing side by side in some locations around Skutustadir ( especially in the vegetation around the pseudo-craters) and near the bridge. I took these pictures of the smaller Orchid, thinking I had perhaps found a second native Orchid, and indeed - looking at my pictures, it is surely very different!!
more to follow....
