The never-setting midnight sun near the Lofoten Islands |
This summer my love of travel took me to the very north of Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle. In addition to the northernmost cape of Europe - the North Cape and the amazing Lofoten Islands, the land of the midnight sun gave me a meeting with a wonderful and very unusual city - Tromsø, which counts its settlements from the post-glacial period.
Ancient drawings at the Alta Rock Art Museum |
Ancient drawings at the Alta Rock Art Museum |
One of the wonders of this place is the northernmost on the planet Arctic high-altitude botanical garden (Tpomso Arktisk alpin Botanisk hage). Small in size, only 1.6 hectares, the garden is located on a mountainside near the arctic lake Tromso Saund and belongs to the northernmost University of Tromsø in the world, established in 1972. The garden was opened relatively recently, in 1994, from late May to early October it is available for tourists to visit around the clock and free of charge! In winter, ski slopes open nearby.
Cape North Cape |
North Cape Flowers |
It is worth mentioning here that for a long time the highest point on the map was held by our Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden-Institute of the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Kirovsk, created back in 1931 on the initiative of Academician A.E. Fersman and his fellow researchers Khibiny. But his record was broken in 1957, when a botanical garden was opened in the Icelandic city of Akureyri, on the territory of a popular public park. Surprisingly, the Icelanders still position it as the highest latitude, modestly not noticing Norwegian.
Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden of Tromsø in Norway |
Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden of Tromsø in Norway |
Despite the fact that the location of the garden in Tromsø matches the northern coast of Alaska, thanks to the Gulf Stream, which touches the northern coast of Norway, the climate in Tromsø is milder. The warm does not fall below -18 winter temperatures of C and snow cover sometimes easily takes mark of 2 m, the heat harboring landing.
Dryads in the snow at North Cape |
Deer on the North Cape |
From May 15 to July 27, the sun shines here continuously, without going beyond the horizon, which is favorable for the development of plants. Therefore, a huge number of plants have been collected on the territory of the garden - not only from the entire northern hemisphere of our planet, but also more thermophilic species from the southern mountain latitudes. The successful experiment of scientists from the University of Tromsø is striking in its results and shows how some plants are plastic, if they are able to survive in such unfavorable conditions. And yet the best grows here are the northern flora and plants of the planet's high mountains, which are cold-loving and sensitive to excessive heat, although in summer there are abnormal temperatures up to +30 o C.
The funds of the botanical garden number thousands of species represented in 25 botanical collections. The youngest of them is the peony exposition. And all this diversity is served by only three full-time employees!
The natural beauty of the natural landscape with beautiful rock, alpine slides and steep trails divides the botanical treasures geographically. The southern mountain slopes are occupied by taxa from warm continents, while the northern ones are occupied by native species and flora of an even colder island. Spitsbergen. Boreal species of birches have mastered the highest point. In the center of the garden there is a small natural style pond with two water cascades flowing into it.
Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden of Tromsø in Norway |
The garden greeted us with unique compositions of cheerful and delicate Scandinavian poppies, sleep-grass and peonies, extraordinary corydalis and kupavki. Eyes ran away from color and species diversity.
Holostem poppy (Papaver nudicaule) |
Haller's backache (Rulsatilla halleri) |
Swimsuit |
Swimsuit |
The hybrid diploid meconopsis "Lingholm" - a meter high, with decimeter flowers, absolutely shocked with its extraordinary rich blue color and flower shape. But other, related types of white, yellowish, purple colors are also slightly inferior in beauty. Bright flowers looked very picturesque against the background of boulders, the blue of the lake and the surrounding mountain peaks.
Meconopsis Lingholm |
Meconopsis Lingholm |
Meconopsis x cookei "Old Rose" |
Meconopsis cambric (Meconopsis cambrica) |
Meconopsis |
Meconopsis |
In the garden there are interesting collections of asters, cyanosis (Polemonium), small petals, or Erigeron (Erigeron), rare liana - codonopsis (Codonopsis), cultivars of onions, saxifraga (Saxifraga), gum from the family Carnation (Silene), Tellima (Tellima) and much, much more.
Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden of Tromsø in Norway |
Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden of Tromsø in Norway |
The collection of rhododendrons includes about 60 small, pressed to the ground, species and cultural forms from China, the Caucasus, the Alps, and, of course, a unique local species - the small-leaved rhododendron (Rhododendron lapponicum).
Rhododendron |
Rhododendron |
You can walk endlessly along the garden paths, discovering magnificent views of the entire garden and its individual sections with outlandish plants from
New Zealand (endemic representatives of the genus Aciphylla of the umbrella family),
- Siberia (Rosen's redhead (Scilla rosenii) and Siberian kandyk (Erythronium sibiricum)),
- African (yellow with a white eye Delosperma basuticum),
- South America (Calceolaria lanceolata) and Antarctic notofagus (Nothofagus antarctica), plants from the Brazilian mountains of Aguaz),
- North America (Lewisia rediviva of the Rocky Mountains).
- May: badan and primroses collection, bells.
- June: rhododendrons, primroses, arctic flowers, part of the saxifrage collection, first gentian.
- July: meconopsis, many perennials.
- August: tall perennials on the shore of the lake, giant Sikkim primrose (Primula sikkimensis), flora of northern Norway, African plants.
- September: a collection of gentian plants, traditional northern Norway plants and tall perennials.
Trillium grandiflorum |
Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden of Tromsø in Norway |
But perhaps the most impressive in this botanical garden is the rocky landscape in the Arctic section. This sector is intended exclusively for plants growing in the nature of the polar Arctic - among them northern cyanosis (Polemonium boreale), narrow-leaved arnica (Arnica angustifolia), napellus aconite (Aconitum napellus), aconitol buttercup (Ranunculus aconitifolius). In July, the lush carnation (Dianthus superbus) blooms from the east of the northernmost province, or the county of Norway - Finnmark. The cold-loving species from Svalbard are located on the northern slopes and are also part of collections that are cultivated and rescued as they are endangered in the wild. For example, the fragile buttercup flower Ranunculus wilanderi can be found only in one place in the whole world - on about. Spitsbergen, where, at last count,only 51 specimens of the plant have been registered.
Narcissus-flowered anemone (Anemone narcissiflora) |
Arnica angustifolia (Arnica angustifolia) |
In a typical year, plants bloom in approximately the following order:
April: first saxifrage.
Meconopsis integrifolia |
Hozblok with a green roof |
I was probably very lucky that this summer (2013) was not quite ordinary, because already at the beginning of June, beautiful rhododendrons and meconopsis, as well as a sea of lilacs and mountain ash throughout polar Norway, were in full bloom in the garden. True, eyewitnesses say that the most beautiful season in the garden is August, so now I really want to visit these beautiful places in a mature summer …
