Årdalsnuten (Årdal’s Nose), Edgeøya, Svalbard
One can not come to Svalbard without being impressed by its grandeur: the tall, sharp mountains that give the island of Spitsbergen its name; the ice cliff of Nordaustlandet, 80 feet high and extending unbroken by land for 80 miles; the mighty white bear, as big as the largest Kodiaks; huge walrus hauled out on the ice and on the beach. Today we explore grandeur at another scale—the miniscule tundra flowers. Put away your telephoto, put on the macro lens. Our afternoon outing was on Edgeøya, the third largest island of the Svalbard Archipelago. We landed on a beach strewn with driftwood, carried into the Arctic basin by the north-flowing rivers of Siberia. We headed up a moss-covered slope, some on the faster power-walk, others exploring at a more leisurely pace. Our eyes were caught by bright purple patches of moss campion, yellow bog saxifrage, and the white heads of cotton grass waving in a gentle breeze. But when we let our eyes pass through these relatively large and showy plants, into the very moss itself, a whole new world in miniature emerged. We found yet another of the many Saxifrage species—the tiny Polar saxifrage, the entire plant no bigger than a fingernail. Like almost the entire Arctic flora, this is a perennial plant, living who-knows-how-many years, each year putting out its single flower then surviving yet another Arctic winter to do it all again. Could there possibly be anything even smaller? The answer is in the lower picture – each red dot, capped by a tiny white flower, is an individual plant of Koenigia islandica, the only annual plant in the Arctic flora. Take the smallest plant that you can possibly imagine and reduce it by half. For how many years have I walked over the tundra (many!), stepping over forests of this remarkable but nearly invisible plant, unaware of its presence beneath my feet? Thank you to the guest who asked the question that finally forced me to lie face-down on the tundra with my magnifying lens and look!
