Vegetation

For pictures of flowers from our other travels click here.

As we approached Half Moon Beach we saw the first vegetation we had seen since we had left Tierra del Fuego 9 days before. 
It wasn't lush by any means but from the ship it looked like shrubs and bushes on the hillside.


When we got ashore we found that it was mostly lichen and moss covered rocks.
We were cautioned to stay on the bare rocks along the shore to avoid disturbing the natural plant life.


Close up you could see that there were quite a few different kinds of crustose lichens and at least one foliose.
 

This is probably cushion moss.


This lichen found a unique ecological niche on a whale vertebra.


There was a little grass with blades no more than an inch long.


A close look.


There was some algae growing on the rocks along the shore.


And a few bits of colorful seaweed washed up on the only sandy beach we saw during the entire trip.
And some on a rocky part of the shore.
 

Lichens from another landing spot.

This vegetation may not be very impressive to you, until you consider what these plants endure during the Antarctic winter..



Most of these pictures were taken by Nancy and Alan but I am indebted to others on the trip for sharing their pictures.
Our thanks to Marie-Jo, Dan, Ruth, Hal, Marilyn, Denny, Laura, Buffy, Stan and Sasha.

For pictures of flowers from our other travels click here.

The links below will take you to more pictures of our trip to Antarctica.

Chile, Argentina, Ice, Penguins and other wildlife, Research stations and other landings, Vegetation, The Fram.

Brian, another of our friends from the trip has a web page with some of his exceptional pictures from the trip.

See other places we have visited here.

Go to our Personal home page
Go to our Community page
Go to our Science Fun page

E-mail Nancy and Alan