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