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62
I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
Photo. Gunnar Andersson.
Alpine Heath.
by more or less considerable glens. Its total area is calculated to amount
to about 6 million hectares. Its lower limit is 500 meters above sea-level
in northern Lappland, about 950 meters in northern Dalarne.
The Alpine heath is the most distinctive plant-formation of the Swedish Alps.
It is a dry, scanty, and monotonous vegetation, which covers vast areas of the
Alpine plateaus which are so characteristic of Sweden. The Alpine heath is
distinguished in the first place by dwarf-shrubs. They often have fast leaves
that last through the winter, and they form, pressed close to the ground, a
kind of mat or tuft which in spring and early summer is covered over with
beautiful and brilliant flowers. Many belong to the heather family, such as
Phyllodoce coerulea, Azalea procumbens, Arctostaphylos alpina, Vaccinium vitis
idaea, Myrtittus uliginosa; others have the habit of the heather family, though
they belong to other families such as Diapensia lapponica and Empetrum
nigrum. The dwarf birch (Betula nana) occurs most frequently in specimens pressed
close to the ground, as also, in the lower tracts, the juniper (Juniperus
communis †. nana). Herbs and grasses play a subordinate part. Between the shrubs
the ground lies naked or covered with mosses and lichens. Where the soil is
richer and the water conditions are favourable, the monotonous Alpine heath
is interspersed with a plant-formation that is much richer in species and more
luxuriant — the Dryas formation. Like the Alpine heath, it is characterized
by beautifully blossoming dwarf-shrubs, especially the Alpine anemone, Dryas
octopetala, but also by numerous grasses and herbs. Yellow and light-red
ranunculi, yellow, white and violet saxifrages, blue and violet leguminosae, dark
blue gentians, make the Dryas formation a richly coloured plant-formation,
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