Polar willow: photo and description. How does a polar willow in the tundra look like?

In the tundra dominate only those plants that are able to withstand the severity of its natural and climatic conditions. Tundra landscapes are marshy, peaty and stony. Shrubs do not invade here. Their distribution area does not go beyond the border of taiga sites. The northern expanses cover tundra dwarf plants spreading along the earth : polar willow, blueberry, cowberry and other stalamites.

The fauna here is formed mostly by mosses, lichens, sedges and mushrooms. Low grasses now and then interrupt moss-lichen cushions. Trees and shrubs are represented by small forms. Only the polar willow and the dwarf birch are found. Tiny trees sometimes break through the closed turf, they grow all the time.

Willow Polar - dwarf shrub

A unique representative of flowering plants is the polar willow. Although it is excessively small, it still applies to tundra shrubs, not to grasses. A tiny plant is forced, because of the natural conditions, to become like not a shrubby tree, but a stalk spreading along the ground.

On the thin tree-like stems, the minimum number of long-lasting leaflets is strengthened, not crumbling, as in other willows in the autumn. They remain green under the snow cover. The plant has two more names - dwarf willow and arctic. Polar willow in the tundra is not alone. Along with it there are representatives of Magadan, Yenisey, grassy and several other dwarf species.

Nutritional value of the polar willow

Willow leaves are a perfect food for reindeer. They, in order to be full in winter, dig them out from under the snow. In the winter, her shoots, kidneys and bark are not neglected by hares, partridges and rodents.

The leaves of the arctic shrub are edible. The northern peoples store the plant for future use and prepare rather exotic food from it. They, having turned out the deer stomachs, fill them with boiled leaves and liquid, in which the plant was boiling. The Chukchi feed on a mixture of willow leaves and blood of deer. Eskimos season with their seepage fat and blood. In addition, surrogate tea is prepared from the leaves.

Biological Description

Dwarf shrub grassy appearance has miniature tree-like sticks. You look at the pictures, the polar willow on which is depicted, and marvel at how quaint the nature is. Tiny trunks are formed by tiny subterranean branches. They are not like ordinary trees are short. Their length does not exceed 3-5 centimeters.

On the creeping on the ground, rooting yellow twigs were placed a few tiny leaves, exposed over the sod. Lancet-like stipules, although inherent in the plant, are rare. They often prefer to be absent. The leaves have rounded outlines, widely back ovate. Sometimes they are kidney-shaped and only occasionally elliptical-wide-lanceolate. Their tops are roundish.

The shape of the leaves is often notched. Their base is delineated with rounded, then heart-shaped, and quite rarely wedge-shaped lines. This is what the polar willow looks like-an unusual tree of the tundra. Green leaves with entire sides are matte top, and the bottom is slightly shiny. The length of bare petioles is only 1 centimeter. The length of leaflets strung on tiny petioles does not exceed 2.5 cm, and the width does not exceed 1.3 cm.

At the end flower earrings, the forms are usually oblong or ovate. The number of miniature flowers in them varies from 3 pieces to 17. Bracts are still equipped with a polar willow. Their description is as follows: dark-brown scales with egg-shaped (it happens, that back egg-shaped) rounded, concave forms there are jagged edges.

Naked free stamens two. They have a dark anther and an oblong-ovate narrowed nectary. Ovaries of conical, light-felt shades in the beginning, eventually grow bald, recoloring in greenish or purple tones. Bipartite divergent stigmas have an oblong-linear nectary.

Of course, such trifles can not always be seen in nature, and even more so in the photo. Polar willow, like many other plants, is thoroughly studied by biologists in laboratories.

The area of the Arctic willow

The dominance of a hardy plant begins in the polar deserts covering the Arctic islands, and extends to the northern outskirts of Putorana Plateau. The area of the dwarf shrubbery captured the Scandinavian, East Siberian, Chukchi and Kamchatka lands in the tundra. It stretches along the expanses of the Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen islands.

In an endless struggle against the negative conditions of the harsh Arctic, the tree found reliable ways of surviving in inhospitable northern places. In the glacial period, when the ruthless pressure of the approaching glaciation became intolerable, the polar willow was forced to retreat to the south.

The creeping back glacier allowed it to re-conquer its beloved northern territories. She firmly entrenched in its former boundaries, settling in the area of Novaya Zemlya and the Commander Islands. The continuous arctic thaw promotes the persistent advance of the bush to the borders of the Far North. It is penetrating at high speed (for dwarf plants) into the tundra and the Arctic zone. Its range is annually increased by a kilometer!

Soils

The tree has an extensive ecological amplitude. They like the soil of all kinds of compositions. It avoids limestone, however, and sometimes it is found on them. Perfectly feels on the grassy, gravelly, clayey soils, characteristic for the Arctic and Alpine tundra. The shrub is unpretentious to the moistening of soils. There is no polar willow in the tundra at excessively over-dried or excessively moistened places.

She is indifferent to the richness of the soil. True, it does not want to grow on high peaty polytrichovyh mounds, which dot the swampy areas. They have a depleted acidic substrate, which is not at all like a dwarf shrub. But on the zonal tundra gley soils it grows everywhere. The plant neglects little snow-capped places. He is attracted to the nival, with a good snow cover corners.

Ecosystems involving polar willow

Wherever you look, almost everywhere except for the northern zones, the shrub has adapted to the moss-lichen surfaces. Such thallus is an amazing sight. Their caps of saturated green, yellow, orange, red and other colors form a fantastically beautiful scenery. Willow trunks are always immersed in moss-covered sod, and leaves, on the contrary, rise above the surfaces of picturesque hillocks.

The tree is tied to gravels and blocks, which clearly show the photo. The polar willow in the tundra hides in small crevasses formed by stones. Between pebbles, she finds mechanical protection and, to a greater extent, humified soils.

However, from the numerous moss-lichen phytocenoses the shrub prefers a loose turf. It is the surfaces that are formed by hypnotic bokoplodnymi mosses, liverwort and similar vegetation.

Ecological niches of the polar willow

The dwelling of Putorana became the dwelling of a dwarf shrub. He found shelter among the miniature crevices and cracks that cut Kotui and Anabar plateaus. Its thickets were covered with snow-covered niches, strewn over the goltsovy belt. They did not fail to crawl into the forests with moist mossy thalluses, which founded a picturesque northern ecosystem.

And in the mountain snow valleys, what does the polar willow look like? Here it forms massive thickets. She completely covered the beds of snowfields, and the ice sheets are in a dense environment of small leaves sticking out. And at the same time, the plant is inactive in the expanses of the flat forest-tundra and southern tundra.

It is scattered over nival ravines, at the foot of the northern slopes. Dwarf willow thickets have spread over the lakes of the moss-like shrubs. They covered the sides of deep-cut brooks.

Their activity is increasing in typical tundra. The abundance of willow saplings is noted in the biocenoses of moraines landscapes. There, where on the plains there are masses of stony fragments left from the movement of glaciers. In the alluvial and alluvial zones the role of the shrub is reduced.

It becomes interesting how the polar willow looks, the photo of which you are looking at, in spotty tundra, along the sides of valley streams, and where the watersheds formed and delle complexes were formed. In small towns with ivy-moss-grassy thalluses.

Domination of willow bush in the tundra

In the presence of polar willows, the arctic tundra vegetation develops. And the dwarf shrub actively prevails in most of the placock phytocenoses. In particular, it prevails in the ivy-moss-grass communities. In addition, its predominance is noted in the Birranga mountain range.

Abundant thickets of dwarf willow have mastered moss tundra. They are clogged with crevices of chipped tundra. Their shelter was delle complexes, plumes enriched with humus, bulk and snow-less places. The willow covers of the valley polygonal bogs cover the willow.

Willow in the mountains

With willow bush, settled in the crevices between the stones, you get a spectacular photo. Polar willow in mountain landscapes is not uncommon, it is a part of all kinds of biotopes, capturing vast territories. Her leaves stick hugely along the entire mountain belt, making their way to the top. Here it is not attracted only by naked debris and uncharted rubble plots.

Having climbed to a height of 300-400 meters, it replaces the dryad, becoming the dominant edificator of tundra mountain phytocoenoses, forming in the upper tier. In addition, it is able to replace in places of mountain pebbles and sands a willow monotonous, unable to delve into steep mountains. Lumpy disintegrations of the foothills and hills of Byrrang were overgrown with hybrids of the polar willow.