Downy Birch
Betula pubescens · Trees - Deciduous
Birch under snow
Iceland, 27 December 2023
Downy birch, which is effectively the only tree native to Iceland and never gets very large. The standing joke is that if you are lost in an Icelandic forest, stand up.
Iceland was perhaps a quarter wooded when the Norse arrived and was almost entirely cleared inside a couple of centuries, for fuel and grazing. What is left is scrub like this, plus a long and stubborn replanting effort.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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