I would consider myself more of a biologist than a mathematician, so during our trip, I spent a good amount to time observing the Alaskan wildlife. After our boat tour and a few long car rides I decided that I needed to make a list in order to remember all of the plants I have identified. I was somewhat limited in the number of plants I could identify from the car because 1) I forgot to bring an Alaskan plant field guide with me and 2) I kept making myself nauseous by looking at individual plants as they zipped by at 60 mph. So I haven’t included everything that I saw, of course, but at least the ones that I think were most interesting. Here is my list so far:
black spruce (Picea mariana)
paper birch (Betula papyrifera)
Sitka alder (Alnus viridis)
black cottonwood (Populus nigra)
cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum)
lupine (Lupinus sp.)
lichens (black, orange, green)
moss
cotton grass (Eriophorum sp.)
Labrador tea (Rhododendron tomentosum or neoglandulosum)
Reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina)
If you take a snapshot out of your car window on the average Alaskan highway (or at least on the highways that we have been using), you will probably see a mixture of spruce, birch, cottonwood and alder, so these are the plants that I have seen the most of during this trip. It seems to me that there is much less plant diversity in Alaska than in Ohio, but conditions are also much harsher for plant life at such a high latitude.
We saw this alder near UAF. You can see the male catkins (green-yellow structure, top left) and female catkins (brown and shorter, bottom right) pretty well here.
We spent our first night in Alaska in Eagle Creek, and after dinner we went on a walk through the woods. That is where we saw the gnarly cow parsnip shoots coming up out of the forest floor (sadly, I forgot to take a picture). These giant relatives of Queen Anne’s Lace, both members of the Carrot Family, are very common in Alaska, can grow up to 7 ft tall, and can irritate the skin and cause rashes.
Cow Parsnip (photo credit: oregonstate.edu)
When we visited Exit Glacier near Seward, AK, we hiked up a steep mountain-side trail toward the ice field. While we were still in the valley near the glacier front Ben kept asking what was giving the woods such a fresh, nature-y smell. Dr. Jackson finally narrowed it down cottonwood trees whose leaves were just beginning to open. I looked it up later and found out that black cottonwoods, common to Alaska, give off a strong, balsam scent as their buds open in the Spring.
This black cottonwood sapling was growing on the moraine of Exit Glacier. They are tough little trees!
The next day we wound our way up into the mountains again to Eklutna Lake and Glacier. We camped near the lake for two nights and while we were driving out to see the pump station, I spotted purple lupines growing on the banks of the road. I love lupines, but sadly they have done poorly in our gardens at home. It’s amazing that they are just growing wild here, brightening up the landscape in the springtime.
Lupine (photo credit: www.kitinak.com)
After Eklutna we went over to Matanuska Glacier where we set up the weather station. While trekking over the glacier to find a good spot for the tower, we spotted lichens and mosses growing on the rocks in the moraine areas. There were mostly black and green lichens but also what seemed like orange in other areas, and all mosses were green. Lichens and mosses are often the first species to inhabit the moraine (rocks and silt) left behind by glaciers, so they are often used to determine how fast a glacier is retreating.
Many of the rocks on Matanuska Glacier were tinted orange, green or black from the many lichens and mosses.
A few days later we visited the Poker Flat Research Range to see the observation tower used for ecological research. While at Poker we saw many more black spruce and paper birch. Black spruce is able to grow on permafrost while white birch is not, so if you want to know where the permafrost areas are, you may want to look for the patches of black spruce! Black spruce also has special adaptations to fire. A few years ago a huge fire spread through Poker, burning the plants and ruining some of the research equipment. However, the black spruce were able to repopulate the area after the mature trees were burned down because of the seeds that were left in the soil. Fires are a natural part of this ecosystem, so many of the plants here are able to regenerate their populations after the destruction. At many points during the trip we have been at high enough elevations which were very close to the tree line, or the point above which conifer trees cannot grow. Above this line temperatures are too cold and moisture is too low to sustain tree growth. So even black spruce, which can grown on permafrost, cannot grow above this line.
Black Spruce
Paper Birch
One of the post-doctoral researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks is studying the understory plants of the open spruce forest in Poker, so he showed us many of the plants with which he is working. We saw cotton grass, Labrador tea, reindeer lichens, ground cranberries, and moss, which covered the whole forest floor of Poker.
Cotton Grass
Labrador Tea
Ground cranberry and reindeer lichen
Finally, when we visited the permafrost tunnel, our tour guide showed us some of the most amazing plants of the whole trip. While ~200 m under a mountain, we were able to see permafrost dating back many thousands of years. In many areas were remnants of roots hanging down from the ceiling. At one point in particular, our tour guide showed us some grass stems that were intact and still green! He guessed that were ~20,000 years old! I had no idea I was going to see something like this in Alaska!
Here were some of the roots hanging down from the permafrost ceiling.
Our guide with a stem from the ~20,000 year old grass
Even though the plants of Alaska are pretty different from the Ohio and Pennsylvania flora that I am used to, I enjoyed learning so more about them in the most unlikely places. Even Dr. Jackson taught us a lot about the Alaskan plants! But next time I come to Alaska, I will be sure to bring my field guide.
