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Are there any plants in Antarctica?
CONTINENTS DON’T COME ANY MORE inhospitable than Antarctica, where life must contend with the longest, darkest, coldest winters and a year-round blanket of snow and ice. There are certainly no trees in the frozen south, or even shrubs. On the Antarctic mainland, there are just two native species of flowering plant. Both occur only on the Antarctic Peninsula, which is the most northerly, warmest and wettest part of the continent.
Antarctic hair grass is most abundant around penguin and seal colonies, where it benefits from nutrients in the animals’ waste. Antarctic pearlwort, a diminutive relative of carnations, forms moss-like cushions bearing numerous yellow flowers. Both species’ ranges have increased in recent decades as temperatures rise.
A more recent addition is annual meadow grass, a highly adaptable hybrid species that became established following its unwitting introduction by human visitors in the 1950s.
The peninsula is also home to a few hundred species of lichens, mosses and liverworts, some of which even manage to
