The islands' "forests" are made up of tiny, creeping Polar Willow and Dwarf Birch, and pretty much all the flowers are equally diminutive, clump-forming or creeping 'alpines'. But get down to their level, and there's some pretty cool plants to be found!
Svalbard Poppy, Papaver dahlianum (which, despite its name, isn't endemic but also found in eastern Greenland and far northern Norway). One of the more showy flowers, a common roadside plant in and around Longyearbyen but not so obvious elsewhere.
Mountain Avens, Dryas octopetala
Pygmy Buttercup, Ranunculus pygmaeus
Purple Saxifrage, Saxifraga oppositifolia. Together with the lovely Moss Campion, these patches of purple were the most obvious bright colours on the tundra
Hairy Lousewort, Pedicularis hirsuta
Cassiope tetragona. Apparently the English name is White Arctic Bell-heather... Cassiope sounds much nicer.
A lovely yellow form of Tufted Saxifrage, Saxifraga caespitosa. Or is this Saxifraga aurea...?
Ignoring the grasses & sedges (as, I'm afraid, I did), there are only really four big-ish groups of difficult plants to worry about in Spitsbergen: buttercups and saxifrages (which aren't so hard really), the white Caryophyllaceae (which I'm afraid went the way of the grasses & sedges!) and the whitlow grasses, Draba spp. These basically end up being 'one of the yellow whitlow-grasses' or 'one of the white whitlow-grasses'... no prizes for working out this one! (which, if pushed, I'd call Draba alpina, the appropriately-named Golden Whitlow-grass).
I obviously still have a fair bit to get to grips with, with the Spitsbergen flora... maybe next year!
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