Page 27 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Sweden

A POR TR AIT OF SWEDEN  25

Sweden’s Flora
Considering Sweden’s unusually rich flora, it is not surprising that the
father of botany, Carl von Linné (see p134), was born here. There are
more than 2,000 species of flowers alone. After a long cold winter,
nature explodes into life with a profusion of blooms, as in the orchid
meadows of Öland. Swedes’ love of wild flowers is illustrated by the
maypoles and garlands used to celebrate Midsummer.
Wood The red water
anemones lily can only King Karl’s Spire can grow
carpeting the be found in 1 m (3 ft) tall – an impressive
forests signal some lakes height for an orchid. It is
the arrival in Tiveden most common in swampy
of spring. National Park. mountain areas.

Forests The Far North
More than half of Sweden’s land area is covered The mountains and moorlands are characterized
by forests, with deciduous trees in the south, by their proximity to the Arctic. With late
coniferous forests with pines and spruce further spring come the migratory birds such as
north. Here lingonberries, blueberries and hooper swans and the lesser white-fronted
chanterelles grow. This is the home of elk and goose, and the mountain flora bursts into
beaver, and forest birds such as capercaillies flower. Wolves, bears, wolverine and lynx
and black grouse. inhabit the national parks.
The elk is the big game Reindeer live as
of the forest. Around domesticated animals
100,000 elk are killed in northern Sweden,
in the annual hunting farmed by Sami in
season and, despite the mountains and
the road warning signs, forests. In winter the
others die in accidents herds move further
involving cars. south to graze.

The brown bear is The ptarmigan lives
the largest of Sweden’s above the tree line and
predators and can is often encountered,
weigh up to 300 kg as it is unafraid of
(660 lb). It may look mountain hikers. It
slow, but it moves follows the changing
quickly and is seasons with up to four
dangerous if disturbed. changes of plumage.

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