A Wandering Botanist: Finland

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Visiting Finland--Looking to Summer

early summer, southern Finland

It is early spring here on the Front Range of Colorado: warm days interspersed with snow showers. The lawns are turning green. We watch warily for big snow storms.

One of the marvels of our modern world is the ability to communicate around the world. I still cherish the first time I exchanged email observations of the weather with Finland, within minutes, across half the globe. We take that for granted now. But it is amazing. In northern Colorado, I'm enjoying the beginning of spring, but in northern Europe, it is still winter. I have webcams that I watch in Finland, and today they show snow cover.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Visiting Finland: A Botanist's Quick View

forest in Finland

In July 2012 I spent a week in southern Finland after visiting Iceland. At the opposite end of Scandinavia, Finland is very different from Iceland.

At 130,666 sq. miles, Finland is a slightly larger area than the state of New Mexico, but longer north-south and not as wide. The northern third is inside the Arctic Circle and the south on the Baltic Sea's Gulf of Finland. Unlike Sweden and Norway, it is not mountainous. The population is 5.4 million, making it one of the least densely populated European countries.

We visited the southern part of the country just after the summer solstice when the days were very long.

Finland has conserved its forests and you don't have to go far from Helsinki for the country to look uninhabited.

Lake Päijänne, central Finland