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Close to the ground

A short season, and the living things that use it

Non-flowering lichens cling to rocks and soil; their enclosed algal cells can photosynthesize at any temperature above 32 degrees Fahrenheit. [NPS Rocky Mountain] Tundra wildflowers in the park bloom from late May through early August. [NPS Rocky Mountain] Summer on the tundra is short; snow is prominent on the landscape into June, with a few isolated snow patches remaining through the summer. [NPS Rocky Mountain]

Low alpine wildflowers, including pale and yellow blooms, filling a rocky meadow with mountains in the distance
Wildflowers in a high meadow along Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. A National Archives file, public domain, courtesy of the park. This is alpine tundra vegetation, not Arctic tundra.Unknown photographer, courtesy of Rocky Mountain National Park (U.S. National Archives) · Public Domain (NPS / NARA)

For Arctic tundra, the Park Service says the growing season ranges from just 50 to 60 days. [NPS Arctic] For alpine tundra, the same Park Service page says the growing season is approximately 180 days. [NPS Arctic]

A single caribou walks across a green, low, treeless coastal plain under a wide sky
A caribou on the coastal-plain tundra of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, photographed by Lisa Hupp of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on 28 June 2021. This is Arctic tundra, not alpine tundra in the Rockies.Lisa Hupp, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service · Public Domain (USFWS)
Five bighorn rams lie and stand together on a pale, rocky, snow-dusted slope
Five bighorn sheep rams sitting together on the alpine tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park, photographed on 29 January 2016. A winter scene in Colorado alpine tundra, not Arctic tundra.National Park Service · Public Domain (NPS)

The caribou is on Arctic tundra in Alaska. The bighorn rams are on alpine tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park, in January. They illustrate the two kinds of tundra; they are not interchangeable pictures of one place.

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