What's Going On Here?
March, 2006
In the final days of 2004 the cities of the world received some astonishing news: Beginning at its northern tip, Antarctica was turning green. Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica) is one of just two kinds of higher plants that occur south of the 56th degree of latitude. Hitherto it had barely eked out a living as sparse tussocks crouched behind the north face of a boulder or some other sheltered spot. Over the southern summer of 2004, however, great green swards of the stuff began to ap...
