Borovichev E.A. Botanical excursion on the Northern Soroya. Hammerfest, 2014.

Sea Plantain (Plantago maritima) has linear thick fleshy leaves which can be used in salads. It has a very strong taproot which anchors the plant in moving sand water during storm floods, back into the dunes or other areas o f established closed plant cover. Most coastal plants o f Soroya are also common on the arctic and cool temperature coasts in various different parts around o f Northern Hemisphere. Vegetation on dry sandy, stony and pebbly beaches o f Soraya is rather species poor and to some extent similar in composition. It can look like a desert with scattered patches o f grasses. On shingle and gravel beach one can encounter solitary specimens o f unusual water-storing Oyster-leaf (Mertensia maritima). Patches of Sea Lyme Grass (Leymtts arenarius)forms large and tough gray-green to blue-gray coloredpatches with long undergroundrunners. It is widely distributed at the base ofcoastal cliffs, on beaches and dunes, and together with some other grasses is used in stabilizing sandy substrata on northern coastal beaches Sea Sandwort ( Honckenya peploides) occur on sand and gravel beaches that may be exposed to occasional storm water inundation. Tall, blue-green Sea Lyme grass (Leymus arenarius) inhabits even scanty sand patches of shingle beaches and forms extensive communities above the tide line on sandy beaches. This is one o f the most competitive and fast growing glasses, and can build up dunes to a height o f several meters. Owing to its rapid vegetative increase it can ‘follow’ the moving dune substrata. This is why mono-dominant Sea Lyme grass communities don’t resist to the sand shifting and wind erosion o f dunes. Arctic Sea Rocket (Cakile arctica) forms a narrow fringe on the seaweed residues, partially or entirely covered by sand. The communities Oyster-leaf(Mertensia maritima) hasfleshy water- storing leaves and bell-shaped shiny blueflowers. Its inflatedfruits are adapted to marine dispersal are obviously ephemeral phenomena - they easiily get destroyed by storm floods, sand accumulation, sheep and reindeer grazing, and disappear during the winter as some community o f annual plants, overwinter as seeds and thrive again in a spring. Common Silverweed (Argentina anserina spp. anserine), Eged's Silverweed (Argentina anserina spp. egedii) and nitrophytic and moderately salt-tolerant Spear­ leaved Orache (Atriplex prostrata) occur on shingle coast, in areas that become enriched by littoral-fringe deposits of high storm floods. Further inland ericaceous shrubs, grasses, forbs and sedges gradually replace the Sea Lyme 61