Alpine Vegetation

Living in alpine habitats isn’t easy for plants: with higher altitudes vegetation periods gets shorter and winters longer and harsher. Also, temperature fluctuations, radiation and wind speeds increase at altitude.
No wonder these different altitudes host diverse forms of plant life, which developed a range of strategies to cope with the unfriendly alpine conditions.

In the botanical garden telescopes point to some typical alpine vegetation:

• The limit of trees is clearly seen by the timberline. Forests grow up to this point.
• Above the timberline is a zone of gnarly small trees and shrubs called the stunted forest – above Innsbruck it consists mainly of dwarf mountainpine.
• Still higher in the rocky sites only small plants can survive.