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Nothofagus fusca, New Zealand. Antarctic flora are a distinct community of vascular plants which evolved millions of years ago on the supercontinent of Gondwana.Presently, species of Antarctica flora reside on several now separated areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including southern South America, southernmost Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and New Caledonia.
For the purposes of this category, "Antarctica" is defined as the only area within the WGSRPD region of the "Antarctic Continent" in the Antarctic botanical continent, according to the WGSRPD.
The Antarctic kingdom includes the continent of Antarctica, Patagonia (southern Chile, southern Argentina, Tierra del Fuego), most of New Zealand, the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands, and all islands of the Southern Ocean south of 40°S latitude, including Gough Island, the Kerguelen Islands, and the Falkland Islands.
Parts of icy Antarctica are turning green with plant life as the region is gripped by extreme heat events, new research shows, sparking concerns about the changing landscape on this vast continent.
For example, in 2013 W. H. Walton in his Antarctica: Global Science from a Frozen Continent describes it as "a major reference to this day", encompassing as it does "all the plants he found both in the Antarctic and on the sub-Antarctic islands", surviving better than Ross's deep-sea soundings which were made with "inadequate equipment". [24]
Antarctica's two flowering plant species, the Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica) and Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis) are found on the northern and western parts of the Antarctic Peninsula, including offshore islands, where the climate is relatively mild. Lagotellerie Island in Marguerite Bay is an example of this habitat.
Plants are similarly restricted mostly to the subantarctic islands, and the western edge of the Peninsula. Some mosses and lichens however can be found even in the dry interior. Many algae are found around Antarctica, especially phytoplankton, which form the basis of many of Antarctica's food webs.
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