Baikal World - information about vegetation of Baikal lake and Baikal region
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Lake Baikal Vegetation

Baikal Vegetation Nature is very generous to Lake Baikal. A necklace of coniferous forests, decorating the shore mountain chains, creates a unique beauty of landscapes, shelters animals and birds, and enlivens the surroundings. The pride of Pribaikalye is the taiga forest. The light green of larch, birch, poplar and alder trees growing in the lower belt, covers the slopes. Higher up it is replaced by a belt of a dark coniferous forest - cedar, fir and spruce. Up this belt the slopes are covered with
impassable brushwoods of trailing cedar, through which only bear trails run. Above them on the gentle sloping terrace there are Alpine grasslands with parterres and finally, snowcovered peaks.

In contrast to European new woods the Baikal taiga has preserved trees of all ages - from young ones to 500-600 and even 800 year old giants. It is the only place where pine forests, with the world famous Angara pine tree, extend. Its timber has no match. In the undergrowth of pine forests, on the former burnings and clearings, one can come across rich red bilberries and on the hillsides, fern thickets.

Mixed pine-birch and birch-aspen forests have rather a wide spreading, as it is a stage of indigenous pine reforestation.

Cedar pinecorns - Baikal Vegetation

Zharky - Trollius asiaticus		 The most precious woods in Pribaikalye are cedar groves. The major forestry areas are located in the east of the Central Siberian Upland.

Spruce and firewoods are the least in Pribaikalye. They grow mostly alongside cedar, larch and sometimes, pine trees.

Among non-forest types, most widely spread are steppe, Apline meadowland and marsh vegetation. The Alpine flora is rich in colourful, ornamental plants, e.g. vodosbor, Aquilegia (Lat.); gorechavka Gentiana (Lat.), cyclamens, herbs and "zharky" (Trollius asiaticus L.) endemic flowers of bright yellow orange colour.

Meadowland vegetation is firstly water meadows along the valleys of big and small rivers, located mostly near hamlets and villages.

Marshes in Pribaikalye dominate in cold areas. The taiga swamps are rich in cranberries and fragrant currants.
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