Gaupås

Jonstein

When high school student Arne Handegard collected plants for a herbarium in 1962, he didn’t know what kind of rarity he had pressed into his notebook. 30 years later he attended a botanical lecture, where a picture was shown of a plant he recognized: “Norwegian Sagebrush, which in Norway is only found in a large area of Dovre and in Trollheimen, and in a little area in Ry county”. Arne Handegard raised his hand: “That plant grows on Mt. Jonstein in Jondal”.

Drøna

Finse

Many mountain plants are well prepared to face cold and wind. Some would surely rather face an easier life in the lowlands, but they cannot compete with the higher-growing plants living there. Most mountain plants manage to compete for light and space only if they cling to the bedrock and gravel in the harsh high alpine climate.

Herdla- botany

Ågotnes- crystals

Road cuts and blast areas are a joy to rock collectors, even if the disturbance to nature is ever so disfiguring. These are the best kinds of places to hunt for crystals, which otherwise are removed by weather and wind. In the Ågotnes area there are especially many beautiful crystals to be found.

Golta- Pygmy willow

Spildepollen

The oceanic crust of the North Sea was subjected to a lot of stretching both in Permian and Triassic times, and later in the Jurassic. This stretching resulted in the North Sea collapsing in and also to large faults forming west of Hordaland and on the mainland. Austefjorden in Sund follows one of these faults.

Leiro

Manger

Mangerite is a rock type that was first made famous in a treatise by the Bergen geologist Carl Fredrik Kolderup in 1903. The rock type got its name from the place where it was found, and has made the Mangerud name well known around the world, at least among geologists.