Northern landscape.

It's dominated by reindeer moss.

A week or two ago I went to Oulu, which is up north (for somebody from Helsinki) or down south (for somebody from Lapland).

Before landing I looked down at the landscape, puzzled: what are those whitish patches in between the forest green? Chalk? Naah ...

Up close the answer is obvious: it's reindeer moss. As I'm from the south, this light grey vegetation under the trees looks really really weird.

Here, have a look-see yourself. Some forest floors were green with various berries, others were grey with the reindeer moss (Cladonia sp., a lichen). Some of the grey ones went on for kilometers at a time, others were smaller patches of grey in a sea of green. They all looked weird, though.