''Polemonium boreale'', the northern Jacob's-ladder or boreal Jacobs-ladder, is a plant native to most of the high

arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

. In

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

it is found only in a small area on the east coast. It is not very common. The whole plant is pubescent, with long woolly hairs, glandular, and grows to 5–10 cm tall. The basal

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

are more or less alternate, and pinnate, with numerous leaflets. The

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s are produced in a more or less capitate

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

, each flower bell-shaped, blue, 15 mm long, 2.5 times longer than the calyx. The plant has a very unpleasant smell, and grows on gravelly slopes and in crevices. Image:Polemonium boreale - Jacobsledder2.jpg, Native to most of the high

, its range includes

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

. File:Polemonium_boreale_8882.JPG, The inflorescence consists of 3—7 (exceptionally 9), 5–15 mm flowers. File:Polemonium_boreale_8879.JPG, Basal leaves are pinnate with numerous small leaflets.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1796649 boreale Flora of the Arctic Flora of Greenland Flora of Norway