Cotton Grass (Eriophorum scheuchzeri), Disco Bay, West-Greenland

Eriophorum scheuchzeri is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family. It has a circumpolar and circumboreal distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. It can be found in Alaska, across Canada, in the Arctic islands, Greenland, Iceland, and across Eurasia. The seed heads are covered in a fluffy mass of cotton which are carried on the wind to aid dispersal. In cold Arctic regions, these masses of translucent fibres also serve as 'down' – increasing the temperature of the reproductive organs during the Arctic summer by trapping solar radiation.