During our visit, the island was a beautiful bouquet of wild flowers. The countryside was a panorama of color. One of the most prevalent was the Alaskan lupine, a big brother to our Texas bluebonnet. A non-native brought in to stabilize soils, it is quite invasive and ubiquitous. Most of Iceland's trees were long since cut in the settlement days. The few remaining trees are mainly birch (smallish in size) and wooly willow (we would call it a shrub). A standing joke is: what do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest? Stand up! Non-native Alaskan pines are being brought in to try to establish more large trees on the island.