Country diary: Only plants with extreme strategies survive this hostile terrain | Ed Douglas

Alada?lar, Turkey: One thorny wild almond that pierced my boot might have been arrested for carrying an offensive weaponIhsan Macar sold his flock of sheep a decade ago but keeps a simple hut high on the Yedigöller plateau, in the heart of Anatolia's Alada?lar mountains. Though his animals no longer graze these sparse grasslands, he likes to spend a few weeks here each summer. It keeps him rooted in the pattern of his life.Yedigöller translates as "seven lakes", but you'd be hard-pressed to find seven these days. Looking down from the wind-scoured slopes of Emler Tepe, I could see that several were now dry or marshy ground. In recent years, winter snows that nourished Ihsan's summer grazing have weakened. Most of the Alada?lar's rain falls on the eastern side of the range, where there are forests of pine and cedar, aspen, juniper and oak. Here on the west side, the landscape is austere and treeless. Continue reading...