Severnaya Zemlya north from Siberia. The climate data below, taken from the Golomyanniy Meteorological Station gives an indication of the weather experienced in the archipelago. Severnaya Zemlya is a polar desert with sparse vegetation and permafrost at less than . Rare vascular plants include species of "Cerastium" and "Saxifraga". Non-vascular plants include the moss genera "Detrichum", "Dicranum", "Pogonatum", "Sanionia", "Bryum", "Orthothecium" and "Tortula", as well as the lichen genera "Cetraria", "Thamnolia", "Cornicularia", "Lecidea", "Ochrolechia" and "Parmelia". Common flowering plants of the high Arctic such as the purple saxifrage ("Saxifraga oppositifolia") and the Arctic poppy ("Papaver radicatum") also occur on Severnaya Zemlya. According
Vladimir Rusanov Ocean via the Northern Sea Route. Their ship "Gerkules" was too small for the kind of expedition Rusanov had in mind. The last to be heard of Rusanov's expedition was a telegram left at Matochkin Shar on Novaya Zemlya, which reached St. Petersburg on 27 September 1912. In it, Rusanov indicated that he intended rounding the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya, and heading east across the Kara Sea but nothing was heard from the "Gerkules" thereafter. He and his 11-man team, including Alexander Kuchin, disappeared without trace a year later in the Kara Sea, off the northern coast of Siberia.