Maelifell, Bordering the Myrdalsjokull Glacier, Iceland Maelifell, the result of one of the many eruptions under the Myrdalsjokull glacier in southern Iceland, is a volcanic tuff - a cone made up of an accumulation of solidified ash and other volcanic material. Little by little this mound was covered with grimmia, a moss that proliferates on cooled lava, which varies in color from silver-gray to luminous green, depending upon the soil's humidity. It is one of the few plants that have developed in Iceland, a country marked by botanical poverty, with fewer than 400 reported vegetal species and only 25 percent of its land covered with permanent vegetation. Geologically very young, only 23 million years old, Iceland has more than 200 active volcanoes and many glaciers, which take up nearly one-eighth of the area of the island.