In A Dennitzan Forest

Dominic Flandry and his fiancee, Kossara Vymezal, land on her home planet, Dennitza, where:

gravity is 7% less than Terran;

ground cover is mahovina turf and woodland duff;

ever-green equivalents are low and blue-black;

there are shrubs but no underbrush;

the smaller, nearer moon, Mesyatz, moves visibly;

human Dennitzans see an orlick, a winged theroid, in the markings on Mesyatz;

ychani tell humorous fairy tales about Ri, who went to live on Mesyatz;

Flandry and Kossara eat fried riba, caught from the river, then cloud apples;

guslars trill;

a horned bull leads a herd of yelen;

Kossara's uncle, the Gospodar, keeps a lodge from which he hunts gromatz, yegyupka and ice trolls;

Flandry calls the view "'Austere but lovely...'" -Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), p. 521.

We must not imagine a green Terrestrial landscape with feathered birds overhead. This post really belongs on the Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments blog but, because more people read Poul Anderson Appreciation, I have put it here first.