Beautiful plants in the Dolomites

# 3.  An "owl tree" made by a rifugio owner with a sense of humor
#1.  Soldanella alpina
Other unidentified pictures were Erica carnea and Polygala chamaebuxus

[quote author=RickR link=topic=370.msg3533#msg3533 date=1280709958]
Every flower on that pulsatilla has 7-8 petals!

Beautiful pics, Ann, all of them.

P.S. How would we tell if they are "illogically ordered" anyway?  The photos are a treat no matter what!
[/quote  Rick, I planned to put them on according to location  and the day's hike - but you're right, no one else would know that.  Glad you enjoyed the first batch.

More coming, Lori.  No tour, we are definitely self-directed.  We have been going for years and some of the plants are like old friends.  The owner of our hotel is an accomplished photographer and interested in plants.  Whenever I haven't been able to find a particular plant he has always been able to give trail ideas. 

Hi Cliff.  Sorry we didn't overlap this year because we enjoyed our alpine day with you and Sue so much last year. Great to be with people who understand that even a thread of a trail must be followed if there's a great plant at the end of it.  Not to mention that since that day Joe has become more understanding about the need to take many, many pictures of the same plant!!  Can't wait to see what you saw the two weeks following our stay.

An ordinary day in the Dolomites (meaning great plants and great vistas).

Part 2 - Same day.

McDonough wrote:

Anne, thanks for supplying so many OMG-moments; seeing fine photos of spectacular plants that take one's breath away, like Thlaspi rotundifolia, Saxifraga caesia, and Soldanella minima.  Your photos are of high quality, may I ask what camera do you use? 

/Hi Mark, we use a Sony Cyber Shot, DSC H10 with a 10X Zoom.  I can use it with no problem which means that it's really user-friendly.  Alan Bradshaw of Alplains Seed Catalog told me about it when I admired his photos.  We've really liked it a lot. Joe takes better pictures (more patience).  Incidentally, many thanks for the compliment which I'll share with Joe who takes 90% of the pictures.

Booker wrote:

Just four images from me to introduce you all to the glorious situation of Corvara - the town in the Dolomites that attracts both Anne and I to return to these beautiful mountains year after year. The formidable massif of Sassongher dominates the town and provides a spectacular backdrop to every activity.

Beautiful shots, Cliff.  It makes me homesick for Corvara.

Another day and another hike.  The plants seen this day included Ranunculus seguieri as we had never seen it before.  The flowers were perfect, the wind hadn't had a chance to make them ragged and it was difficult to find a plant that didn't have pollinators busy at work.  Oh yes, the rest of the plants were also sensational! Last photo is R. seguieri taken on the way up with the best yet to come.

Part 2 of a sensational day.  The Ranunculus seguieri (last picture in previous post) was so beautiful and so pristine.  Often you see ragged flowers thanks to it usually liking exposed positions with wind.

And Part 3 of a great plant day!

This last trail is a very popular one because there's a cable car to the top from the Pass.  We always see people walking down and have some company also on the way up. Later today I'll post pictures of a favorite trail where we see very few if any people.  I'm not sure of the elevation gain - it's a long, steady "up".  You don't really notice the climb that much since there's so much to see along the way.  The pictures posted are highlights, the tip of the iceberg.

Another day - a favorite hike - great plants, not another soul on the trail.  Part 1 of the trail ends at a rifugio where the food is so good it was featured in the past year in an article in the NYTimes Travel section.  Beyond that is a hike to another top where we sometimes will go for dessert.  The trail is all rock and all "up" so you can figure you earned the dessert by the time you get there.  Plants are great, the following are highlights.

More of the same hike.  Remember that the season is quite early because of late snow

Last part of the great day. The rifugio, (the thought of lunch there had spurred me on the last hour), was closed for remodeling, probably thanks to the article in the NYTimes. There was still snow on the trail to the dessert rifugio so we didn't go up.  The food part of the day wasn't too great!

Thanks, Cliff. I've been having a few glitches posting. Getting the name on the picture is sometimes beyond me.

And finally, the perfect end to a perfect (although very hungry) day.  I was forced to eat some chocolate I just happened to find in my backpack. Far superior to the whiskey traditionally carried by the St. Bernard on his rescue mission!

A nice relaxing day high up in alpine meadows.  Note the red lines in the banner petals of Lotus alpinus, an easy identifier.  The Homogyne alpina is shown in flower but it's the leaves which are so marvelous: roundish, shiny, bright green with red/purple underneath and the edge of the leaf is quite hard to the touch.  For those who are up on their James Bond, it's like Odd-Job's hat. 

Sorry, pictures #7 and #8 are Sax. paniculata and Daphne striata.  I thought I named everything when resizing the pictures but apparently the computer didn't agree.

Favorites  on a favorite trail

Sorry, last three pictures are Pulsatilla vernalis.  More pictures later today.

The food is so wonderful at our hotel that you have to walk every day, not that that's a hardship with plants like these.
More plants on our favorite (among others) trail.

And some more.......

And some orchids on the trail back to the car.  A nice way to end the day.

Another day in the high meadows.  The Italians do a wonderful job with the trails and they are very conscious of erosion and other problems. Cattle are grazed in high meadows so there is a ready supply of manure.  In this spot a large bare spot had obviously developed and a thick covering of manure and straw was used.  It's an area where we frequently find small clumps of Ranunculus seguieri in small bare spots.  This year we found sensational plants of R. seguieri and Oxytropis jacquinii growing where the area had been manured.  I called it "plants on steroids".  I've never seen such sensational bloom, but the plants themselves weren't larger - just better bloom.  So nature can be improved??? 

Booker wrote:

You are magically transporting me back to Della Creste, Anne ... and it's 3am here in Lancashire, wide awake with heartburn and an attack of 'homesickness' for the Dolomites.  Super images - my compliments to Joe.

/ Cliff, I know what you mean.  I feel the same way when I look at the pictures and wish I could be back in more than memory - especially since the heat and humidity continue here.

McDonough wrote:

More great stuff Anne, really like the orchid pics, particularly Nigritella.  I had to show my wife some of the stunning scenery photos, the shot of Rifugio is hard to believe!!! I'm aching to go there!

Couple questions on your pics, is photo #539 an Anaphalis?  And 543-Thlaspi, is this really an Erysimum?

My goodness, the compact alpine perfection of Ranunculus seguieri is amazing, certainly on par with the famed New Zealand Ranunculids.

  Mark, the 539 is a Sausssurea, probably alpina.  The other is definitely not a Thlaspi and probably an Erysimum.  I'm not great at putting the names on the pictures, and I couldn't find my notes.

P.S. to Mark.  I've never seen Ranunculus seguieri as we saw it this year, which is another way of saying the mountains are never the same, my standard answer to people who are shocked we keep going back to the same place year after year.  I think Cliff would agree: it's always different.  I have to admit that lying down on 6" of straw and manure would not normally be my idea of fun but most of it was quite dry.  I just thought it would be good to show how some alpines  respond to fertilizer.  The flowering was really incredible (this is usually a plant of limestone screes), but the plants maintained their compactness.
More pictures later and then I hope that Cliff will weigh in with pictures of what everything looked like the two weeks after we left.

RickR wrote:

Sensational is right, Anne!  Especially like the variation of Rhodiola with the red accents.  I didn't know R. glacialis was more than just white.  Thanks again.

Rick, I'm so glad that you mentioned the Rhodiola.  I think they're quite fancy and they seem to be stepchildren among the alpines.  We have some in the Rockies which are gorgeous.

Odds and ends - pictures of plants seen on various days that I don't think are duplicates of plants already shown.  On any given day we would see gentians and other wonderful plants but it's possible you might get bored seeing them in each post.  I never get bored seeing them in person!

Skulski wrote:

Wow, I love the Potentilla nitida and the Oxytropis, especially.  I started the former from seed this year - would that it could ever reach the glory of those in your photos!

Lori, I haven't had much luck with Potentilla nitida (three blooms after three years in the garden and then it died from exhaustion), but that may have had a lot to do with the fact that this is a very dry garden.  Oxytropis jacquinii, on the other hand, blooms beautifully in the garden and maintains its alpine stature at 250' above sealevel.  The foliage remains excellent, no mold or mildew despite terrible humidity, and it is very floriferous.  It lasted 6 years before dying during this terrible weather year.

Booker wrote:

Sorry Anne, but would you please check your last image ... the foliage is much more R. seguieri than R.alpestris from this perspective?

Just checked the picture, Cliff, and of course you're absolutely right.  I just changed the name tag.  That picture is R. seguieri.  Attached is the real Ranunculus alpestris, which was hiding in the computer.  Please start showing your pictures.  I really want to see what things looked like in the next two weeks since we saw mostly the earliest things.