Pagina 45 - Juliana_Book_eng

45
Armeria alpina Willd. – Alpine Thrift
According to popular belief, the plant that saved the life of badly wounded
Goldenhorn is in fact the Pink Cinquefoil (Potentilla nitida). The well-known
mountain photographer Jaka Čop, on the other hand, was very fond of
remembering the story told to him in his youth by his father at his home at
Bohinj. The plant was instead supposed to be the Alpine thrift, that allegedly
grew from drops of blood of the legendary white chamois with golden horns.
This species prospers in rock crevices, pastures, and gravelly grasslands in the
alpine belt of the Julian and Kamniško-Savinjske Alps and in the Karavanke
mountain chain.
The general distribution extends to the central and southern European
mountains. The species is alpine, but the genus has a mainly Mediterranean
distribution.
Aruncus dioicus (Walter) Fernald – Buck's Beard
According to popular belief, many plants that flower around Midsummer Day
have a magic power. On Midsummer Day, the sun exerts its greatest power and
nature is full of life force. One of the species dedicated to the ancient slavic Sun
God Kresnik is the Goat’s Beard, which has great defensive powers, for it
protects us from witches, all evil spirits and even lightning.
It is a perennial herb with a simple stem that reaches 80-200 cm in height; the
Goat’s Beard is thus one of our largest perennial herbs. The leaves are soft,
twice to three times pinnately parted. The flowers are unisexual and dioecious.
Female flowers have white petals, while male flowers are yellowish.
In Slovenia, this species thrives in shady forests, among shrubs and in
clearings, in more or less wet and shady sites. It can be found in western,
central and eastern Europe, as well as in the temperate zones of Asia and North America.
Asparagus tenuifolius Lam. – Wild Asparagus
This species is a member of the asparagus family (Asparagaceae), its main
characteristic being that the leaves are substituted by modified stems called
phyllocladia. The wild asparagus has an upright herbaceous stem and needle-
like phyllocladia which, however, are not evergreen and prickly, as in the
mediterranean asparagus, but tender and capilliform. The flowers are whitish
and green-striped. The fruits are red berries.
The species can be found all over Slovenia in light forests and amongst shrubs,
from the lowlands to the montane belt. The general distribution extends widely
in southern Europe, the Ukraine and Asia Minor.
As in other asparagus species, the young shoots, once cooked, are edible.
Aster alpinus L. subsp. alpinus – Alpine Aster
“The Alpine Aster excels among other plants with its rare contrast of colours in
the inflorescence: around a golden yellow centre, a fairly wide wonderful pale
violet ring is set”, wrote Ferdinand Seidl in 1918 in his booklet The Vegetation
of our Alps.
The alpine aster is a member of the family Asteraceae, characterized by their
numerous, often differently shaped flowers, which are grouped in heads
(inflorescences that remind us of a virtual flower).
The alpine aster is an up to 15 cm tall plant. The basal leaves are fluffy and
stalked, while the stem leaves are sessile (without a stalk). The inflorescence is
a 4-6 cm wide head In the middle of it, the so-called disc flowers are situated,
which are tubular, yellow and bisexual. On the edge, ligulate flowers are
located, which are violet or bluish violet and only female. The plant thrives on limestone ground, dry sunny grasslands,
scree and rocks of our Alps as well as in Trnovski gozd and Mt Snežnik. The general distribution of this arctic-alpine
plant extends from the mountains of central and southern Europe to the the Ural and Altai mountains, Siberia and
North America.