Pagina 65 - Juliana_Book_eng

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a characteristic white, floury covering beneath, which is why the plant acquired
its Latin (as well as the English and Slovenian) name. The pink flowers with a
yellow throat are arranged in an umbel.
The species grows in wet meadows and marshes from the lowlands to the
montane belt, most often in the Alpine area. The general distribution is arctic-
alpine.
Pulsatilla alpina (L.) Delarbre subsp. alpina – Alpine Pasque Flower
The genus Pulsatilla is related to the anemones, but differs from them by its
fruit: the necks of fertilized ovaries extend a great deal and become covered by
hairs, developing into the characteristic “broom” of hairy little fruits. The hairs
help it in the dissemination.
The Alpine Pasque Flower usually has white flowers, but the outer tepals can
also be slightly violet or reddish.
In Slovenia, the plant can be found in rocky grasslands on limestone bedrock in
the Julian and Kamniško-Savinjske Alps, the Karavanke Mts and Mt Snežnik.
The general distribution extends in the southern Alps and the northwestern
Dinarides.
Ranunculus seguieri Vill. subsp. seguieri – Seguier’s Buttercup
Two hired plant collectors brought this white-flowered buttercup from Mali
Stol (Vajnež) to the botanist Baron Karel Zois. He, in turn, sent the live plant,
together with soil, to the naturalist F. K. Wulfen in Klagenfurt, who wrote in
1790 that Seguier’s buttercup prospers in Carniola as well.
The species can be found on damp and rocky grassy slopes, in rock crevices
and on scree in the Alpine belt and occurs in the Western and Eastern Alps,
Lombardy and the central Apennines. In Slovenia, it occurs only at two sites in
the Karavanke Mts; the site at Vajnež has been known since more than two
centuries, while after World War II the species was discovered on Begunjščica
Mt as well.
Rhaponticoides alpina (L.) M.V. Agab. & Greuter – Alpine Knapweed
The genus Centaurea could be called ‘centaur herb’, as it acquired its name
from the Centaur Chiron, the horse with a human torso and a human head. In
antiquity, several medicinal plants were called with this term, because Greek
mythology says that Chiron was a skillful physician and a miraculous healer.
Slovenia is inhabited by 24 Centaurea species. The rarest among them is the
alpine knapweed which, however, would be searched for in vain in our Alps in
spite of its name.
In the Reports of the Museum Society for Carniola (Mittheilungen des
Musealvereins für Krain) from 1866 we can read that Baron Nikomed Rastern
donated to the Provincial Museum a dry specimen of the alpine knapweed,
collected by him on Mt Čaven above Ajdovščina. At that time, the species was new to Carniola and the Primorje
region.
Baron Rastern (1806-1875), who lived at Češenik above Dob near Domžale, was an amateur botanist. He established a
relatively comprehensive herbarium, which is now kept at the Slovenian Museum of Natural History and contains,
among other species, an alpine knapweed collected by him on July 13th 1866. The Museum also keeps an “older”
specimen of this plant, found by the Trieste botanist Muzio de’ Tommasini “on the eastern slope of the hill some 60
metres above the village of Merče, which is situated between the karst train stations of Sežana and Divača.”
The Alpine Knapweed can be easily distinguished from other species of the genus. It is 40-100 cm tall and has blue–
green, dissected leaves. The pale yellow flowers are gathered in heads; the middle involucral bracts. without
appendages, have a leathery margin.
In Slovenia, this plant can be found in open karst forests, on rocky terrains and on scree in the vicinity of Sežana
(Merče, Povirska gora, Tabor), as well as on the edge of Trnovski gozd on Mt Čaven.
The general distribution extends to the southern edge of the Alps, with scattered occurrencies in Spain, Italy, Slovenia,
Bosnia, Herzegovina and Serbia.