Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

General Subjects => Travel / Places to Visit => Topic started by: Vincent on June 21, 2016, 01:03:03 PM

Title: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 21, 2016, 01:03:03 PM
This year I had the chance to make several trips to the alps and I would like to share some of the pictures. I did visit some non-mountainous Provence areas on my first trip, which was at the end of february, but the three other trips were concentrated on the alps. I will begin with some pictures from february.

Anemone hortensis
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 21, 2016, 01:29:07 PM
Not exactly sure what this one is called. Matricaria maybe. Some vineyards where completely covered in it.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 21, 2016, 01:49:59 PM
Posting pictures doesn't work for me, I've tried at least a dozen times. I end up on an empty page, and my post is not being posted. Can anybody help me out here?
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Maggi Young on June 21, 2016, 02:18:54 PM
Hi Vincent  - no idea what is happening for you - but there are great photos from you appearing here.   You do not see photos in preview - perhaps that is the issue? Pix only appear when posted.
 John W. reported that he only saw the text of his posts until he clicked on the post, but I have no idea what's happening there either.  So many people using so many different tablets etc that it is hard to know what the problem might be.

As I say , your posts are appearing here perfectly.  8)
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 21, 2016, 02:46:42 PM
Thank you for answering. My initial post worked perfectly fine, but after that, out of a dozen attempts only one came through. I thought it might be too many pictures for one post so I reduced the amount but that doesn't help. I just get redirected to an empty page. I will try again.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 21, 2016, 02:50:36 PM
Iris lutescens
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 21, 2016, 02:57:42 PM
Five attempts later. Only the first one came through. Maybe it has something to do with the resize function so I'll try resizing myself.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:10:06 PM
Helleborus foetidus
Arisarum vulgare
Ophrys fusca
Euphorbia characias
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:12:48 PM
Barlia robertiana
Iris unguicularis

Uploading works fine now that I resize the pictures myself.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:20:08 PM
Moving on to April. On my way to the alps I made a stop in Crémieu to see Pulsatilla rubra. It was a fantastic start and a lovely day.

Primula vulgaris (P. acaulis in Flora Alpina  ???)
Viola sp. with much larger flowers than its neighbors
and Primula x polyantha (P. veris x P. vulgaris)
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:23:25 PM
Pulsatilla rubra. What a way to start the holidays. I could photograph these for hours. And I probably did  :)
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:35:54 PM
My next stop was in the Alpes Maritimes, in the area above Grasse.

Iris lutescens
Tragopogon porrifolius
Ophrys incubacea ?
Ophrys sp.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:36:45 PM
Hepatica nobilis
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:38:28 PM
More Hepatica

and Androsace chaixii
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:40:38 PM
Daphne laureola

Primula veris

Hepatica nobilis
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:42:13 PM
Hepatica nobilis. So much variation!
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:45:32 PM
Erythronium dens-canis

Gagea
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 01:59:59 PM
Corydalis solida

Fritillaria montana
or orientalis or caussolensis. Seen on the Plateau de Caussols.
The following document says F. caussolensis is synonymic with F. montana (http://www.ville-ge.ch/cjb/publications/cando641/C641_133-141.pdf (http://www.ville-ge.ch/cjb/publications/cando641/C641_133-141.pdf)).
 Flora Alpina calls it F. orientalis.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:01:56 PM
Fritillaria montana

not easy to capture it's true beauty
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:03:08 PM
Fritillaria involucrata
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:06:00 PM
Hyacinthoides italica (syn. Scilla italica)

Hepatica nobilis

Primula veris

Draba aizoides
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:08:05 PM
Crocus versicolor
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:13:44 PM
Crocus versicolor

Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. provincialis
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:24:41 PM
Moving on to May. Again french alps only. My first stop was around the Mont Cenis area and from there on I moved south with my last station being, again, the Plateau de Caussols.

Saxifraga oppositifolia

Callianthemum coriandrifolium. I saw many plants in one spot but only one was flowering. Since it was my first day I was sure I'd be seeing plenty more and also the weather was very bad so I only took a couple of pictures, non of which came out very good. Still it's a wonderful plant, and now at least I know where to go in years to come.

Pulsatilla alpina maybe ssp. cottianea? Growing on Mont Cenis

I find it difficult to find out the names of Violas, at least I don't have the proper litarature for it. This one was very lovely, in many different colors (white, yellow, purple and mixed) growing along the Pulsatillas
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:27:06 PM
Viola sp.

Pulsatilla alpina ssp. ...
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Thomas Huber on June 22, 2016, 02:32:49 PM
Great photos of a well known area.
Many thanks for posting, Vincent!
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:35:10 PM
Pulsatilla montana - Puy-St-Pierre - Most were already over. Many meadows were covered with seedheads

Senecio doronicum

Vitaliana primuliflora (Androsace vitaliana in Flora Alpina)
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:37:00 PM
Myosotis alpina

Pulsatilla montana

Viola sp

Vitaliana primuliflora
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:45:04 PM
Thank you Thomas! Got a few more to come

Ranunculus pyrenaeus, or R. kuepferi as Flora Alpina manages to confuse me again. These plants look a lot like what I saw in the Pyrenees, just much more beautiful. Bigger flowers and many plants producing double or semi-double flowers. The picture for R. kuepferi in the Flora Alpina and what I saw before as that species looks very different from the plants pictured here.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:47:13 PM
Crocus albiflorus I guess

Soldanella sp.

Pulsatilla vernalis
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:48:51 PM
Pulsatilla vernalis

Scorzonera or maybe Tragopogon
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:52:39 PM
Dactylorhiza sambucina

Daphne cneorum

Pulsatilla alpina ssp. alpina ?

Androsace carnea maybe ssp. brigantiaca (A. adfinis ssp. brigantiaca in Flora Alpina)
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:55:35 PM
Gentiana verna ?

Gentiana sp (clusii or acaulis)

No name for this

Pulsatilla alpina ssp. alpina ?
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:57:04 PM
Pulmonaria sp.

Primula marginata

Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:58:34 PM
Pulsatilla alpina ssp. alpina ?

Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 02:59:55 PM
Anemone ranunculoides

Primula farinosa

Tulipa australis
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 03:01:38 PM
Tulipa australis

Globularia cordifolia

Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 03:04:18 PM
Plateau de Caussols

Helianthemum appeninum

Leucanthemum burnatii

Anthyllis montana



Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 03:07:46 PM
Orchis morio

Erysimum sp.

Polygala sp.

Orchis tridentata (I think)

Helianthemum appeninum
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 22, 2016, 03:10:52 PM
Paeonia officinalis ssp. huthii

Orchis militaris

Anthericum liliago
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Maggi Young on June 22, 2016, 04:16:53 PM
Vincent -  this "trip" with you is  wonderful - thank you for all your effort to post.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Gabriela on June 22, 2016, 10:43:00 PM
Wow Vincent - beautiful places and so many great pictures! Thanks for showing, I'll come back to the thread to look more closely through them.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Karaba on June 23, 2016, 09:48:17 AM
Moving on to April. On my way to the alps I made a stop in Crémieu to see Pulsatilla rubra. It was a fantastic start and a lovely day.

Primula vulgaris (P. acaulis in Flora Alpina  ???)
Viola sp. with much larger flowers than its neighbors
and some Primula hybrids. They appeared wherever P. vulgaris and P. veris meet. Does anybody know what they are called?
This is Primula x polyantha, a very common hybrid. Other hybrid between P. vulgaris and elatior (x digeana) and between veris and elatior (x media) are much rarer.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Karaba on June 23, 2016, 09:50:00 AM
My next stop was in the Alpes Maritimes, in the area above Grasse.

Iris lutescens
Tragopogon porrifolius ?
And I don't know about the Ophrys.
OK for Tragopogon,
First Ophrys might be incubacea.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Karaba on June 23, 2016, 09:53:30 AM
Plateau de Caussols

Helianthemum appeninum

Leucanthemum graminifolium

Don't know the name for this one (IMGP8886)
This can not be Leucanthemum graminifolium which is endemic from south Massif central and Corbières. Probably Leucanthemum burnati
Last one looks like Anthyllis montana
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Karaba on June 23, 2016, 10:02:44 AM
Crocus versicolor

Narcissus pseudonarcissus. Can anybody tell me if there are different subspecies in the alps? Flora Alpina doesn't recognize any, but do they ever? :) If there are different ones, does anybody know which one this might be?
Tison described the ssp. from caussols as ssp. provincialis. It is smaller and usually there is no color difference between tepal and paracorola. It has sometimes be confused with N. minor.

About Scilla italica, it's now Hyacinthoides italica. There were a lots of recent changes in name. For the french flora, I only use Tela botanica (http://www.tela-botanica.org/page:eflore) and Flora Gallica, the last french flora. You can use Siflore  (http://siflore.fcbn.fr)for the distribution
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Karaba on June 23, 2016, 10:06:12 AM
Haven't made any efforts towards finding out the name of this one. Do you know? :)

Looks like Senecio doronicum.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Karaba on June 23, 2016, 10:24:02 AM
Great pictures Vincent and a lot of plants that I would like to see in nature ! I will have to contact you if I organize a trip in the following years  :P


about Anemone alpina : Flora gallica gather all white subspecies in alpina, differences between ssp are not clear and this need more studies.
Can't help with viola, i have the same problem  :P
Gentiana verna : not sure this is verna, maybe another very close species.
Androsace : this is now Androsace adfinis. A. carnea is from Pyrenées. Same with Ranunculus kuepferii, pyrenaeus is from... Pyrenees.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Armin on June 23, 2016, 06:06:47 PM
Vincent,
wonderful images from the wild. 8)
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:30:43 PM
Thank you everybody!

Thank you very much Yvain for all the informations and corrections, it is so much appreciated! If you need any informations, feel free to contact me, I will happily give you further details.
I very much liked the Primula x polyanthas I saw, they are beautiful. I would love to see some of the other ones you mentioned.
Don't know why I thought it was Leucanthemum graminifolium. I must have picked up the name looking at your photos and forgot to look it up  ;D Both are very lovely, I would love to try them in the garden.
About the Narcissus. Is N. minor growing in the same area as the ssp. provincialis, by that I mean the area around Caussols? By the way, I did not find this in Caussols, but on the Col de Blein, a few kilometres to the north. But I'm guessing it's still the same ssp..?  :)
To my mistake I thought all Androsace carnea would now be called A. adfinis.
With the Ranunculus I was confused because I read in 'Alpine Plants of Europe' by Jim Jermyn that R. pyrenaeus would be occuring in the Alps. And Flora Alpina lists R. pyrenaeus as a synonym for R. kuepferi

I've got a few more pictures to come, maybe some more to correct :)
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:36:14 PM
Last heap of pictures from June. All taken in the area around lake Garda.

Primula glaucescens
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:38:37 PM
The weather was very bad for the most part. But finding many treasures made up for it very much.

Fritillaria tubiformis
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:42:45 PM
Ranunculus thora

Ranunculus montanus maybe

Viola sp.

Geum montanum

This little guy spent quite a few hours with me on the mountain. He followed me from the place I parked my car. I think he was happy to find somebody to accompany him marking his territory :)
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:44:21 PM
Don't know the name of these two

Fritillaria tubiformis

Anemone narcissiflora
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:46:04 PM
Anemone narcissiflora

Clematis alpina

Melampyrum nemorosum

Lago d'Idro
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:48:55 PM
Lago d'Idro again

Potentilla sp

Gentiana clusii

Polygala chamaebuxus smells very nice, a fruity fragrance

Primula spectabilis
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:51:36 PM
Ranunculus bilobus

Pinguicula alpina and Erica carnea

Primula spectabilis & P. auricula

P. auricula
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:54:11 PM
Globularia nudicaulis, Erica carnea, Primula spectabilis

Anemone trifolia

Erica carnea

Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:58:13 PM
Paeonia officinalis

Pulsatilla alpina I think. Can it be confused with Anemone baldensis?
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 07:59:36 PM
Callianthemum kernerianum
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 08:13:01 PM
Callianthemum kernerianum

Beautiful little thing, but mostly single flowered and growing underneath something else (e.g. small shrubs und grasses) so kinda hard to see. I kept looking for plants with multiple flowers but really only found a few. I found one with 5 flowers but it was already going over :)
I was glad to find the Orto Botanico (a small botanic garden) on Monte Baldo, especially because they had info-signs on many of the Monte Baldo species with correct informations regarding altitude. On the internet I had read that C. kernerianum was only growing between !600-1800 m, and in the book 'Guide des fleurs de montagne' by Grey-Wilson & Blamey it says growing under 1500m. In the Orto Botanico it said 1100-2100m so then I knew I just had to go up :)

Globularia nudicaulis

Paederota bonarota
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 08:16:07 PM
Rhodothamnus chamaecistus

Silene acaulis

Daphne cneorum ? honestly not sure how to distinguish D. cneorum and D. petrae

Daphne mezereum
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Vincent on June 23, 2016, 08:19:27 PM
And some more mountain pictures. Thank you for taking a look at my pictures!
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: Karaba on June 24, 2016, 10:27:38 AM
About the Narcissus. Is N. minor growing in the same area as the ssp. provincialis, by that I mean the area around Caussols? By the way, I did not find this in Caussols, but on the Col de Blein, a few kilometres to the north. But I'm guessing it's still the same ssp..?  :)
N. minor have been misidentified in southern french alps because it's look like N. pseudonarcissus provincialis. I don't know the exact distribution of this subspecies, but it's not endemic to Caussols. N. minor is from Spain.
To my mistake I thought all Androsace carnea would now be called A. adfinis.
With the Ranunculus I was confused because I read in 'Alpine Plants of Europe' by Jim Jermyn that R. pyrenaeus would be occuring in the Alps. And Flora Alpina lists R. pyrenaeus as a synonym for R. kuepferi
These are new taxonomical point of view. R. pyrenaeus has long been a synonym of kuepferi or vice-versa. As I said, my reference is now Flora Gallica but taxonomic review can be disappointing. If you use Flore méditerranéenne de France continentale (which is a great book for the french mediterranean flora), there are some differences with Flora Gallica even if JM Tison is co-author of these 2 recent books.
Title: Re: French and Italian Alps 2016
Post by: hadacekf on June 24, 2016, 08:21:09 PM
If the Anemone growing in the Italian Alps, it is A. baldensis.
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