Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Travel / Places to Visit => Topic started by: Tony Willis on June 10, 2008, 11:45:29 PM
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my trip to Northern Greece this year was interesting in that I had 10 days of rain (40 hours of torrential rain at Vermion) snow on Kymachalan and hailstones on Mt Falakro and so all the tops of the mountains were pretty much ruined but lower down were wonderful flowers.I then had a four day petrol strike in the middle of the trip which I am pleased to say left me marooned at Mt Olympus and there were land mines on Mt Vermion.Here are some of the flowers
Mt Falacko
saxifrage Mt Falackro.
Mt Kymachalan crocus veluchensis site
Mt Kymachalan viola sp mauve
Mt Kymachalan viola sp yellow
Mt vermion ramonda nathaliae
Mt Vermion ramonda nathaliae
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Some from Olympus
Mt Olympus fritillaria messanensis
jankaea 2 Mt Olympus
Jankaea Mt Olympus
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Tony
It seems the seasons were wrong this year in more than one place. At least we both managed to see some wonderful plants.
I hope there are more to come.
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It was a mess for crocus but I am fortunate in that I was only renewing aquaintance with plants I had seen before.Every crocus pelistericus flower on Kymachalan was dead.They were lying like wet tissue paper on the ground. The other flowers more than made up for it. i will try and sort out a few more pictures.
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I hope you can post some more Tony, these are wonderful. Amazing to see the Jankaea in the wild.
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Landmines on Mt Vermoin
Yikes! Really, why??
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Looks like you didn't get much of a tan Tony ??? ;D
Beautiful shots though - wonderful plants in the wild - hope there's more where this comes from !
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Tony,
Just beautiful - especially to see Jankaea in the wild! I never expected an 'Autobahn' to Mt. Falakron - maybe I am more than 20 years behind the present.
Did you see Viola delphinantha in course of your journey?
Gerd
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Gerd having built ski resorts makes looking at plants so much easier.Falacko now has a large but basic resort and large areas of the mountain are also being quarried for marble so there is an excellent road bit not much conservation.
I did not go high enough on Olympus to see the viola because I was too early.I have seen it in flower in early June just below refuge A when I visited in 1986.
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Lovely shots Tony ... thanks for posting.
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Sorry for having posted the same picture of the ramonda twice.I meant to put one on showing it on a vertical cliff so this is below.The cliff was North facing and dropped away for hundreds of feet with the ramonda growing in crevices. Also a few other plants I found....
Ramonda nathaliae
Drama arum sp
Drama unknown
Mt Kymachalan Iberis.
Mt Kymachalan Pedicularis
Mt Olympus Dentaria
Mt Olympus Saxifrage sp.
Near Parnassus campanula sp.
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A few more of the jankaea to finish with
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Goodness me! It wouldn't be possible to cram more plants into that crevice, would it? 8) What a great sight!
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Tony,
The unknown ' Drama ' is really puzzling and most beautiful. Do you ( or others ) have any idea what it could be? Hypericum for instance? ???
Gerd
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Gerd
sorry no idea,I can usually make a guess at the genus especially the easy ones but in this case no .
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Fascinating pictures, thanks for posting! Looking at the leaves and buds on the unknown I'd say it's some sort of Potentilla?
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Tony,
Saxifraga Falakro = Saxifraga sempervivum
Saxifraga Olympus = Saxifraga scardica
Super plants und pics
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Franz
thanks for the id. I had no idea on the Falacko one,saxifrage identification is not my thing but I was okay on the Olympus one as I looked it up in Wildflowers of Mt Olympus,just had a senior moment when naming the slides.
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There was a down side to my trip which now I have sorted out my pictures I can show.This is a couple of pictures of a jankaea colony on a mossy rock ledge which is within sight of the cafe at Prioni on Mt Olympus. I first saw this in 1986 when I visited with Robert Rolfe.
A picture of this colony in flower is featured in the AGS bulletin Dec 2007 vol 4 page 442 taken on that trip. I have watched it develop since that time on several visits,the last being in October 2006. It is like an old friend and so imagine my dismay on this trip to discover two thirds of it had been collected by neatly cutting it off through the moss.
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I'd say Potentilla for the Drama unknown. Certainly Rosaceae.
The Ramondas and Jankaeas are incredible. Thanks so much for these super pictures Tony.
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Tony, thanks for this wonderful photos - especially I am glad you show Jankaeas in their habitat.
And I am also the opinion it should be a Potentilla. Sad to see the "before and after" picture of the Jankaea population.
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I remember getting a small Ramonda nathalie from Tony Cairns a few years back. Seeing those above reminder me, so I went to the crevice where I'd planted it, hauled out some pink Lily of the Valley from the bark path in front of it and low and behold it is flowering. ;D
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Anthony, could you pull out another bit of pink lily of the valley and send it to me, please?? ;D
Dicentras have overgrown a lot of my white 'muguets des bois' and the pink is gone :(
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I asked Harry Jans yesterday (Harry and Hannie were in Edinburgh, celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the SRGC) if he had seen the wonderful photos here on the Forum of these plants which he gorws so well in his Tufa Towers, etc.... he hadn't, yet! I was surprised to hear that he has never ( again.... as yet) visited Mount Olympus.....since he has a min Mt Olympus in his own garden, i suppose he may be forgiven for that oversight!!