Favourite plant places : mountain pastures and rocky outcrops

FAVOURITE PLANT PLACES : Mountain pastures and rocky outcrops

Asked where my favourite plant place is I can only lump mountain meadows and rocky places together; They all have their special thrills and their own characteristics depending on the rock, the altitude, the season. The meadows  have to be seen at their flowery best  before they are cut for hay. Higher, above the tree-line the cattle are grazed during the summer so the pastures aren’t cut. Wandering through the little patchwork of meadows among the trees we see a wonderland of great numbers of species with orchids, salvias, all sorts of daisy species, vetches, clovers and cranesbills, irises and lilies, all colours, some familiar, mostly a new thrill with every step. Equally distracting are the insects, from butterflies and day-flying moths, to crickets, grasshoppers, beetles , hoverflies....

Mountain pansies

 

Elderflower Orchids

Our love affair with the mountains started in the early ‘70s when we and the kids, only about ten years old at the time, went camping through France to the Pyrenees. Once among the mountains we saw only the lower wooded slopes for the first two or three days. The tops were invisible because of low cloud. Indeed we had no idea whether there were any tops! But we were happily absorbed by the flowers and birds we were seeing lower down.

Then one morning very early I got out of the van for a leg stretch and there in the distance the pink-tinged dawn cloud was tearing apart to reveal high silvery grey peaks. I rousted the others out and we all stood gazing at more and more of the mountains, far higher than we had even dreamed of. We hastily choked down our breakfast and headed for the distant view. It took us the better part of the day following the map and the possible roads to get to a tiny lane cut out of the mountainside. It climbed steeply up out of the wide flat-bottomed valley, till we came to a rough track leading between the trees. We bumped and rattled the van cautiously upwards till we came to a small level clearing with a forest of big firs to our left, and a small stream running down a shallow valley to our right. Looking upwards across open pasture we could see a sharp rocky col between rocky ridges rising upwards on both sides.

The map showed us that we had stumbled onto the southern slopes a of a big mountain complex. At over 2900 metres, it’s one of the highest in the range of the Pyrenees forming the border between France and Spain. I am jealously and deliberately not giving any details although commonsense tells me that the Pyrenees now, 50 years on, aren’t the secluded and mostly lesser known place they once were. In fact, a few years ago the telly showed the Tour de France taking that narrow little lane up out of the valley.

 A couple of lads appeared, driving a few cows up into the forest. A man in a battered old car followed and he bellowed at the boys for letting the cows wander the wrong way. He assured us it was OK to camp there; it was common land, and he warned us not to drink from the stream but to go up to a side branch further up where the water was good.

I quote from our log of the trip:

The next morning we were up at 6 and rushed away up the mountain with only a cup of coffee and a slice of bara brith in an effort to beat the flies. A great flock of thirty or more Griffon Vultures was already soaring over the peak. We left the track, bordered by magnificent clumps of bugloss, and fought our way up the valley. The stream was mainly lost among a jumble of boulders. There was no path, and we picked our way up, first on one side then the other. There was Trollius growing by the stream and Martagons in bud, and little ferns in the shade of the boulders  and a huge crop of strawberries which held Kim up. We heard strange little bird calls and Angus spotted Crested Tits in the trees alongside. 

Alpenrose

It was already getting warm when we came out into delightful meadows with a wealth of butterflies, and then more stony ground with little bushes of pink  Alpenrose and a deep pink thornless rose. 

The snow patch we were heading for was above us, perched on a cone of scree at the foot of a huge limestone cliff. Scrambling up the scree to the edge of the pock-marked snow, dirty with a film of rock dust, it was oozing in the sunshine and leaves and little mauve spears of crocuses were appearing through it and pink and yellow Primulas were flowering close by. Growing in the crevices of the cliff beyond were Ramondas and great pendulous inflorescences of a handsome Saxifrage. We didn’t beat the flies.”

Ramonda

 

Saxifrage

We spent a few days exploring the slopes and rocky outcrops, never getting anywhere near the summit; the whole area was too big and we weren’t equipped or knowledgeable enough to contemplate serious mountain climbing. We were happy with  lilies, gentians, wolfsbane and a myriad rock plants, vultures and honey buzzards overhead , crag martins and wallcreepers on the great rocky outcrops above, still with patches of snow in the shadows, and scops owls calling alongside our camp at night.. 

Some years later, tempted by a narrow track running up into the mountains in Northern Italy, we set off in the van, and soon realized that we were on a narrow groove cut out of the mountainside with a precipitous unguarded drop to our right, with no passing places let alone anywhere to turn so we had to go on. After creeping along cautiously, over even narrower places where the rocks were crumbling away, we at last got out into open meadow uplands with the 2300+ metre summit of Monte Pavione above. We were confronted by a series of precipitous rocky cliffs separated by steep grassy slopes. The faded blue paint marks showing the path soon disappeared and it looked as if it would be impossible to get up that way. And anyway, we said to each other as we headed upwards, we don’t want to get to the top, just wander around and look at the flowers.....We say that every time we climb a mountain.

Cliffs and terraces of Monte Pavione. Dolomites in the distance.

Spring Gentians

I quote from our daughter’s log

 “ Leaving the van we trudged upwards below the first great wall to the most gorgeous river of Delphiniums, Wolfsbane, Trollius  and Dusky Cranesbills growing in a damp gully running off down the valley. The blue paint marks fizzled out but a bit further up  past rocky outcrops with lovely saxifrages, Eidelweiss and bushy Daphnes we met  a path that took us up through a patch of pine forest .Beyond this, the path was gorgeous with occasional plant-rich rockeries to clamber up over, gaining height all the while. Lots of fluffy Pulsatilla seed-heads, until we came out on the high grassy top. The sun had risen and when the mist cleared it was quite warm.  A large flock of chattering Alpine Choughs wheeled in a valley below. It was a very steep climb up to the ridge to the summit so that Mum lost interest in botany!  It was quite spectacular. We walked along a narrow limestone pavement which bordered a steep grassy slope studded with electric blue Spring Gentains to the left and steep screes down a massive cwm to the right. I hope it’s our highest climb for all that effort.”

 

We got back to the van in a rushed scramble, racing each other down the steep slopes. While I was getting a very late lunch, Tony snoozed, Angus drew and no-one noticed Kim filching a handful of salt to go out and make friends with a curious cow who had left her scattered herd and come over, great clanking bell on a leather collar round her neck. The salt was licked up greedily and she got quite frisky when there was no more. Kim bolted back in the backdoor of the van closely followed by the jolie vache who got head and horns in the narrow back door but stuck at the shoulders, fortunately. Our giggles turned to concern as she decided there was to be no more treat and tried to extricate herself. Tony had to get hold of her head and, by twisting a bit, removed her!

 We meet these mountain cows taking themselves down the road, standing, invisible in the cool shade of road tunnels, and grazing in the upland pastures. They are very confiding.

These were cooling off in patches of mist sweeping up one side of a mountain road.

Years later, soon after Tito had died but before Yugoslavia fell apart, Tony and I drove the length and breadth of the country, camping where we could in our little 2-man tent. I We had a trying time at the border as we crossed from Austria. We joined a long slow queue. The two men in the car in front of us had to open up their boot and behind boxes was revealed a deer carcase which was promptly confiscated. When it was our turn, the taciturn official took our passports and although all our paperwork was in order, he wouldn’t let us have them back till we had coughed up 60 Deutchmarks. Aggrieved at the blatant extortion we set off into the fascinating but already rather disturbing and uneasy country.

Red Helleborine

In the northern mountains of what is now Slovenia, we walked up yet another track through a scatter of little wooden houses and on up into meadows between patches of beech woodland. Red and  White Helleborines, big mauve Corydalis, Herb Paris , Ladys Slipper Orchids, and other woodland plants absorbed us, then looking at bare patches of soil on the  little-used track we realized we could see the large and smaller footprints of bears. They must have been a mother and cub, and just as we had decided they could be dangerous if stumbled up, there was a grunting cough from beneath the low-hanging beech branches. Tony says I leapt into his pocket! I don’t know about that, but I certainly found myself shrinking behind him. It was a deer! Further up in increasingly dense woodland we came across a copious heap of what could only have been bear poop, fresh though not quite steaming, so she was still in the vicinity and we decided to withdraw....

Yellow Foxgloves and Hay Rattle in mountain meadows

The whole of that first experience nearly 50 years ago in the Pyrenees  was very intense and so packed with newness that although we were only there a few days before the clouds rolled down again and sent us on our way, those few days had such a profound effect on us all, that as a family or separately, we have been to mountains pretty-well  all over the world ever since; no range ever the same.

Watched over by Lammergaier, the Bearded Vulture or Bone Crusher

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