Читать книгу Shorter Walks in the Dolomites. 50 varied day walks in the mountains онлайн

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Unmissable, fat and intensely deep blue trumpet gentians burst through the grass, and there are also daintier star-shaped varieties. Pasture areas also feature orange lilies and the wine-red martagon variety, which vie with each other for brilliance. Stony grass terrain is often colonised by alpenrose bushes, rather like azaleas, with masses of pretty red-pink flowers in late July.

One of the earliest blooms to appear is the alpine snowbell, which has fragile fringed lilac bells that make it visible in snow patches, and it is never far away from hairy pasque flowers in white or yellow. Clearings are the best places to look for the unusual lady’s slipper orchid, recognisable by its maroon petals round a swollen yellow-lipped receptacle, while masses of purple orchids are common in meadows. Gay Rhaetian poppies punctuate dazzling white scree slopes with their patches of bright yellow, never far from clumps of pink thrift or round-leaved pennycress, which is honey-scented. A less commonly encountered flower is the king-of-the-Alps, a striking cushion of bright blue blooms reminiscent of a dwarf version of forget-me-not. A rare treat is the devil’s claw from the Rampion family, which has a pinkish lilac flower with curly pointed stigma that specialises in vertical rock faces. Another rock coloniser is saxifrage, the name literally ‘rock breaker’. Pretty pink cinquefoil also blooms on stone surfaces, its delicate flowers scattered amid starry clusters of silvery-grey leaves.