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As the snow recedes in early spring, the lower valleys reveal such perennial favourites as soldanellas, gentians, primulas and anemones that flower, seed and then become dwarfed by the grass and coarse foliage of the burgeoning meadows. And when they’re all-but forgotten, more of the same appear higher up the hillside as a later spring season arrives in late May and June to chase the departing snows from the true ‘alps’ – the summer pasturelands with their groups of chalets and haybarns. In June and early July a profusion of mountain flowers adorn these pastures in a vibrant tapestry, until grazing cattle or the farmer’s scythe have cleared them. In mid-July and August alpines are evident on glacial moraines, among screes, in narrow crevices and open rock faces; tiny cushions of flowering plants, some appearing little more than a stain on a rock, others that display a cluster of rosette-like leaves from which a stem of brilliant colour protrudes. Every one is a gem.

The soldanella referred to above is a tiny violet-blue tassle-headed snowbell (Soldanella alpina) that often appears to burn its way through melting patches of snow. Drifts of crocus appear at the same time, the white or purple Crocus albiflorus and C. vernus, the rose-red primula (Primula hirsuta), and the spring anemone (Pulsatilla vernalis) that also flowers as the snow melts.