Читать книгу Walking in Austria. 101 routes - day walks, multi-day treks and classic hut-to-hut tours онлайн

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Many of the best-known alpines such as gentians, anemones, soldanellas and primulas flower early in the lower valleys shortly after winter’s snow has melted – on occasion as the snow melts, with exposed islands of turf bursting into flower in the midst of a mottled snowfield. But as the snowline recedes up the hillside, these same flowers appear higher up, while those of the lower valleys may have faded or disappeared completely. By the middle of July grazing cattle will have cleared the upper pastures of most of the flowers, but above those pastures rock faces and screes that are inaccessible to domestic animals will give a sometimes startling display of alpines, often luxuriant but slow-growing cushion plants that exploit what may seem to the untrained eye to be an entirely hostile environment.

In the west, in Vorarlberg with its mix of lime and granite formations, a rich variety of flowers is there to be enjoyed, among the most common being arnica, edelweiss and saxifrage. Adjacent to the Lindauer Hut in the Rätikon Alps there’s a noted alpine garden in which visitors can identify specific plants that are likely to be in flower at any given time and place.