Читать книгу Walking and Trekking in the Gran Paradiso. Alta Via 2 trek and 28 day walks онлайн

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The relatively limited woods are composed mainly of mixed conifer, dominated by larch and Arolla pine on the upper edge, along with juniper shrubs. Common are curious dwarf versions of trees such as the net-leaved willow and ice-age relict dwarf birch. Larch woods also share their habitat with alpenrose shrubs and their pretty pink blooms, as well as wine-red martagon lilies and the minute flowers produced by bilberry and cowberry plants, in preparation for their late-summer fruit.

Edelweiss

The star of the park's flowers is the record-holding glacier crowfoot, which grows at heights of up to 4200m. Also at high altitudes, colonisers of screes and bare rock, such as lilac round-leaved penny-cress and sturdy saxifrage (‘rock breaker’) penetrate cracks and fragment the stone. Moving downwards a little, stunning carpets of white ranunculus and pasque flowers cover high pasture basins such as the Piano del Nivolet. Marshland is often punctuated with soft white cotton grass and tiny carnivorous butterworts, the blue-violet common variety or yellow-white alpine type. The famous edelweiss is relatively unusual due to a lack of the calcareous terrain it requires, but another ice-age relict, the delicate and rare twinflower, grows in several valleys on open grassland. Elegant orchids are widespread in meadows. The dark reddish-brown black vanilla variety has a surprisingly strong cocoa aroma close-up.