BEARS AND FLOWERS IN THE JULIAN ALPS

BEARS AGAIN
The Triglav National Park has lynx, bears, chamois, and eagles.
John has seen a Golden Eagle on one of his cycle rides and two small deer on one of his runs. We now have a bird book but need a European flower book and a European wild mammal book.

I have today 18.08.08 identified the gentian - it is the Willow Gentian Gentiana Asclepiadea.


FLOWERS AND CHANGING SEASONS
We travelled through many late winters and early springs since we left a cold and very wet English spring in April. We went up mountains to bare trees and dark forests and the next day come down to new green leaf and spring flowers. Full spring did not happen till we arrived in Krakow and then we journeyed for some months between spring and early summer. In Poland and Lithuania we experienced the constant cold summer rain of England but in the Baltics found drought and sunshine.
When we reached Lapland we chased the sun until it never left the sky but at the cost of returning to winter snow, bare stunted trees and lichen and moss.
Everywhere flowers have delighted me but names and species escape my memory and often we travelled not too fast but too quickly to stop and look properly.
In Lichtenfels we saw wood anemones and periwinkles, in Poland the forest floor was covered with lily of the valley and everywhere we stopped people were selling and buying small bunches of them. Lilac began to bloom in Poland, Finland had spectacular lupins, in Lapland there were small yarrow under the trees. As we travelled through Sweden summer flowers appeared in great abundance and rich variety.
Here in Slovenia there are many alpine and other flowers - Mauve cyclamen under the trees, verbascum, a lovely gentian coloured flower on a leafed stem like Solomon’s seal. We missed orchids but see the seed heads on the roadside. Riverbanks have wild thyme. Wish I wasn’t so ignorant of plants but when I leave a garden my botanical knowledge such as it is, remains dug in with the shrubs – I think I have to have my ‘hands-on’ to learn.
It is a bit like this quote quoted by Bruce Chatwin in ‘Songlines’

When I rest my feet, my mind also ceases to function.
J G Hamman