Picos De Europa - Pyrenees - French Alps

[Lori S.]

The Cirque de Gavarnie
Aquilegia pyrenaica
can anybody tell me the name of this plant?

Wonderful plants!  Great to see nice, fresh bloom!
Could the unknown one in this set be a white-flowered Petrocallis pyrenaica?  Clearly a Brassicaceae, anyway.

[Vincent]

Androsace alpina
Viola cenisia
Ranunculus glacialis
Viola cenisia

[Vincent]

Campanula barbata
Draba sp.
Geum reptans
a furry fella on a Pheyteuma globulariifolium

[Vincent]

Saxifraga oppositifolia
Androsace alpina
Saxifraga cespitosa?
Ranunculus glacialis

[tonyg]

Androsace ciliata

Magnificent - far better than those I saw many years ago.  Where in the Pyrenees did you see them?

[Maggi Young]

My word, Vincent!! What a remarkable set of photos - you have been enjoying a very flower-filed summer and it is a pleasure to see them. Thank you so much for sharing them with the Forum. 

[David Nicholson]

Cracking set of images, many thanks for posting them.

[Vincent]

Thank you all for the kind words! I did have a wonderful summer
If anybody could help me out with any of the missing names I would be very happy..

@tonyg I followed the advice of Jim Jermyn, who wrote that Androsace ciliata is growing not too far above the cliffs that make up the Cirque de Gavarnie - and there they were. I walked up to a peak - I don't remember the name - that reached an altitude of 3144m and following the path from there I saw many Androsace ciliata. From about 3100 to 2900 they were quite abundant, but many already over.

[Karaba]

Nice photos. I think was quite early (june ?) since all was over at end of July in the Alps
IMGP5476.jpg is Saxifraga aquatica

[Karaba]

a furry fella on a Pheyteuma sp.

This one (Phyteuma) is globulariifolium.
I think it's the same species in Pyrenees (IMGP3952.jpg) . P. haemisphaericum has longer and thiner leaves (at least, the ones I saw this year in massif Central)

IMGP5365.jpg : the blue is light but there's only one gentiana species with such short leaves in Pyrenees : Gentiana alpina

IMGP5949.jpg and IMGP6515.jpg : Gentiana verna group. I think that it will be hard to know the exact species whithout a close up of the flower, the stem and the leaves (and I'm not enough qualify to determine those species even with these close-ups). 4 species of this group can be found in French Alps : G. verna, brachyphylla, schleicheri and orbicularis (plus G. bavarica, and rostanii)

[Tristan_He]

Leucanthemopsis alpina
Gentiana alpina
I don't know what this is
Rhodiola rosea

Fabulous photos Vincent, puts my efforts to shame.

I'm thinking the 3rd one may be Saxifraga aquatica?

[tonyg]

Saxifraga biflora?
Gentiana brachyphylla?

Saxifraga is very pale and an unusually dense cushion for S. biflora.  This and the foliage which is not as tight as S. oppositifolia suggest it might be Saxifraga x kochii, the hybrid between the above two species.
I think you are correct about the gentian - one flower top right appears to show the very narrow, apparently un-winged calyx.

[Vincent]

Thank you for the Id's Yvain, Tony and Tristan!

@ Karaba I started my trip in the middle of june and came back home at the beginning of august, meaning two weeks in the picos, three weeks in the pyrenees and one week in the french alps. Even in the beginning of my trip in the picos some plants were already over that would normally flower at that time, I think this year everything was very early. But nonetheless many things were still at their peak!

@ TonyG Funny that I took a photo of the hybrid without knowing. There were so many different looking plants and I thought they were all biflora...

@ Lesley Lovely narcissus you got there, I like them very much. Can you confirm that it needs acidic soil? I'm just a little surprised having found it in a calcareous area. But maybe the top layer is of a different ph? Same thing with Lithodora diffusa which apparently needs acidic conditions but seems to thrive in calcareous rock crevices, as my photo proves

[Vincent]

Some more pictures.
Campanula scheuchzeri i would assume, but please prove me wrong! Photographed on the Col De L'Iseran in the french alps. They were very lovely here and much nicer than all the other rotundifolia/scheuchzeri plants I had seen in the picos and the pyrenees - with their giant flowers on short stems they covered big scree areas in a deep blue. Very difficult to photograph, because of the wind!

[Hoy]

Very nice pictures indeed! And very nice plants too

Did you get suggestions for the last 2 of reply #33?

Look like Sax. cespitosa
and Ranunculus glacialis.