Northern Greece May 2008

[Tony Willis]

my trip to Northern Greece this year was interesting in that I had 10 days of rain (40 hours of torrential rain at Vermion) snow on Kymachalan and hailstones on Mt Falakro and so all the tops of the mountains were pretty much ruined but lower down were wonderful flowers.I then had a four day petrol strike in the middle of the trip which I am pleased to say left me marooned at Mt Olympus and there were land mines on Mt Vermion.Here are some of the flowers
Mt Falacko
 saxifrage Mt Falackro.
 Mt Kymachalan crocus veluchensis site
 Mt Kymachalan viola sp mauve
 Mt Kymachalan viola sp yellow
 Mt vermion ramonda nathaliae
 Mt Vermion ramonda nathaliae

[Tony Willis]

Some from Olympus

Mt Olympus fritillaria messanensis
 jankaea 2 Mt Olympus
 Jankaea Mt Olympus

[art600]

Tony

It seems the seasons were wrong this year in more than one place.  At least we both managed to see some wonderful plants.

I hope there are more to come.

[Tony Willis]

It was a mess for crocus but I am fortunate in that I was only renewing aquaintance with plants I had seen before.Every crocus pelistericus flower on Kymachalan was dead.They were lying like wet tissue paper on the ground. The other flowers more than made up for it. i will try and sort out a few more pictures.

[Lesley Cox]

I hope you can post some more Tony, these are wonderful. Amazing to see the Jankaea in the wild.

[Maggi Young]

Landmines on Mt Vermoin

Yikes! Really, why??

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Looks like you didn't get much of a tan Tony  

Beautiful shots though - wonderful plants in the wild - hope there's more where this comes from !

[Gerdk]

Tony,
Just beautiful - especially to see Jankaea in the wild! I never expected an 'Autobahn' to Mt. Falakron - maybe I am more than 20 years behind the present.
Did you see Viola delphinantha in course of your journey?

Gerd

[Tony Willis]

Gerd having built ski resorts makes looking at plants so much easier.Falacko now has a large but basic resort and large areas of the mountain are also being quarried for marble so there is an excellent road bit not much conservation.

I did not go high enough on Olympus to see the viola because I was too early.I have seen it in flower in early June just below refuge A when I visited in 1986.

[ranunculus]

Lovely shots Tony ... thanks for posting.

[Tony Willis]

Sorry for having posted the same picture of the ramonda twice.I meant to put one on showing it on a vertical cliff so this is below.The cliff was North facing and dropped away for hundreds of feet with the ramonda growing in crevices. Also a few other plants I found....

 Ramonda nathaliae
 Drama arum sp
 Drama unknown
 Mt Kymachalan Iberis.
 Mt Kymachalan Pedicularis
 Mt Olympus Dentaria
 Mt Olympus Saxifrage sp.
Near Parnassus campanula sp.

[Tony Willis]

A few more of the jankaea to finish with

[Maggi Young]

Goodness me! It wouldn't be possible to cram more plants into that crevice, would it?  What a great sight!

[Gerdk]

Tony,
The unknown ' Drama ' is really puzzling and most beautiful. Do you ( or others ) have any idea what it could be? Hypericum for instance?   

Gerd

[Tony Willis]

Gerd

sorry no idea,I can usually make a guess at the genus especially the easy ones  but in this case no .