Switzerland 2008

[tonyg]

I have just returned from a 3 and a half day trip to my favourite place!  A deciding factor was the chance to meet a fellow-forumist and good freind.  I stayed at the railway station at Kleine Scheidegg.  It may sound bizarre but with no trains and very few people between 7pm and 8am it was a great choice and staying relatively high up means there are plenty of flowers to be enjoyed right outside the hotel.  Oh and the food was good and the half board package cost just £42 a night.

Here are the first few pics.  Thomas is still on holiday with his family and will doubtless have suitably embarrassing photos to post in a week or so but I had a day and a half on my own which will feed a few posts before Thomas gets home.

Campanula scheuzeri was abundant at this time, this one was just above Kleine Sheidegg.

Final pic is for Maggi who will probably be able to shed some light on the subject.

[Lesley Cox]

Lovely pictures Tony, many thanks for the start of this new Topic. Great to see Thomas in good heart.

When Maggi is well again she'll be over the moon about THAT picture. Wonder who the young man is. It doesn't look much like Ian.

[Joakim B]

Nice pictures Tony
Looks like You had great fun. And we have not seen any crocus


Lesley. Even though Maggi claims to be a child bride, I hope she was older than that so it does not need to be Ian. Hard to tell about the boy. A need of a haircut and then a beard on him and then... Who knows?

Kind regards
Joakim

[Paddy Tobin]

Tony,

Mary and I were in Wengen about a fortnight ago and, among other outings, walked from Mannlichen to Kleine Scheiddegg, from Kleine Scheiddegg to the foot of the Eiger - Eigergletcher? and then back down to Wengen. It was an exceptional experience with wonderful walks and fabulous plants.

I have hesitated to post any photographs as I was not sure of all identifications but now I shall watch your postings with great interest and will, I hope, add all the correct names to the many, many photographs I took while there.

Paddy

[Lesley Cox]

Even though Maggi claims to be a child bride, I hope she was older than that so it does not need to be Ian. Hard to tell about the boy. A need of a haircut and then a beard on him and then... Who knows?

I think the lad would need to slim down quite a lot Joakim but then, I can't even tell the boys from the girls nowadays. Trouble is, they're all growing up so quickly.

[tonyg]

Arriving in Wengen at 4pm on Monday 21st July I quickly made my way up onto the Mannlichen ridge.  This is one of my most favourite places.  The first 2 pics are a bit of a cheat as they were taken on Thursday when the sun shone brightly.  On the Monday it was overcast and VERY cold   However this didn't stop me spending over 2 hours walking to Kleine Sheidegg, although carrying a full pack did slow me down a bit

There was little sign of wildlife although the chap illustrated as 'in situ' owed more to Flanders and Swan's "there ... ... ... was a face I thought I knew" ... I'll let someone else fill in the missing words

The Mannlichen has some of the most flowery turf I've ever seen.  In high summer there are masses of different flowering plants.  Some of the early gentians and primula were just hanging on but campanulas, clovers, and daisies abounded in July.

Also illustrated are Pedicularis verticillata (red/pink), Pedicularis tuberosa (yellow), Aster alpinus and Minuartia verna

[tonyg]

Another highlight of that first walk was the profusion of Campanula barbata.  Mostly very short and compact at this altitude and exposure there was a some variation in flower colour and the shape of the hairy bellflowers.  I quite like the 'dumpy' ones while others were like the ones that flowered in my garden a month or more ago, longer and narrower.  Remember the first Campanula barbata I'll show another pic taken 3 sunny days later in another post.  Also quite common was Phyteuma hemisphaericum a very dwarf member of the campanulaceae, while Saxifraga bryioides grew on the shady side of a few giant boulders above the path to Kleine Scheidegg.

As I yomped into Kleine Scheidegg at around 730pm the Eiger loomed out of the mists for another moment, a promise of better days ahead.

[Joakim B]

Nice photos and nice Camanulas (Blue bells or blå klockor for a Swede). Nice with the colour variation.
Keep them coming You are doing a great work.
Kind regards
Joakim

[hadacekf]

Tony,
Your beautiful  pictures brought back pleasant memories of Wengen, Kleine Scheiddegg and Eiger about 53 years ago!
Thank you

[Lesley Cox]

Or as someone once said, "As the noo gnu soon knoo at the zoo, Guiness is good for you."

[tonyg]

Thanks for the kind comments. 
The first full day dawned cold and overcast but there was a promise of better to come as the morning progressed.  I progressed very slowly down from Kleine Scheidegg towards Biglenalp.  Many flowers in these high meadows, mostly common but often in profusion.
Geranium sylvaticum + spot the buds of an onion
Allium schoenoprasum
Dactylorhizas alpenty.  Often confusing, the first seemed to fit Dactylorhiza majalis but then there were much paler ones and later some which resembled D incarnata (I'll post them tomorrow.)
The pinkish flowers of Ligusticum mutellina grew by the million and as the clouds broke to reveal the Jungfrau it got a bit warmer.
......Some sunny pics next time

[Lesley Cox]

Funny to see chives growing in such a place, but of course they must do, somewhere. One would be looking for the parsley and thyme and a bowl of cottage cheese.

[Lvandelft]

Wonderful pictures Tony! And this all in three and a half day. Amazing place.

Funny to see chives growing in such a place,

Lesley I have seen chives in the mountains at 2000 m. standing in water between Salix
reticulata. And I learned from my mother in law (Austrian) that the taste is much better than the
lowland cultivated chives.

[Joakim B]

Presence of chives is said to increase the pollination of orchids at least of Orchis morio. Chives have nectar and is hence a rewarding plant for the pollinators so they fly around more and also go to the non rewarding plants. Maybe it also helps Dactylorhiza?
Looking forward to more orchids

Kind regards
Joakim

[tonyg]

The comments about chives make sense in that there was a great profusion of orchids in this area, literally thousands!  Here are some more as requested, not quite all the different types I saw ... but this is still only about 11am on day one so there is plenty of ground to cover yet

The area had been covered by a summer snowfall about a week before my visit but the flowers have amazing powers of recovery although if you look carefully one of the pics shows plants with bent stems.  

I am no expert where orchids are concerned but it seemed to me that one of these plants might be Dactylorhiza incarnata.

Then in slightly drier places there were Gymnadenia conopsea and Nigritella nigra.  This last I find difficult to photograph, always short in long grass!  And lastly a mystery plant, at first sight I thought it was Nigritella rubra but this is not listed for this area.  It was growing mixed with Nigritella nigra and Gymnadenia conopsea, perhaps it is a hybrid?



Edit by Maggi, following discussion in another p thread in August '09.......
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  Quote from: ranunculus on August 03, 2009, 10:10:21 AM  "NIGRITELLA possibly DOLOMITENSIS"

Quote from: Gerhard Raschun on August 03, 2009, 08:20:18 PM It isn`t Nigritella spp., it is xGymnigritella, an intergeneric hybrid between Gymnadenia and Nigritella, probably
xGymnigritella suaveolens ( Gymnadenia conopsea x Nigritella rhellicani )

Quote from: tonyg on August 03, 2009, 11:38:29 PM

I saw something very similar near Kleine Sheidegg in Switzerland last year.  I had a good clue that it was a hybrid as Nigritella nigra and Gymnadenia conopsea were both growing very close by.  Like Cliff I was stumped for the name even though I guessed the parentage.  What x name would you give my plant?
http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2062.180
The pictures are in reply 14 of this link (Switzerland 2008)

Quote from: Gerhard Raschun
This is   x Gymnigritella suaveolens too.
Your shown Dact. incarnata is Dact. alpestris ( majalis ssp. alpestris)
The plants in the wet flush belong to Dact. fuchsii

There aren`t Nigr. nigra in Central European, it is a plant described from Scandinavia, because it is triploid. All Nigritella spp.with black flower belong to Nigr. rhellicani (diploid) and Nigr. austriaca ( tetraploid, apomoctic).

In my opinion your shown Nigritella are Nigr. austriaca, but to see the differents it is necessary to scrutinizize it ( labellum and leaves). The time of flowering is 2 weeks earlier as in Nigr. rhellicani, little difference in shape of the infloresence and the colouration of the flowers. 
 
 
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