Summer flowers in the Zillertal alps

[Peter Maguire]

Austria seems to be the flavour of the moment, and as we've just returned from there, I thought that folks might like to see what's available at this time of the year (late July). For those of us who are restricted to the conventional holiday times it is a little late to see some of the alpines, but I was pleasantly suprised to see what was still around.
We were based in Mayrhofen near the head of the Zillertal, southwest of Innsbruck. This makes a good centre for a week 's break, as they have a discount card available in the summer which gives you six days (or longer if you need it) of unlimited public transport in the valley and one up (and down!) trip in a range of cable cars which operate throughout the summer. As Mayrhofen sits at the point where the valley divides into smaller valleys (the Grunde) like the fingers of a hand, you can explore a different side valley each day. The local rocks all seem to be acidic - granite and various shales - unlike the limestone ranges on the north side of the Inn valley.
I thought that I would present each area as we explored it, although many of the plants were found throught the valleys. Firstly the upper Zamsergrund - you can take the bus to about 1800 metres at the Schlegeis dam and start walking from there. Feel free to correct my identifications, I'm sure I must have some of them wrong.

1. Schlegeis dam from the bus terminus. The upper Zamsergrund runs off to the right, leading to the Italian frontier at 2250m. We didn't get that far as it was meant to be a training walk, but reached 2000m along a very gently rising valley.
2. Campanula rotundifolia - common throughout the area.
3. Phyteuma hemisphaericum
4. Silene acaulis - a small patch found at 2000m which still retained a few flowers

[Peter Maguire]

5. Crepis aurea (name corrected) - not very common, I only saw a few plants in this valley
6. Achillea moschata - this appeared near our high point of 2000m, there may have been more above, but we had to turn back to get the last bus down the valley.
7. Geum montanum - the only specimen I saw in flower although there were many plants with seedheads
8. Gentiana nivalis - again at 2000m. I know it's 'only' an annual, but once you picked out the tiny blue flowers in the turf, they looked like small jewels

[Peter Maguire]

9. Leucanthemopsis alpina - these plants seemed common throughout the area.
10. View down Zamsergrund from about 1950m. In the middle distance is a large flat area which obviously floods earlier in the year; in July, the watercourses were lined with...
11. Saxifraga azoides (name changed) - close up, I took better general shots of the plant later in the trip.

That's all for tonight, I will work on the next day's batch for tomorrow.

Peter

[Lesley Cox]

Another very pleasant European jaunt for those of us in the far south. Many thanks Peter.

[Heather Smith]

Lovely pictures, Peter, and I wish I was there.
There is one plant that I think is wrongly named though:
The one named Hieracium aurantiacum is, I think, Crepis aurea.

This is Hieracium aurantiacum


More pictures please!

[Thomas Huber]

Hi Peter!

Yes, you're right, Austria is SRGC's favourite for this year, as the Dolomites were last year.
I've just returned from a trip to the Brandner Valley and will try to show some photos
in the next days.

Meanwhile it would be great to see more of yours.

[Peter Maguire]

Thanks for the correction on the i.d. Heather, I thought something wasn't quite right with the inflorescense not being multi-headed, but it was too late at night to start searching through the field guides again. I'll change the notation on the posting in case anyone gets confused.

Peter

[hadacekf]

Peter,
Did you know that Saxifraga hirculus is a very rare plant? Beautiful photos!

[Peter Maguire]

Franz,

Now you have me wondering about my identification - they were everywhere in damp places in the valley bottom, and also present in other side valleys (more on this later).

Identifying the plants and preparing the phots is taking longer than I expected - more to follow later.

Peter

[Heather Smith]

Peter, just a suggestion: if there is any doubt about the Saxifraga ID try azoides. This grows in and around streams; I have only ever seen the yellow form though it can be orange. It is very common in wet ground, has prominent sepals between the petals and fleshy leaves. The other Sax I have never seen and know nothing about.
Looking forward to more pictures!

[Maggi Young]

Saxifraga hirculus is very rare in Scotland, as elsewhere in its distribution.
This is an article from an issue of the Rock Garden by the late Bill Paton : I hope when enlarged you can read it....




Here is a photo by Heather Salzen from the Journal, of Saxifraga hirculus

 
 
   
 Both Bill and Heather have done a great deal to protect the Scottish flora and educate others in its diversity.

You can see more pix of this lovely Saxifraga on Magnar Aspakar's website......
http://magnar.aspaker.no/

 http://magnar.aspaker.no/Saxifraga%20hirculus.JPG

 

[Peter Maguire]

Thanks Heather and Maggi for identity of the saxifrage. I'm generally pretty good with names of plants on the show bench (it's the labels you know  ), but put me in the wild and it's a different matter! I'll change the name to avoid confusing people.

Anyway, I've processed a second lot of picture so that I can get proper names for the plants  . This walk is from the top of the cable car directly above Mayrhofen on the skiing area known as the Penken. It is a fairly gentle walk along the lateral moraine up there to the Penkenjoch (2000m ascending to 2100m in about 2km). After a leisurely lunch in the mountain restaurant - tough walkers these Maguires - we descended to Almstuberl and then caught the lower gondola down to the village of Finkenberg before walking back to Mayrhofen. That's the scenario, so here's the photos:

1. Cattle grazing near the Penken lift, they may be eating the best flowers, but the fertilizer effect they leave behind is very necessary!
2. Arnica montana - fairly common over the whole area.
3. The lower Zemsergrund from Penken. The previous pictures were taken at the head of the valley which curves around to the right. Mayrhofen is below, left.

[Ian Y]

"I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.
Val-deri,Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Val-deri,Val-dera.
My knapsack on my back."

Sorry, couldn't help myself!

[Peter Maguire]

4. Unknown - I notice Thomas has picture  of it as well, also unlabelled.
5. Phytuema sp - there were many Phyteumas about, this one I couldn't be sure of.
6. Campanula barbata - first saw this on the Penken, then it seemed to everywhere for the rest of the week.
7. Thymus serpyllum - this was fairly common throughout the area, but this was the best patch of the week, below a small crag near the path along the old moaraine ridge.

[Peter Maguire]

8. Aeshna sp. - you may notice that this isn't a flower  I think that this is the female of this species (still working on that). There was a male around this small pool as well, but either was constantly in motion or landing on my leg, which didn't help with long lens on the camera.
9. Tuxertal valley - around the curve of the valley is the Tuxertal glacier, more about this later.
10. Lower Zamsergrund again - the views were fantastic, and I couldn't resist another one.
11. Rhododendron ferrugineum - we walked past acres of it all week, but very few flowers were left, this was the best of a very tatty bunch.