In Switzerland I developed a habit that my kids found very annoying: compulsively taking pictures of flowers. I thought I’d collect all my favourites and stick them together here, and do a little research into what I was looking at.
Garden Flowers
The gardens were so lush, I couldn’t stop myself. In particular, the roses were over the top with variety and size. Other than the roses, these are mostly identified with Google Image search, so there may be errors. I didn’t bother with the scientific name because those don’t hold a lot of interest for me, and so many common names for flowers are frankly hilarious.
Hedge woundwort or hedge nettle
A peony – there were several truly magnificent ones.
Lavender – so many gardens had them as decoration! I’m terribly jealous. And let’s not even TALK about the decorative rosemary. Hashtag goals.
I thought for sure this was Elderflower, but Google tells me it’s Wild Privet. What a scent!
Fuscia – what is it about dangling flowers that I love so much?
Cerastium – a groundcover with frosty sage-coloured leaves.
A truly epic garden poppy. There were both these oversized domestic variety, and the wild ones you will see below.
Wild Flowers
The wildflowers captured my heart. Partly in their own right, but partly because some of them brought to mind the many connections between arctic biomes and alpine biomes. When you get high enough in temperate mountains, you get the same conditions we have on the ground back at home, and you can see those parallels in the shapes of some plants and flowers.
Not this first one though.
This might have been the first time I saw poppies in person. As a citizen of a commonwealth country, living in a town where poppies do not grow, I had a bit of a Canadian nerd moment when I saw them in the wild.
Purple cranesbill
Ragged-robin
Dame’s Rocket flower – this one smelled particularly nice.
Alpine toadflax
Greater knapweed
Viper’s bugloss
Bugleweed (or blue bugle, bugleherb, etc)
Pink wild carrot – this grows everywhere in the states where I grew up, but I’d never seen them pink before!
Broad-leaved marsh orchid
Globeflower – looks like the very large relative of a buttercup.
Bladder campion – We have this same species in the arctic, and I love them. They’re so delightfully strange looking.
Wood crane’s-bill
Scabious – I really thought it was a purple dandilion!
Fox-and-cubs – and not an orange dandilion.
Yellow rattle – one of several flowers that reminded me of the various milkworts we have up north.
Ferns!
Wild thyme
Spring gentian – they are really this indigo colour.
Pyramid bugle – the purple leaves are what drew my attention, but the name alerted me to the beautiful arrangement of leaves on these plants.
Bistort
And just for a bonus, here’s a bit of fauna we spotted at a playground.
Fire-coloured beetle. We didn’t see much wild fauna, but this was eye catching!
Thanks for reading! Happy Fathers day to all the father-types out there. Hope you are staying warm or cool, wherever in the world you find yourself.
Osborn Fiber Studio 