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Rare alpine flora in Vicenza
Find the “queen of the alps”, one of Italy’s rarest mountain flowers
More than 500 mountain species at 1,350 metres, from beech woodland and alpine pasture to rare plants of the Vicenza high country
AAt 1,350 metres on Monte Corno, an alpine garden gathers more than 500 species from the Vicenza mountains, including the protected Eryngium alpinum, known as the “Queen of the Alps”. The Dario Broglio Alpine Garden brings together the flora of the Vicenza high country in one compact mountain landscape. More than 500 species grow across beech woodland, pasture, wet ground, dwarf mountain pine and limestone scree.
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Valeria Carfora · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Know before you go
The garden is open seasonally and closes in rain. A guided visit is included in the normal Sunday programme and is the best way to understand the different habitats and rare species. Telephone +39 0424 407264 +39 333 2339600 Email informazioni@museodilusiana.it
About
Even if botany is not normally your thing, the Red List changes how you look: one plant here has disappeared from the wild in Veneto, another survived the Ice Ages in isolated refuges, another is now threatened in Vicenza. The "queen of the alps". Eryngium alpinum, is a threatened European alpine species, protected under the EU Habitats Directive and considered vulnerable in Italy, where natural populations can consist of only a few dozen plants. In Veneto it is classified as regionally extinct in the wild.
THE STORY
At 1,300 to 1,350 metres on Monte Corno, on the southern edge of the Asiago Plateau, pasture breaks around pale limestone, karst rock and beech forest. Inside just 5,000 square metres, the botanical garden reconstructs the mountain almost from bottom to top: pond, fern corner, pasture, beech wood, spruce and silver fir forest, dwarf mountain pine, scree and high altitude grassland. More than 500 mountain species grow here, several names are extraordinary.
Eryngium alpinum, the Queen of the Alps, produces large violet blue flower heads surrounded by almost metallic bracts. It once grew wild in Veneto, but the regional Red List classifies it as regionally extinct. Over collection for its beauty was one of the causes of its disappearance. Monte Corno now preserves it as part of the garden’s conservation work. Then look for Geranium argenteum, the silver geranium. Its grey silver leaves belong to a plant described as a microthermal glacial relic, surviving in isolated refuges after the Quaternary glaciations.
And between May and July, Lilium carniolicum, the Carniolan lily, can produce an intense orange flower with recurved petals. In Italy it occurs only in Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia and is classified as threatened in the province of Vicenza. The garden itself grew from the work of Dario Broglio, a self taught local naturalist who searched the Plateau for rare plants and species no longer being recorded there. Some were also obtained from other botanical gardens. It opened in 2002 in the presence of Mario Rigoni Stern, the writer most closely associated with the landscape and natural history of the Asiago Plateau.
The recorded example says it best: the wheat under the snow s’ingavàssa. It meant putting down roots and becoming lush.
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