Image of rock soapwort

Description:

Slo.: rdea milnica - Habitat: stony road side, southeast oriented, calcareous ground, fairly sunny place, warm and dry, average precipitations about 2.500 mm/year, average temperatures about 6-8 deg C, elevation 790 m (2.600 feet), alpine phytogeographical region. - Substratum: soil in crevices of stony wall of road scarp. - Comment: Growing in a few cushions in full bloom. This beautiful plant (as cultivar it has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit) is native to west and south Europe. Its occurrences in Slovenia represent it's most east outposts, hence it's not at all a common plant in my country. Interestingly, this plant is also not recorded in the UTM grid square 95/48 of the atlas of flora of Fruili Venezia Guilia, the most northeast region of Italy (Poldini (2002), Ref.: (4)). Therefore this find could be among the first since the plant was not known in this square in 2002. The probability to be overlooked when in bloom is pretty small due to its saturated bright color of flowers and the fact that it loves (at least in this region - all six places I've found are of this type) road cuts and stony walls along the roads. It's almost impossible not to see it. - Ref.: (1) M.A. Fischer, W. Adler, K. Oswald, Exkursionsflora Oesterreich Liechtenstein, Suedtirol, LO Landesmuseen, Linz, Austria (2005), p 265. (2) A. Martini et all., Mala Flora Slovenije, Tehnina Zaloba Slovenije (2007), p 157. (3) N. Jogan (ed.), Gradivo za Atlas flore Slovenije (Materials for the Atlas of Flora of Slovenia), CKSF (2001), p337. (4) L. Poldini, Nuovo Atlante corologico delle piante vascolari nel Friuli Venezia Giulia, University of Trieste (2002), p434.