Pyrenees Remembered

Back in 1998 I spent two glorious weeks in the Spanish Pyrenees with an Alpine Garden Society expedition. One of the sites we visited was above Cerler, near Benasque. A winter ski resort, the vast car park was a desolate place in summer, however the slopes around yielded many interesting plants and flowers. By sheer bad luck I missed this plant, Narcissus alpestris, which grows just over the top of the ridge at the West end of the valley. We climbed almost to the ridge, not knowing at the time that another half hour would have taken us to the site where these plants grow in the wild!

My plants, just six inches tall, come from seed sown in 1994, collected from the very same location. They took seven years to make the first flower but now I am reminded of that trip each Spring :-)