Flora - Bearded Bellflower

Flora – Plants of the Pohorje

The plants featured on these stamps are species that are characteristic of Slovenia’s Pohorje massif. All are rare in Slovenia, while one only grows in the Pohorje and is found nowhere else in the country. The adoption of a document that will define the summit areas of the Pohorje as a regional park by virtue of their conserved natural environment has been planned for some time. “Plants of the Pohorje” were chosen as the designs for these stamps in the hope that this will further raise the profile of the future Pohorje Regional Park, which is currently in the process of being established.

Bearded bellflower (Campanula barbata)

Found in Scandinavia and in much of central Europe, the north-western Balkans and the Pyrenees. It is a characteristic species of the montane (mountainous) zone, where it grows in cultivated meadows and pastures, among mountain pines and on natural grasslands in the subalpine zone. The bearded bellflower is a perennial flowering plant in the Campanulaceae (bellflower) family that – like most of our bellflowers – has pendulous bell-shaped flowers. It is a distinctly acidophilic species, meaning that it grows in acidic soils. Such soils are rare in largely limestone Slovenia. They are most frequently found in the Karavanke range, and of course in the Pohorje, where this perennial is a typical inhabitant of acidic grasslands – the Pohorje high meadows – along with mat-grass and arnica. It can be recognised by its intense blue flowers, the insides of which are covered by long hairs that give it its “bearded” name.

Mitja Kaligarič