Can you hear it? It’s coming from a long way off, from up above. Only weeks ago, an icy silence marked the mountain. Now that silence has turned into a gurgle, the warble of water. The water that flows down the torrents, and the limpid, still water of the alpine lakes. But there’s water even where you can’t see it: deep in the soil and hidden by the rocks along the banks and shores.
Welcome to the wetlands. Now you can walk among the elongated stems of the rushes and sedges, hard to tell apart. But those rounded leaves, thick and sporting a deep green hue, can only belong to one plant: the dwarf willow.
The wetlands wear light green, brown and honey yellow. And sometimes, in the last days of summer, bunches of flowers with other hues push up between the rocks. Against a bed of rocks, they look like soft little throw pillows: the autumnal saxifrages are yellow, and Fleicher’s dwarf carnations are fuchsia.
Along the banks and shores lie boggy meadows. They look like all the other meadows, but the soil under them is impregnated with water, so that the only plants that live there are those that love moisture, like Orchids, Eriophora and Chives.
