flower – Stones Of Ithaca

From Kopitoto to Momina Skala on Vitosha, the mountain south of Sofia, a short distance but an encyclopaedia of flowers.

Meadow vetchling (pea), cicely (celery), the ethereal willowherb, the incredibly named perennial honesty (as a race we should adopt this flower), spotted dead-nettle, tansy chrysanthemum, dusky crane’s-bill, heal-all (mint), spreading bellflower, water forget-me-not, bladder campion, great masterwort (onion), sulphur clover, winged broom, Breckland thyme (mint, the butterflies were crazy about this one), bloody crane’s-bill, starwort, great mullein, bush vetch (pea), alpine rose. Incalculable wealth at our feet.

These photos were taken in and around Presopta Place, the crossroads between Kopitoto and Momina Skala, about which I have written a poem called “Presopta Place”.

The most common colour of flowers in and around the city of Thessaloniki in Greece is pink-purple, followed by white. Many are native to the Mediterranean basin or, more broadly, to Eurasia, but several are from America (amaryllis, pinklady, pink-sorrel, silverleaf nightshade), there is one from Australia (the wonderfully named crimson bottlebrush, the last of the photos), and perhaps surprisingly there is a whole group from South Africa (Cape Marguerite, sour fig, treasure flower). Flowers are just as widely travelled as we are!