The Hautes-Alpes as a natural botanical reserve

The Arolla pine and larch are symbols of the Hautes-Alpes and provide raw materials for the department’s craftsmen and women and wood sculptors.
The larch is the only conifer to drop its needles in the autumn. But that doesn’t stop them living up to 600 years! Its French name, mélèze, comes from the Alpine word for honey, mel. They can reach up to 40 m in height and diameters of 1.5 m. They live at altitudes of between 1000 m and 2300 m.
A special feature of these trees is their ability to have different colours in the four seasons: red in the autumn, black in winter and green in spring and summer. 

The chardon bleu, the ‘Queen of the Alps’ or globe thistle, has white and cobalt-blue blooms and flowers from mid-July to mid-August. The floor of the Fournel valley is the main site in Europe for this species of globe thistle.

The rhododendron flowers in July when its bright pink blooms form rich and brightly coloured beds up as far as the upper limit of the tree line. Particularly exuberant displays can be found in the Clarée valley in June and July. 

Gentians, with their handsome dark blue and royal blue flowers, are common to the Alps and flower from May to August at altitudes of between 1000 m and 3000 m. 

The startlingly beautiful ancolie des Alpes, or Alpine columbine, with its delicate grey-blue and dark blue hues flowers in deciduous woodland, grass-covered slopes and rocky areas at altitudes of between 1200 m and 2500 m. 

The splendid Orange lily grows in scree slopes and areas of rock and grass at altitudes of between 1300 m and 2000 m, flowering from June to July.

The Turk’s cap lily is found in wetland areas and in undergrowth at altitude, and flowers from June to August.

Edelweiss, or ‘star of the glaciers’, with its silvery down-covered petals is the most famous of the Alpine plants. Its flowers are found in the Alpine landscape from July to late September.