Carniolan Primrose

Bell-shaped flowers bend the slender, seemingly fragile stems, which sprout in a cluster from a narrow crack in living rock.

Long and cold winter, typical of the Notranjska region, not even for a second gives any hints of the Adriatic or Mediterranean influences on the flora in the Notranjska Regional Park. But immediately after the snow is gone, beautiful dark purple flowers emerge from their soil shelter.

It is true that orchids are most diverse in the tropics, but some of them can also be found here. Green-winged orchid is one of them.

A Baroque-looking plant with a thick inflorescence of many purple flowers and a long name is another of the endangered meadow orchids that thrive in the Notranjska Regional Park.

Flowering rush has specially adapted to extreme conditions at Lake Cerknica, where it is flooded in spring and left on dry land under the hot August sun.

A tiny ant rushes along blades of grass above the marshy soil, smells the scent and cannot resist it.

Small yellow-flowered spring bloomer (Hacquetia epipactis) is one of the most typical plants in the beech forests of Dinaric karst.

An army of sturdy bodies in lead-grey armours is standing united on a steep slope, tilting their heads together.

When the summer sun thoroughly warms through the soil, the yet unmown flood meadows turn into blankets of purple inflorescence.