Above: poppies above the Potanin Glacier Papaver ammophilum or nudicaule?
Walking through the Tavan Bogd National Park in Mongolia’s northwest in spring and summer is a delight for the senses.
The spectacle of snow-capped mountains always visible in the distance, picturesque rocky gorges, raucous streams rushing or gently meandering; the changing terrain underfoot: soft grassy stretches, sometimes dry, sometimes wet and boggy, dirt and gravel paths, loose rock, slippery slate, banks of unmelted snow, scree.
The scent of alpine larches mixed with the scent of juniper and the surprisingly not unpleasant odour of livestock scat that litters the ground. The calls of domesticated animals that wonder free throughout: horses, yaks, sheep, goats, camels and dogs; the scrambling of land squirrels and marmots, overhead the occasional shrill cries of hawks and kites.
And to add a magical touch, scattered in bursts daring bright, from under slate and in between rocks, sometimes carpets of them, sometimes solitary tufts swaying defiantly and vibrant, an abundance of wildflowers celebrate with jubilant colour the end of the long and relentless winter that until not long before had covered everything with ice and snow.
Wildflowers are everywhere and although we are still learning the names of these beauties, here are some of them.
Please feel free to make any corrections!
Siberian Globeflower - Trollius altaicus
China Pink - Dianthus Chinensis
Forget-me-nots - Myosotis krylova
Plumeless saw-wort - Serratula centauroides
Purple Pasque Flower - Pulsatilla sp.
Silver Speedwell - Veronica incana
Eriophorum latifolium?
Locoweed - Oxytropis sp
Alpine Aster - Aster alpinus
This article is a work-in-progress … wildflowers abound throughout the Tavan Bogd National Park and each year it seems that more that have not been photographed appear … they adorn our surroundings while we walk, when we rest and eat, and fill the hike with burst of colourful joy.
