Flora

'A natural botanical garden' was how the botanist Prof. Benedetto Bonapace defined the Valle di Ledro in 1958, given the wealth, variety and rareness of its flora.'

This great variety of flora, fauna and natural environments is due to a range of very special ecological, topographical and climactic conditions, a complex history, and many other factors.
The Valle di Ledro is like a bridge situated at an altitude of about 700 metres between Lago di Garda (65 m. above sea level) and Lago di Idro (368 m. above sea level) while its highest summits rise to over 2000 m (including Monte Cadria at 2254 m.).
Just a few short kilometres see us passing from the sub-Mediterranean climate of Lago di Garda to an Alpine climate, a change reflected in the vegetation.

In the eastern area, which is influenced by the milder conditions of Lago di Garda, many Mediterranean species can be observed including holm oak (Quercus ilex), butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus), terebinth (Pistacia terebinthus) and broom, as well as forests of oak, chestnut, hornbeam and manna ash. The woods on the valley floor and stretching halfway up its slopes boast splendid beeches.
At higher altitude conifers begin to predominate - Norway spruce, silver fir, Scots pine and larch for the most part -, which then yield to mountain pine and the Alpine meadows with their splendid blooms including lilies (Lilium croceum, Lilium martagon and Paradisea liliastrum), globe flowers (Trollius europaeus), gentians (Genziana acaulis, G. lutea, G. puntata, G. ciliata, G. cruciata and so on), peonies (Paeonia officinalis), narcissi (Narcissus poeticus), orchids and innumerable other species.
The most recent surveys have in fact shown that more than a thousand different species are present in the Valle di Ledro, from Ponale to the summit of Monte Cadria, Monte Parì, and Monte Tremalzo. Botanists have identified Valle di Ledro as the area with the largest number of rare and endemic species in all of Trentino. In other words, species which are distributed over a very limited area, and which must often be considered the last and precious vestiges of a very ancient plant life which is today threatened with extinction: these are the last survivors of the flora of the pre-quaternary period (of over 1.5 million years ago), surviving down to our day in the high mountains, which remained like islands between the two ice flows which descended the valleys of the Chiese and Sarca rivers during the Ice Age, reaching 2000 metres in thickness at some points.
Among the many species which in particular determine the special value and peculiar characteristics of our valley are: Moehringia glaucovirens Bert., Silene elisabethae Jan., Ranunculus bilobus Bert., Aquilegia thalictrifolia S. et K., Daphne petraea Leyb., Saxifraga arachnoidea Stern., Viola dubyana Burn., Centaurea rhaetica Moritzi, Buphtalmum speciosissimum Ard., Saxifraga tombeanensis Boiss., Bupleurum petraeum L., Primula spectabilis Tratt., Euphrasia portae Wett., Pedicularis acaulis Wulf., Veronica bonarota L., ....