Eco Hvar

Hvar's Wildflower Treasures

Published in Environment

The wildflowers on Hvar are a year-round joy. Even in the depths of winter, there is hardly a week without colours brightening up the countryside, contrasting with the island's rocks and the variegated dark green of the woodlands. 

Hvar's Wildflower Treasures

When they are not flowering, the wild plants die back or merge into the background, coming to life again to mark the seasons with their colourful contribution. There is no end to the pleasure of walking around the fields and woodlands, looking at the endless range of plants, many of them tiny, which contribute in turn to the natural splendour of the island. The varied shapes of the plants are part of the attraction, and each season has some specially interesting specimens. These are two examples from the spring season.

The tassel hyacinth

In spring from April to June the tassel hyacinths come into their own with their very fine purple heads.

 
The tassel hyacinth (leopoldia comosa or muscari comosum) is one of the species known as grape hyacinths, and is sometimes called tufted grape hyacinth, hairy muscari or edible muscari. It has fertile flowers which are brownish-green, bell-shaped, and held outwards on stalks which are roughly the same length as the flowers themselves, or slightly longer. At the top of the plant a tuft of bright purple sterile flowers on long stalks spreads upwards. It belongs to the Asteraceae family in the Asparagales order.

As one of the synonyms suggests, the tassel hyacinth is edible, and is used for food mainly in Italy and Greece. In Italy tassel hyacinth bulbs are called lampascioni or cipolline selvatiche (little wild onions), in Greece they are volvoi. I have not yet met anyone who eats tassel hyacinth bulbs in Dalmatia, probably because they are bitter tasting and most Dalmatians seem to be addicted to sugar nowadays. The bulbs are boiled and then preserved in oil or pickled, and are considered to be an appetite stimulant, as well as being diuretic. In Greece they are traditionally part of the speciality vegetarian foods eaten during Lent. Reading the descriptions of how they are prepared, it all sounds like tricky hard work, so I shall content myself, at least for the time being, with simply admiring the beautiful flowers when they spread over the fields in springtime.

The tragopogon

I was fascinated for years by the exquisite round feathery seedhead which would suddenly spread all around the countryside in springtime. Finding out what it was proved to be a challenge. People used to tell me that it was a type of dandelion, but that didn't seem to fit the bill. I had never seen the plant in flower. So far as I could see it consisted only of a stem with a slim head of spindles (seen to the front left of the picture below) which opened out to form the magnificent globe of the seedhead.

I was resigned to never finding out. After all, its beauty was not affected by my not knowing its name. And as I am very bad at remembering names anyway, perhaps it was not worth while searching. Then I made a chance visit to Marinka Radež's art atelier in Dol, and happened to see a painting in progress of the very plant. And not just the seedhead which had entranced me for all those years, but there was also a flower which I had not been aware of. It turned out that the flower only comes out for a short while during the day. Either I had not recognised it as being on the same plant, or I had always missed it. Marinka did not know what the plant was called, but I had enough clues to narrow my search, and finally tracked it down through an excellent website called the seedsite.

Tragopogon flower, April 2015. Photo Vivian Grisogono

So it was that I identified the mystery feathered spindly globe as a tragopogon. Definitely not a dandelion (taraxacum), although both belong to the Asterales order in the Asteraceae family. The tragopogon is also called salsify or goatsbeard. One member of the species, which consists of over 140 different types, the purple salsify or tragopogon porrifolius, is edible, mainly the root which apparently tastes like oysters, but also young shoots and leaves.

Tragopogon flower, April 2015. Photo Vivian Grisogono

© Vivian Grisogono 2013

Related items

back to top
You are here: Home environment articles Hvar's Wildflower Treasures

Eco Environment News feeds

  • UK national parks warn of ‘catastrophic’ risk from wildfires this Easter

    Weeks of fires amid warm and dry spell have decimated ecosystems and threatened endangered species, say experts

    Britain’s national parks have warned of a “catastrophic” risk from wildfires this Easter after one of the driest early spring seasons on record.

    Park rangers from the South Downs to the Highlands said the prolonged warm weather and breezy conditions had left large areas extremely dry despite recent rain.

    Continue reading...

  • Growers criticise UK supermarkets for heavy Easter discounts on vegetables

    Fears produce could be permanently devalued by price war, as it ‘creates unrealistic expectations about costs’

    Supermarkets have been criticised for using vegetables as the latest weapon in their burgeoning price war, charging as little as 8p for a 2kg bag of potatoes in an attempt to lure shoppers over Easter.

    Growers said they feared the massive discounts, which are also deployed at Christmas, could permanently devalue their produce.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘It will be beautiful to see our kids grow up with this’: how communities around the world are planting trees

    City residents are working out how to fill their streets with trees as evidence grows of their benefits

    “I wanted to do something that would benefit as many people from the community as possible,” says Chloe Straw, pointing at a small but promising sapling visible through the window of her local cafe.

    In 2023, Chloe began chatting to her neighbours in Haringey, north London, about trees. “I thought it’d be really nice to raise some money for trees on the main road. Everyone uses West Green Road, regardless of whether you have a lot of money or not, regardless of your background.”

    Continue reading...

  • Rare footage captured of interspecies infanticide by dolphins off Welsh coast

    Dolphin-watching tour witnesses four adult bottlenose dolphins kill a common dolphin calf in Cardigan Bay

    They had been hoping for a nice day out on the bay. Instead, dolphin-watching tourists in Wales were confronted with the shocking and grisly sight of four adult bottlenose dolphins pursuing and killing a common dolphin calf.

    The trip, in Cardigan Bay, was operated by Dolphin Spotting Boat Trips and the Sea Watch Foundation (SWF), a charity that monitors the dolphins in the bay to inform and advise on their conservation status and protection.

    Continue reading...

  • How a Sydney scientist became enamoured with the ‘Ferraris of the crustacean world’ – and discovered a new shrimp species

    Prof Shane Ahyong discovered ‘brutish’ mantis shrimp so unusual it needed its own new genus

    When Prof Shane Ahyong was seven, his mum came home with a bag of prawns from the fish shop – but one of those things was not like the others.

    “It just looked different,” said Ahyong.

    Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter

    Continue reading...

  • Country diary: We’re obsessed with the blue tits – all it took was a birdbox webcam | Country diary

    Langstone, Hampshire: She’s brought in clematis, moss and cat fur to build the nest. Soon, surely, the egg-laying will begin

    For the past three years, blue tits have nested in a box on the wall beneath my bedroom window, and we’ve become curtain-twitchers, peering covertly out to watch the adults come and go and listen to the peeping chicks. But what goes on inside the cavity? Curiosity piqued, we installed a new box with a solar-powered camera over the winter.

    On 19 March, a female blue tit staked her claim, roosting in the box overnight. Nest building commenced early the following morning. I’d assumed she would pick up fallen twigs to form a framework. Instead, she snapped off thin, flexible side shoots from the Clematis montana which smothers our fence. Each piece was repositioned several times before she prostrated herself, wings splayed for balance, and spun around, pedalling her legs to press the material into place.

    Continue reading...

  • Weather tracker: sandstorm turns Iraqi skies orange and empties the streets

    Thousands go to hospital with respiratory problems after massive dust cloud blows in from Saudi Arabia

    Iraq was hit by its most severe sandstorm of 2025 this week, turning skies from blue to an orange haze. Visibility dropped to less than half a mile, causing travel disruptions, with two major airports halting flights, and streets in Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, deserted. Respiratory problems sent thousands to hospital. The storm also affected Kuwait, where wind gusts exceeded 50mph, and visibility in some areas was diminished to zero.

    This massive dust cloud originated in Saudi Arabia before being blown into Iraq. While dust storms are common in Iraq, the climate crisis is expected to intensify them across the region in the future, fuelled by desertification in Saudi Arabia and Syria.

    Continue reading...

  • Map reveals residential wood-burning hotspots in England and Wales

    Researchers analyse energy performance certificate data to identify areas with potentially high particle pollution

    Burning wood at home adds more particle pollution to the UK’s air than the exhausts of all of the vehicles on its roads, but there is very little information on where this burning takes place and who is most affected.

    To address this knowledge gap, researchers have produced the first high-resolution map of wood burning in England and Wales.

    Continue reading...

  • Kicking up a stink: row over sewage pollution blighting Cape Town’s beaches

    Campaigners say authorities should be doing more to clean up waters around city of nearly 5 million people

    On a clear summer’s day in Cape Town, the Milnerton Lagoon was serene, reflecting the bright blue sky and Table Mountain. But there was an unmistakable stench, and up close, the water was murky.

    A few hundred metres away, adults and children played in the water as it flowed into Table Bay. On the boardwalk, a sign read: “Polluted water: for health reasons, swimming and recreational activities are at your own risk.”

    Continue reading...

  • ‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday

    Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known rightwing counterparts – as do their methods

    One afternoon in February, hoping to survive the apocalypse or at least avoid finding myself among its earliest victims, I logged on to an online course entitled Ruggedize Your Life: The Basics.

    Some of my classmates had activated their cameras. I scrolled through the little windows, noting the alarmed faces, downcast in cold laptop light. There were dozens of us on the call, including a geophysicist, an actor, a retired financial adviser and a civil engineer. We all looked worried, and rightly so. The issue formerly known as climate change was now a polycrisiscalled climate collapse. H1N1 was busily jumping from birds to cows to people. And with each passing day, as Donald Trump went about gleefully dismantling state capacity, the promise of a competent government response to the next hurricane, wildfire, flood, pandemic, drought, mudslide, heatwave, financial meltdown, hailstorm or other calamity receded further from view.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds

Copyright © 2025 Eco Hvar. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Orion Informatika.