Eco Hvar

Hvar's Wild Flowers in the Late Summer

Marion Podolski, author of the exquisite blog Go Hvar, continues her illustrated seasonal researches into Hvar's abundant wild flowers.

Bright roadside field marigold, Jelsa October 2016. Bright roadside field marigold, Jelsa October 2016. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

Following on from our Guide to Hvar’s Wildflowers – Spring Edition, I’ve been out and about looking for what’s in bloom at the end of summer. These are mostly in the high country around the peak of Sv Nikola and on the Vorh plateau, although some are down around sea-level, even right on the beach in some cases.

Heather with black pine on Hvar's highest peak. Photo Marion Podolski

I have to say I was encouraged to find so many wildflowers in September, after what has been a scorching summer. My aim in writing the blog is to identify each one, and tag the photos with an official name in Latin, English and Croatian. With my previously somewhat inexpert pictures in mind, this time I was careful to include more of the plant (leaves, seedpods, etc) in my reference photos. And let’s hope the upcoming new series of that wonderful Croatian TV series  Lovac na bilje, (The Plant Hunter) includes  a trip to the Dalmatian coast and islands, as that could really help me identify the plants here!

Flowers on the beach on Sv.Klement. Photo Marion Podolski

Here’s the reference table of late-summer flowers. Usual disclaimer applies: while I have a reasonable confidence in most of the names, some are tentative especially when very similar suspects exist! I’d welcome any feedback from those with a rather better grounding in botany! Click on the images for a bigger picture, and links take you to wikipedia or plantea to find out more.

Antirrhinum majus

Antirrhinum majus
Snapdragon
Zijevalica
..........
Calamintha napeta

Calamintha napeta
Lesser calamint
Velecvjetna gorska metvica
Mint family but could be wild basil?
..........
..........

Campanula Pyramidalis

Campanula pyramidalis
Chimney bellflower
Piramidalni zvončić
 ..........

Capparis spinosa

 ..........

Centaurea glaberrima Tausch

Centaurea glaberrima Tausch or Centaurea jacea
Bare knapweed
Livadna zečina
Not sure exactly which variant of Centaurea this is. Reference pictures differ!
 ..........

Cephalaria leucantha

Flower head is actually a round ball, hence the Croatian name of White head!
 ..........

Cichorium intybus

Cichorium intybus
Chicory
Cikorija
 ..........

Cirsium vulgare

 ..........

Crithmum maritima

This photo taken on a Sv Klement beach. A similar plant is Salicornia, which turns red as it ages. Both samphire and salicornia are used in cooking.
 ..........

Daucus carota

Daucus carota
Wild carrot
Divlja mrkva
 ..........
 ..........

Dittrichia viscosa

Dittrichia viscosa
Woody or sticky fleabane
Ljepljini oman / brušćinac / bušina
 ..........

Ecballium

Ecballium
Squirting cucumber
Divlji krastavac
 ..........

Echinops ritro

Echinops ritro
Southern globethistle
Globus čičak
 ..........
 ..........

Foeniculum vulgare

 ..........

Hedera helix poetarum nyman

This version of ivy is native to southern Europe, and the flowers are high in nectar. Which is why this mound of ivy on Vorh was absolutely swarming with happy bees and butterflies! This one is a Cardinal.
 ..........

Heliotropium europaeum

 ..........

Inula crithmoides

Inula Crithmoides / Limbarda crithmoides
Golden Samphire
Primorski oman
Compare to samphire/motar above
..........

Knautia arvenensis

 ..........

Limonium cancelatum

Limonium cancelatum
Lattice sea-lavender
Rešetkasta mrižica or Rešetkasta travulja
This tiny variant of sea-lavender appears to be local to Croatia. Seen on Sv Klement beach.
 ..........

Opuntia ficus-indica

Opuntia ficus-indica
Opuntia / prickly pear
Opuncija
An exotic import from Mexico that grows well here!
 ..........

Pistacia terebinthus

The berries on this bush are really pretty, but the Croatian name is “Smelly“
 ..........

Plumbago europaea

Plumbago europaea
Common leadwort
Vranjemil?
Few references  even mention this European version of plumbago! Flower looks very similar to the Scilla (below), but this has 5 petals, not 6 and the clusters are different.
 ..........

Scilla autumnalis

Scilla autumnalis or Prospero autumnale
Autumn squill
Jesenji procjepak
In this case, the leaves are misleading as they belong to another plant!
 ..........

Sonchus asper

Sonchus asper
Perennial sow-thistle
Modrozeleni ostak or Kostriš
 ..........

“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them” ~ A.A. Milne

© Marion Podolski 2016

 This article has been reproduced with kind permission from Marion's blog Go Hvar, Ramblings about a far island. Visit the blog for all kinds of information about Hvar, from artistic to epicurean!

 

 

Related items

back to top
You are here: Home Nature Watch Hvar's Wild Flowers in the Late Summer

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Why are onions turning up on Brighton beach?

    Food produce and other waste has been littering Sussex coastline as capsized shipping containers wash ashore

    Coral Evans was walking along the beach in Brighton on Tuesday evening when she came across an unfamiliar sight.

    “Hundreds of dust masks had washed up, along with single-use plastic gloves and cans of dried milk,” she said. “It was odd to see in winter – because nothing surprises us in summertime with the amount of people on the beach.”

    Continue reading...

  • Inventor says robo-vaccination machine could be used to combat bovine TB

    Tony Cholerton created Robovacc to inoculate a timid tiger at London zoo – but says it could administer jabs to badgers

    It began with the tiger who wouldn’t come to tea. Cinta was so shy that she refused to feed when keepers at London zoo were around, and staff wondered how they would ever administer the young animal’s vaccinations without traumatising her.

    So Tony Cholerton, a zookeeper who had been a motorcycle engineer for many years, invented Robovacc – a machine to quickly administer vital jabs without the presence of people.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘I’m losing £1,800 a day’: the stark reality for Britain’s dairy farmers

    The cost of producing milk is higher than that being paid by milk processors, leaving farmers operating at a loss

    “Every morning that I roll out of bed at 4.40am, I know I’m losing £1,800 that day, just by getting up.” This is the stark daily reality for Paul Tompkins, as he and his fellow dairy farmers struggle in the face of plummeting milk prices.

    Tompkins, who is the third generation to run his family’s 234-hectare (600-acre) farm in the Vale of York, can produce milk for about 40p a litre from his 500-strong herd of black and white Holstein cows. However, he is being paid only 29p a litre by his milk processor, leaving him operating at a loss, despite trying to run his business as efficiently as possible.

    Continue reading...

  • Rare twins born in DRC raise cautious hope for endangered mountain gorillas

    Virunga park ranger says babies are well cared for by mother Mafuko but high infant mortality makes first weeks critical

    It was noon by the time Jacques Katutu first saw the newborn mountain gorillas. Cradled in the arms of their mother, Mafuko, the tiny twins clung to her body for warmth in the forest clearing in Virunga national park, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

    Katutu, head of gorilla monitoring in Virunga, has seen dozens of newborns in his 15 years as a ranger. But, he tells the Guardian, even he was touched by the sight of the fragile infant males, who face serious obstacles if they are to become silverbacks one day.

    Continue reading...

  • UK urged to ratify high seas treaty to avoid being shut out of Ocean Cop summit

    As international treaty comes into force, bill to make it law in Britain is moving at ‘glacial pace’ through parliament

    The UK risks being shut out of a historic oceans summit because parliament has failed to ratify the UN’s high seas treaty, environmental charities and campaigners have warned.

    The high seas treaty, formally known as the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, comes into force on Saturday, after two decades of talks.

    Continue reading...

  • Country diary: There’s a hard, ancient pleasure to laying a hedge | Michael White

    Cranbrook, Kent: I have a stretch of leggy hawthorn that needs attention, so I head out into the cold with my axe and billhook

    Wire netting is everywhere in the Kent Weald – barbed boundaries to ancient pastures where sheep and cattle still idly graze. But what did farmers do for the hundreds of years before stock fencing was invented?

    Hedges, so rooted in what we wistfully consider to be our natural landscape, are in fact human-made features, planted almost solely for the purpose of enclosure. Unmanaged hedges are not a permanent solution, though: young trees mature, trunks become bare, and animal‑sized holes appear, rendering them useless. To remedy this, the practice of hedge laying was developed; unlike bricklaying, it is an act of maintenance rather than creation.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘Garden of Eden’: the Spanish farm growing citrus you’ve never heard of

    Todolí foundation produces varieties from Buddha’s hands to sudachi and hopes to help citrus survive climate change

    It was on a trip with a friend to the east coast of Spain that the chef Matthew Slotover came across the “Garden of Eden”, an organic farm growing citrus varieties he had never heard of. The Todolí Citrus Foundation is a nonprofit venture and the largest private collection of citrus in the world with more than 500 varieties, and its owners think the rare fruit could hold the genetic secrets to growing citrus groves that can deal with climate change.

    The farm yields far more interesting fruit than oranges and lemons for Slotover’s menu, including kumquat, finger lime, sudachi and bergamot.

    Continue reading...

  • Australia’s koala paradox: why is the beloved marsupial endangered in parts but overabundant in others?

    There are so many koalas in some places that food is the issue – while elsewhere populations are threatened by habitat loss. And there are no easy fixes

    On French Island in Victoria’s Western Port Bay, koalas are dropping from trees. Eucalypts have been eaten bare by the marsupials, with local reports of some found starving and dead. Multiple koalas – usually solitary animals – can often be seen on a single gum.

    Koalas were first introduced to French Island from the mainland in the 1880s, a move that protected the species from extinction in the decades they were extensively hunted for their pelts. In the absence of predators and diseases such as chlamydia, the population thrived.

    Continue reading...

  • Dublin Bay’s oyster graveyard rises from dead in effort to restore rich ecosystem

    Pioneering scheme hopes species that thrived for thousands of years in Irish waters can do so again

    The dinghy slowed to a stop at a long line of black bobbing baskets and David Lawlor reached out to inspect the first one.

    Inside lay 60 oysters, all with their shells closed, shielding the life within. “They look great,” beamed Lawlor. So did their neighbours in the next basket and the ones after that, all down the line of 300 baskets, totalling 18,000 oysters.

    Continue reading...

  • The fate of the planet’s coastlines depends on how fast Antarctica’s ice sheets melt. We don’t know what’s coming

    Some regions of the continent have enough ice to push up sea levels by 15 metres if they all melt, but researchers don’t yet fully understand the consequences

    On one side of Dr Ben Galton-Fenzi’s view across the vast Totten ice shelf, the sun sat low on the Antarctic horizon. On the other, a full moon.

    The ice shelf is “flat and white”, says Galton-Fenzi. “If there’s cloud around, you lose the horizon.”

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds

Copyright © 2026 Eco Hvar. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Orion Informatika.