Cortusa matthioli

This is a very rare species in the Alps, but it is easy to recognise due to its typical hanging inflorescence, carried by a leafless stem and consisting in numerous, mostly unilateral, bell-shaped flowers that are whitish in the tube-shaped portion and cyclamen in the outer part. The leaves, all basal and with a long petiole, have either a circular or kidney-shaped lamina divided into dentate lobes. Its name honours two illustrious 16th-century Italian doctors and botanists: G. Cortuso of Padua and P. Mattioli of Siena. Together they described it for the first time and highlighted its analgesic and healing properties, especially for treating wounds. Today, also because of its rarity, it is no longer considered an officinal species.