Eryngium alpinum

This species, which is extremely rare and in danger of extinction due to indiscriminate picking, is endemic to the Alps and today is found in nature only in very few stations in the Cottian and Maritime Alps (in Piedmont) and Carnic Alps (in Friuli Venezia Giulia). Grown as an ornamental plant in many gardens, it is easy to recognise thanks to its inflorescences formed by a single, ovoid flower head, that is purplish-blue in colour when ripe. It is surrounded by numerous bracts, arranged in a radial pattern and with many thorny laciniae that are also purplish-blue. The petiolate basal leaves are full, ovoid-shaped, with cordate base and acute tip and the margin is irregularly dentate with spinules. The name of the genus seems to come from the Greek "erungion", meaning hedgehog, in reference to the thorns on the leaves and inflorescence that protect it from being bitten by herbivores.