From the Zarde Kuh range we managed to find an unpaved road in
northwest
direction towards the city of Aligudarz. This whole region is very
beautiful and is
full of remote valleys and hidden gorges. We think there are still some
new
species to be found in this area and we hope to return here one day. After
we
picked up the road coming from Aligudarz, we continued in the direction of
Shoulabad. We had been here already during our trip in 2000, and at that
time
found some nice plants of Dionysia haussknechtii.
We first went to the spot were we had found those plants, but on this
14th of May 2003 most plants had
withered flowers only! These plants are
growing, together with Viola pachyrrhiza, at an altitude of approx. 2450m.
But we knew there is a pass in this road of 2900m, we hoped on this spot
there
would be some plants still in flower. And indeed, here we found some
plants
still very nice flowering!
This species was also introduced into cultivation by the 1998 SLIZE expedition.
