Pilosella aurantiaca - or devil’s paintbrush

When you are up high in the alpine void, the feeling you get is so overwhelming that little flowers laying at your feet, here or there, are not the first thing you notice. Unless, of course, you slip and fall right into it. Like I did. The fall wasn’t that bad, the greensward creates a thick carpet over the rocks. This is what I fell in: Pilosella aurantiaca - or devil’s paintbrush. I don’t know the Romanian name of this wild thing, it might be “rusulita” as I found out on the internet. It grows in alpine and subalpine regions from central and southern Europe.

The stem and leaves are juicy (if you break one, a milky sap will drop) and covered with blackish hairs, as the name “pilosella” is telling us. The flowers are orange (aurantiaca), about 1 centimeter in diameter, tied up together at the end. Here, on the mountain, it doesn’t grow so dense, that’s why I was surprised to find out that if you try and grow it into the garden, it will invade and transform into a tenacious weed. I made the pictures in July, but it flowers until October. Another name for it is hawkweed – apparently the hawk is eating it and because of that his eyesight is so good. There are not any medicinal uses that I’m aware of, maybe you can help me here.

I’ve made these pictures in Bucegi Mountains in two different days, on two different peeks. There were about 17 degrees, perfect summer weather for 2000m. Now if I think better, these tinny wild orange flowers are doing just fine in this not very friendly environment. So, no wonder they do so well when somebody is growing and takes care of them in a garden. No, no weed here.

Sources and more:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilosella_aurantiaca

https://www.first-nature.com/flowers/pilosella-aurantiaca.php