Kamnik Orchid (Nigritella lithopolitanica)

Vanilla or chocolate smelling orchids flower in summer high in the mountains on sunny, dry meadows. Three species grow in Slovenia. All three are protected, since the orchid is one of the flowers which, at one time, in the view of mountain climbers should not be missing in a bouquet, stuck in one's hat or bound to a spiked staff.

The most typically Slovene is the endemic Kamnik Orchid, which was once taken for a sub-species of the Black Vanilla Orchid, but by various distinguishing marks they ascertained that it is essentially an independent species. The Slovene botanist, Vlado Ravnik, on the basis of samples from Krvavec, described the new species in 1978 and called it after the Kamnik Alps. Like all orchids, it has leaves similar to grass, the flowers are in a globular or oviform inflorescence, violet-pink, though sometimes they can be almost white, and lighter in the lower part of the inflorescence.

The Kamnik Orchid grows in the Kamnik Alps and in the central and eastern parts of the Karavanke, from Vrtač to Pec. Since nature does not recognise political boundaries, it also grows on the Austrian side of the Karavanke.

It is the only one of the orchids to be classifed in the Red List of threatened plants as a rare species.

Another black orchid thrives in Slovenia, which has black-red or dark red flowers in a globular or oviform inflorescence and grows in the Karavanke, in the Kamnik and Julian Alps and on Porezen. On Notranjski Snežnik and scattered in the Julian Alps there is a red orchid with a cylindrical inflorescence and carmine red flowers.