Flora.

The Désert de Platé is not the desert that it appears to be! When looked at closely, a veritable botanic garden is offered to the walker, despite the lack of water and the climatic extremes imposed by altitude! It must be said that, with time, the plants have developed an incredible capacity for adaptation to the most inhospitable of environments.

The diversity of the flora of the Platé owes its self to the presence of numerous distinctive micro-environments, alpine turf, snow-filled corries, wind swept ridges, scree slopes, rocks and cliff, residual snow, humid zones and ledges, some of the particular environments for each of which a very specific flora has adapted. there, Scheuchzer's Hairbell (Campanula scheuchzeri) in a little limestone cavity, here Hutchinsinia (Hornungia petraea) and Pennycress (Thlaspi rotundifolium) have found their place in a scree slope…

The sandstone rocks which overlie the Désert are responsible for influx of silica which allows the implantation of species such as the rusty-leaved alpenrose (Rhododendron ferrugineum), Arnica (Arnica montana) or the Small Rampion (Phyteuma hemisphaericum). This creates a pretty mosaic of rocks and flowers.

As for trees, they have had to submit to the rigours of the mountain and to adapt to the worst conditions; some have taken refuge at the bottom of crevasses, some, impossible to grow upwards, grow horizontally, spreading out over the rock e.g. Net-leaved Willow (Salix reticulata).

Around the chalets a rather special flora has developed, witness to the pastoral record of the Platé, the concentration of nitrates from cow and sheep excrement has resulted in colonisation of nitrogen loving plants among the most useful to the graziers being the nettles, wild spinach, sorrel, docks… a veritable wild kitchen garden!