Abstract
The rupestrian species, which develop on the bare dolomite rocks, often at an elevation of between 2,000 and 3,000 m, constitute the extreme limit of plant life in these mountains: a highly specialized flora that is the result of a long process of evolution. Today, seeing the shoots of a saxifrage or a campanula that emerge from a fissure in the rock, we wonder how it is possible that a plant can live in this habitat. The rupestrian species have solved this problem, thanks to an evolutionary process that developed over the course of geological epochs.
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Pignatti, E., Pignatti, S. (2014). Rupestrian Habitats. In: Plant Life of the Dolomites. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31043-0_13
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