Flo­ra Raet­i­ca relies on the ded­i­ca­tion of its vol­un­teers. Through their obser­va­tions, they make an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to doc­u­ment­ing the flo­ra of Graubün­den.

In our por­trait series, we intro­duce the peo­ple behind Flo­ra Raet­i­ca.

Today: Ste­fanie Jacomet, a retired archaeob­otanist from Ftan. She has been with Flo­ra Raet­i­ca since the project began.

Pho­to: Jörg Schi­bler – Ste­fanie Jacomet on a botan­i­cal dis­cov­ery tour.

Ste­fi, what do you love about plants?
Pret­ty much every­thing! Study­ing plants is incred­i­bly varied—identifying them, their his­to­ry over the last few mil­lion years, spe­ci­a­tion process­es, genet­ic rela­tion­ships, their ecol­o­gy… and so much more. And then, of course, many flow­er­ing plants are sim­ply beau­ti­ful to look at!

How did you get into botany?
I’ve been inter­est­ed in plants ever since I was a child—I’ll nev­er for­get the walks through the forests of Basel-Land­schaft with my grand­fa­ther; I knew exact­ly where to find the lily-of-the-val­ley. In high school, much to our biol­o­gy teacher’s delight, I was the only one inter­est­ed in plants—so study­ing botany seemed like a nat­ur­al choice!

Do you have a favorite plant in Graubün­den?
I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by the small, pur­ple-flow­er­ing gen­tians with five petal lobes (some­times clas­si­fied as their own sub­genus,“Gen­tianel­la”). They have been poor­ly stud­ied in Switzer­land so far. I’m inter­est­ed in where they occur and how they’re relat­ed to one anoth­er. From this, we might be able to deduce where they sur­vived the ice ages and from which loca­tions they sub­se­quent­ly spread again.

What fas­ci­nates you about being out in nature?
The fresh air—and when you’re far­ther away from noisy streets, the peace and qui­et, too! I love being out­doors, hik­ing up moun­tains (at least as long as my legs will let me!), dis­cov­er­ing beau­ti­ful landscapes—and iden­ti­fy­ing plants along the way. I find it espe­cial­ly sat­is­fy­ing to suc­cess­ful­ly (re)discover species. And some­times you come across the most excit­ing things in places that seem “bor­ing” at first glance!

Why are you involved with Flo­ra Raet­i­ca?
Since I was work­ing in anoth­er field, I hadn’t been able to pur­sue field botany since the late 1990s. After I retired, giv­en my pro­fes­sion­al back­ground, it made sense to get back into it more inten­sive­ly. The Flo­ra Raet­i­ca project served as a very wel­come cat­a­lyst for this. Fur­ther­more, I find the idea of pub­lish­ing a “new edi­tion” 100 years after the first Flo­ra of Graubün­den to be very mean­ing­ful. I am inter­est­ed in the changes in the flo­ra that have occurred dur­ing this peri­od and the pos­si­ble rea­sons behind them.

What is your con­tri­bu­tion to Flo­ra Raet­i­ca?
I record as many plants as pos­si­ble and, with­in the 5x5-kilo­me­ter square that I pri­mar­i­ly over­see, I focus espe­cial­ly on the “flash squares.” The Low­er Enga­dine, where I’ve lived since my retire­ment, is very well doc­u­ment­ed botan­i­cal­ly. That’s why I’ve recent­ly been focus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly on taxa that are dif­fi­cult to iden­ti­fy, in order to bet­ter doc­u­ment their distribution—such as the small“Gen­tianel­la” speciesor the Rhaet­ian rose. I’m also hap­py to share the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion guides I’ve com­piled with enthu­si­as­tic indi­vid­u­als who may not yet be very famil­iar with plant iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.

What do you like most about work­ing here?
The oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act with ded­i­cat­ed indi­vid­u­als and field botany spe­cial­ists, to par­tic­i­pate in joint map­ping activ­i­ties, and to feel that I’m doing some­thing mean­ing­ful even after retirement—and per­haps even con­tribut­ing to research.

Was there a dis­cov­ery or moment out­doors that you’ll nev­er for­get?
Gath­er­ing plants in the rain and cold (in mid-June…) in a “Blitzquadrat” above Samedan…and dis­cov­er­ing there some beau­ti­ful­ly bloom­ing pin­nate vio­lets (Vio­la pin­na­ta)!

Do you have a per­son­al botany tip for Graubün­den?
The flo­ra of Graubün­den is gen­er­al­ly incred­i­bly diverse and abun­dant! I find avalanche tracks par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ing. They’re often teem­ing with species and can yield sur­pris­ing dis­cov­er­ies, such as large pop­u­la­tions of fire lilies or feath­er-leaved vio­lets. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, these areas are usu­al­ly steep and lack trails—so they’re not exact­ly “com­fort­able” for botan­i­cal explo­ration…! And that’s why they’re, unfor­tu­nate­ly, some­what under-researched…