Tschamut is the west­ern­most vil­lage in the can­ton of Graubün­den. In mid-August, 30 map­pers were out and about there—on dry mead­ows, along streams and reser­voirs, through flood­plain forests, across steep slopes, through remote val­leys, and up into high-alti­tude land­scapes, such as Piz Cavra­di. Con­di­tions were not always easy: the hot, dry sum­mer had already caused many plants to with­er, and large areas had been grazed.

Sur­pris­ing Bio­di­ver­si­ty in a Steep Ravine

The “Ruinas” rapid sur­vey was par­tic­u­lar­ly impres­sive. The 100 × 100-meter study area is locat­ed on a steep slope in a ravine with plen­ty of tall herbs and green alder thickets—so at first glance, it’s not a place where one would expect to find high plant diver­si­ty. But the sur­vey­ors were not deterred and found 103 species there.

New species or species not report­ed for a long time

Dur­ing a quick sur­vey in Maighels, par­tic­i­pants dis­cov­ered the frag­ile blad­der fern (Cystopteris frag­ilis), a new species for the sur­vey square. The Alpine wil­lowherb (Epi­lo­bi­um ana­gal­lid­i­foli­um) also reappeared—the last record of this species here dat­ed back to 1982.

There were also some sur­pris­es in Val Sumvitg: the Ger­man tamarisk (Myri­caria ger­man­i­ca) is a new species for the val­ley. In addi­tion, the pres­ence of the sin­gle-sheathed bul­rush (Eleocharis unig­lu­mis) was con­firmed.

Plant hunt­ing requires sta­mi­na

In addi­tion to the plants we found, the shared expe­ri­ences also remain in our mem­o­ries. Take, for exam­ple, the leg­endary “Ober­alp-Tschamut Rail Expe­di­tion”: While Dorith remind­ed us every half hour that “we real­ly ought to eat some­thing,” the mag­ni­fy­ing glass remained more impor­tant than lunch. The pic­nic on the lit­tle bench final­ly took place around half past three—and only then did the pace toward Tschamut pick up “a bit.”

That evening, the group wrapped up the day with a good meal, iden­ti­fied plants togeth­er, and dis­cussed and talked shop long into the night.

Last map­ping week­end of the sea­son

The Tschamut map­ping week­end was also the last map­ping week­end of the 2026 sea­son. And it left a sig­nif­i­cant mark on the Sur­sel­va: In the 5×5‑km square around Ober­alp­stock, only 23 species had been record­ed in Graubün­den up to that point. Now there are 249. And that’s after just one day of map­ping in this remote square—an impres­sive result.

Thank you very much for your tremen­dous ded­i­ca­tion to Flo­ra Raet­i­ca!