Human Flower Project


Orrington, MAINE USA

flag flower bed
Murrieta, CALIFORNIA USA

parker basket thumb
Princeton, MAINE USA

Sunday, February 04, 2007

By the Letter of E.U. Law


Slovenia’s first Euro-priced stamps say ecology and solidarity, with wildflowers.


imageCarniolan Primrose

(Primula carniolica)

Photo: Posta Slovenije

As of January 1, 2007, Slovenia switched from the tolar to the Euro, (rather a pity when you see the fine fish on the obverse of the tolar coin).

Slovenia’s first stamps issued with Euro prices are a set of 17 native ferns and wildflowers, among them the Adulterated Spleenwort, Adriatic Lizard Orchid, and lovely Carniolan Primrose, a flower that grows “exclusively” here.

The wild plants weren’t an innocuous choice of mere joiners; they aren’t “just pretty” but affirm Slovenia’s commitment to the European Union’s Habitats Directive, “the EU’s single most important legal tool for biodiversity conservation.”

imageMeadow Squill (Scilla litardierei)

Photo: Posta Slovenije

The Directive specifies a network of sites throughout Europe—called Natura 2000—that most critically warrant protection, as they are habitats for endangered plants and animals.  “Slovenia is home” to 27 of these rare plants, 7 of them endemic.  Bertoloni Columbine (Aquilegia bertolonii) “can only be found in the Trnovo forest and in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps.” Meadow Squill (Scilla litardierei) now grows only in “the Planinsko polje. Its population is threatened by fertilisation, on the one hand, and the abandonment of grassland mowing, on the other.”

Slovenia joined the European Union in March 2004. Now with the Euro as its currency, it becomes a more fluid trade-partner. These flower stamps—the work of artist Julija Zornik—announce Slovenia’s allegiance also to the E.U. as a force for conservation. Natura 2000 may have the muscle to enforce protections for the few wild places remaining in Europe, a continent worn after many centuries of human building, fertilizing, fighting, and paving.


Posted by Julie on 02/04 at 10:04 PM
Art & MediaEcologyPoliticsPermalink