Epilobium Fleischeri

This compact and delightful flower from the Alps is seriously under-used in the garden where its delicate, fragrant, pink flowers, which have four pointed thin dark purple sepals and four bright pink ovate petals, borne on reddish stems against gray-green foliage, would be a welcome addition. It is native to the European mountain regions and to nearby mountain ranges such as the Carpathians, where it typically colonises acid gravels near rivers particularly after the retreat of a glacier. It immediately reminds you of Chamerion angustifolium (Rosebay Willowherb) but is instead a lovely, dwarf, non-invasive plant with flowers disproportionately large for such a small alpine.