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In the shady and very humid areas of the Sant Llorenç del Munt massif, the plant that endured the Earth’s glaciations is flourishing, popularly known in Catalan as “orella d’ós”, that is, bear’s ear.
It is the ramonda myconi and it has other names, in fact, such as dry land cure-all, closed grass, cough grass, hairy grass, cough grass, orella d’onso, basta violet, cough grass, hairy grass and grass cough.
It is endemic to the limestone mountains of the Pyrenees and Pre-Pyrenees, such as the Sierra de Guara, and to the mountains of the northern half of Catalonia. In these areas it grows between 600 and 2,000 meters above sea level, on rocky, vertical or almost vertical surfaces, in cracks and on small landings, covered with moss.
It is normally seen in areas where direct sunlight does not reach or does so for a short time, as is the case of the shaded area of ​​Sant Llorenç del Munt, a massif located between the Vallès Occidental and Bages regions.
Its main peaks are Montcau (1,056.8 m) and La Mola (1,104 m), where the Monastery of Sant Llorenç del Munt is located.
Flowers appear from May to July. It has the capacity, unusual in vascular plants, to survive its total desiccation, after the rains, thanks to a biochemical mechanism that allows the transformation of a special sugar, raffinose, into sucrose, which prevents cell death.
The bear’s ear is considered a living fossil of the tropical vegetation that during the Tertiary, more than 20 million years ago, occupied the Pyrenees.
It received its name, ramonda, in honor of the French naturalist Louis-François-Élisabeth de Carbonnières, Baron de Ramond (1753-1827), who climbed Monte Perdido in 1808. The specific epithet, myconi, is dedicated to the botanist Francesc Micó who was botanist and doctor born in Vic.
