This very special plant is the rare and beautiful, blue-mauve bell flower Campanula scopelia: it has been named after the island.

Campanula scopelia is a Sporades endemic and found, growing naturally, only on the islands of Skopelos and Alonissos and nowhere else in the world.  

  The  flowers are arranged alternately along the the stalk in the axils of small leaves, they are tubular with  5 fused, pointed calyces and 5 fused, bright bluish-mauve, pointed petals. A particular characteristic of the rupestris group, is a small leaf like tag at the base of the calyx. The flowering stems, which are reddish in colour, radiate from the centre of the plant and follow the contours of the surrounding rock. The leaves are lyriform (lyre shaped) and lobed, with irregular wavy edges which continue along the petiole. All  parts of the plant are covered in fine white hairs which protect from the heat and bright light of the sun.

 The plant emerges one year as a rosette of leaves: the flowers appear the following year and the plant dies back after going to seed. Sometimes the plant produces small, daughter rosettes.