Divje Jezero, not far from the town of Idrija, is a small lake surrounded by thick woods on one side and a precipitous wall on the other. Known literally as “Wild Lake,” it’s a year-round source of water, which sometimes erupts violently to the surface after heavy rains.

It was at Divje Jezero that, in the mid-18th century, a doctor named Giovanni Antonio Scopoli discovered a beautiful flower with vividly green leaves and gentle, purplish flowers. However, Scopoli – who went to discover several other species of plants – didn’t realize that the purplish flower was a new species, and he ignored it. It took the French polymath Balthasar Hacquet, who spent several years in Slovenia, to recognize its uniqueness. He quickly alerted botanists to the discovery, and the flower was dubbed scopolia carniolica – the Carniolan primrose.

The Carniolan primrose in found only in Slovenia, mostly west of Ljubljana. Even there, it is difficult to spot since it prefers remote gorges and other hard-to-access terrain. Because its attractive appearance makes it attractive to adventurous pickers, its very survival came under threat in the early 20th century. The species was officially protected in 1922, however, and its numbers have rebounded since then.

Today, the Carniolan primrose is treasured as a uniquely Slovenian flower that grows nowhere else in the world. It has even been featured on postage stamps. Recently, the well-known American design company Anthropologie unveiled an item of clothing called “the Carniolan primrose dress” - with the unmistakable purplish flowers first described by Giovanni Antonio Scopoli many centuries ago.