Random fact for the day

Hi folks,

Well, some of you may have seen my thread about my new Edelweisse, and I seem to be mentioning it in every post at the moment (including this one..! :D) but I thought I'd throw in a few interesting facts about the Edelweisse, which is a flower that grows in the Alps, and some of the lore that surrounds it.

The Edelweisse has actually made it onto the two Euro cent coins that are issued by Austria and is also a brand of beer made in that country. Very nice it is too..! :beer1:

The flower was established in 1907 as the symbol for the Austro-Hungarian Alpine troops by Emperor Franz Joseph I, and is still the insignia today for the Austrian, Polish and German Alpine troops.

Swiss Generals also have the Edelweisse on their uniform instead of stars and some soldiers wear them on their uniforms today as a sign of bravery. The connotations with bravery arose because the flower grows in very high, difficult to reach places in the Alps and people who could climb up to get them were considered to be very brave!

Anyone else have any interesting facts about this flower?