Category Archives: flowers

The Andrex plant?

22 Thursday Jul 2021

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I had to laugh when I read in Flora Britannica that, because this plant’s large leaves feel like they are covered in soft grey wool: ‘In a more modern – and practical – vein, mullein has been nicknamed “the Andrex plant”, and its leaves used accordingly.’ I cannot attest to the veracity of this statement!

This is Great mullein (Verbascum thapsus), which also has some wonderful, less recent vernacular names: Aaron’s Rod, Hagtapers, Adam’s flannel, and Our Lady’s candle. These names are no doubt inspired partly by those leaves and also by the enormous yellow-flowered spike, which can grow to four or five feet tall. Mullein is a biennial plant: in its first year there is just a rosette of leaves, and it’s not till its second year that the flower spike grows.

Marsh helleborines

07 Wednesday Jul 2021

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As their current conservation status in Britain is rated amber, meaning they are vulnerable and near-threatened, I feel privileged to have within easy travelling distance a large colony of Marsh helleborines (Epipactis palustris).

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And, as our rainfall levels in Wales during May were the highest recorded since records began in 1862, this has been a very good year for a plant that thrives in the wet – hence, the ‘Marsh’ in its name.

These are low-growing orchids, no more than a foot in height, but it is well worth getting down to their level to appreciate more fully the elegant and delicate beauty of their flowers. To my fanciful eye, they sometimes resemble a woman dancing, her frilly white petticoats swirling about her. At other times, I see a white blouse, with an extravagant ruffle down the front, like the jabot worn by some judges. What do you see?

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Heath spotted-orchids

04 Sunday Jul 2021

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From the often-boggy, mostly acid grasslands at Aberbargoed direct to your screens, this week’s native British orchid is the appropriately named Heath spotted-orchid (remember, the spotted part of that name refers to the marks on its leaves, not its petals). Its scientific name is Dactylorhiza maculata, which the Plantlife website explains as follows: ‘The genus name Dactylorhiza is formed from the Greek words daktylos meaning finger and rhiza meaning root’ – so, this orchid has a multi-fingered root, rather than a single tuber. And maculata means spotted – those leaves.

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As you can see from the flower spikes below, this is another orchid with some variation in both its colours, which range from white through pink to pale purple, and its markings, which, though they look spotted from a distance, actually have various combinations of streaks and little loops. The shape of the petals is also distinctive, the lower one in particular is less deeply lobed than, for example, the Common spotted-orchid, which the Heath spotted does superficially resemble.

A viperish plant

27 Sunday Jun 2021

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Of Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare), Richard Mabey writes in Flora Britannica:

[It] is a viperish plant in all its parts. The sprays of flowers that spiral up the stem are half-coiled; the long red stamens protrude from the mouths of the blue and purple flowers like tongues; the fruits resemble adders’ heads. Even the ‘speckled’ stem (it is hairy in fact) suggested snakes’ skins to early herbalists.

And like all members of the Echium family, this glorious plant is much loved and visited by insects, especially (from my own observations) bumblebees.

Summer yellow

20 Sunday Jun 2021

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We’ve rain today, the gentle soft rain that I’ve come to associate with life in Wales, but I’m not complaining. It’s much needed, by the land, its plants and its beasties, after a couple of weeks of strong sunshine and baking heat. To counteract the dull grey I see out my window, I’m about to compile today’s post, a little video full of summer sunshine, with some of the yellow-flowered wildflowers currently in bloom. I know I’ve done this before, and quite recently, but I do so enjoy the bright cheeriness of yellow.

Pictured today are: Bird’s-foot trefoil, Creeping buttercup, Creeping cinquefoil, a Dandelion species, Dyer’s greenweed, Evening primrose, Meadow buttercup, a Melilotus species, Mouse-ear hawkweed, Nipplewort, Pineapple weed, Reflexed stonecrop, Silverweed, Smooth sow-thistle, Tormentil, Wood avens, Yellow iris, Yellow loosestrife, Yellow pimpernel, Yellow water-lily, and Yellow-wort.

Southern marsh-orchids

16 Wednesday Jun 2021

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Mostly, I only see four species of orchid: Early purple, Common spotted, Bee and Pyramidal, so I find it tricky identifying other species. And the fact that many species of orchid hybridise with each other also complicates the identification picture. So, when a Twitter pal tagged me for help identifying a Southern marsh-orchid (Dactylorhiza praetermissa) I couldn’t assist, but decided to try to find some for myself to learn more about their appearance. I found one specimen during a recent visit to Aberbargoed (though not at the grasslands) and several at Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park.

The first thing I realised is that you can’t rely on colour. I found another orchid that looked the perfect shade of purple but didn’t have the right markings – perhaps a hybrid of Southern marsh and Common spotted. The two key things for Southern marsh-orchids, it seems to me, in non-botanist speak, are that the upper petals all reach skywards, like a person holding their arms in the air, and that the larger, lower petal has two cascades of spots that sometimes merge in to one but always fall in the centre of the petal, not spreading outwards. I’m sure there’s a more succinct way to phrase that but I think it’s best we each have our own ways to remember key points.

Lovely Leguminosae

13 Sunday Jun 2021

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There’s something about the Pea family, the Leguminosae. Maybe it’s because my Nana used to grow Sweet peas every year so I always associate their smell with good memories of time spent with her. Maybe it’s because my Dad always grew peas in his vegetable garden (though my brother and I often ate them straight off the vines before Dad could harvest them for a family meal) – also good memories of helping him planting and weeding. Maybe it’s just that their distinctive five-petalled flowers make the Pea family a little easier to identify than many other wildflower families. Maybe it’s just that they’re beautiful. Here are some that are blooming now here in south Wales.

These are Goat’s-rue (Galega officinalis), Hairy tare (Vicia hirsuta), Bitter vetch (Lathyrus linifolius), Bush vetch (Vicia sepium), Common vetch (Vicia sativa), Tufted vetch (Vicia cracca), Grass vetchling (Lathyrus nissolia), and Meadow vetchling (Lathyrus pratensis).

Spatling Poppie

09 Wednesday Jun 2021

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According to Flora Britannica, this plant is ‘one of the favourite food-plants of the little insects known as froghoppers, notable for surrounding themselves with protective froth whilst feeding. John Gerard … called it “Spatling Poppie”, “in respect of that kindle of frothie spittle, or spume, which we call Cuckoo spittle, that more aboundeth in the bosomes of the leaues of these plants, then in any other”.’

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Gerard’s ‘Spatling Poppie’ is today better known as Bladder campion (Silene vulgaris), and I think it’s fairly obvious where the name ‘bladder’ came from – the calyx of the flower head looks swollen, as if inflated with air or water. According to the Plantlife website, the plant’s other common names include Cowbell, Maiden’s tears, and Common Bladder Catchfly ‘even though it doesn’t technically catch flies’.

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This is not a flower I see often locally, so I was delighted to find several clumps growing amongst wildflowers at the edge of a local road. A roadside verge is a typical location for Bladder campion, and these lovely wildflowers can also be found under hedgerows, in fields and meadows.

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