11 Sunday Sep 2022
Posted in autumn, flowers, wildflowers
Over the summer, one of the local fields I regularly walk around was a sea of yellow, chock full of tall flowering Ragwort plants.
Now that it’s autumn, the landscape has changed to a rich brown, dotted with tiny spots of white, the fluffy Ragwort seeds. It would be easy to overlook this brown field but, when you look closely, the seedheads are quite lovely.
01 Thursday Sep 2022
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
New month, new season, new plant. This is Salad burnet, which seems recently to have had a change of scientific name from Sanguisorba minor to Poterium sanguisorba. As you might guess from the root of the word, the sanguisorba part of those names, old and new, refers to blood. Richard Mabey explains in Flora Britannica: ‘The round, rust-speckled flower-heads, a little like scabs or blood clots, made it a signaturist’s favourite, for staunching wounds….’ I don’t see the resemblance myself – in fact, I think the flower-heads look a little like terrestrial versions of sea-anemones.
From the common name, it is obvious that this plant can be used as a salad green and, though I haven’t tried it myself, I’ve read that it has a slightly bitter taste and that the leaves smell of cucumber when crushed. I will have to revisit the find site to check that out.
28 Sunday Aug 2022
Posted in autumn, flowers, wildflowers
Tags
Autumn Lady’s-tresses, British orchids, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, orchids, Spiranthes spiralis
Perhaps it’s a consequence of this summer’s exceptionally hot dry weather or maybe it’s due to the location’s proximity to the recently rejuvenated children’s playground and trampling by eager feet; whatever the reason, this year’s display of Autumn lady’s-tresses at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park is disappointing to say the least. Last year (Spiralling orchids, Sep 2021), I counted at least 30 flower spikes; this year so far there are just five.
17 Wednesday Aug 2022
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
There’s no mistaking Sea holly (Eryngium maritimum) – no other plant is so blue and spiky. I only see it locally in one place, growing in the sandy soil of the Cardiff Bay Barrage, where it may originally have been introduced in a sown wildflower mix but has since made itself at home and prospered. In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey explains that the leaves ‘are covered with a waxy cuticle, a device to help the plant retain water in salt winds and seaside sunshine’. And, despite its name and how spiky it is, it’s not related to Holly the shrub/tree but is, rather, a member of the carrot family.
14 Sunday Aug 2022
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
Topknot or tonsure or a bizarre combination of both? Teasel flowers never seem to flower throughout their length all at the same time. I wonder why that is.
31 Sunday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
Yellow is summer, sunshine, heat. Even before the record temperatures of the recent heat wave, walking through fields of these bright yellow (and orange) wildflowers was making me feel hot.
24 Sunday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
Tags
British orchids, British wildflowers, Broad-leaved helleborine, Epipactis helleborine, native orchids, orchid
I took these photos of Broad-leaved helleborine (Epipactis helleborine) ten days ago, on 13 July, and even then I had expected them to have shrivelled in the sweltering heat. Now, after the heatwave, I imagine they will have wilted, drooped, possibly died off completely but I will go back soon to check on them as they have such lovely flowers.
23 Saturday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, insects, wildflowers
Tags
5-spot Burnet moth, 6-spot Burnet moth, British wildflowers, Burnet moths, Burnet moths on pink flowers, pink wildflowers
There’s just something about pink flowers that Burnet moths find enticing. Whether they be thistles or Red clover or Knapweed, the 5-spots and the 6-spots seem to prefer them.
17 Sunday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
Tags
British wildflowers, Common figwort, Scrophularia nodosa, Vicia sylvatica, Wood vetch, woodland plants, woodland wildflowers
These new-to-me plant finds served as a welcome reminder that I should vary my walking routes more often, as I spotted both along a woodland path I don’t often wander.
This first plant is Common figwort (Scrophularia nodosa). Richard Mabey, in Flora Britannica, explains the name: ‘The “fig” in figwort is an old word for piles [haemorrhoids], which both the globular red flower-buds and the root-protuberances were thought to resemble. Figwort was recommended for piles and also for the tubercular swellings of scrofula, “the King’s Evil”.’
Common figwort is a rare plant locally so I returned to the site during last Friday’s walk, hoping for another look and better photos, but I was both dismayed and angered to find that the Woodland Trust’s maintenance team had been through shortly before I got to the location, and their overly aggressive strimming of the path’s edges had destroyed the plant. Sadly, this is just the latest in a series of issues I have noted with the Woodland Trust’s mismanagement of this glorious ancient woodland.
Fortunately, the Wood vetch (Vicia sylvatica) had not been affected, probably because it was scrambling along a backward-sloping bank so out of the strimmers’ line of attack. At a glance, this vetch’s flowers look white but a closer look reveals the delicate beauty of their fine purple lines.
10 Sunday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
A parade of pink (and blue) wildflowers …
earthstar 
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