23 Sunday Jan 2022
Posted in flowers, wildflowers, winter
Tags
British wildflowers, wildflowers in winter, winter wildflowers, winter yellow, winter-blooming wildflowers, yellow wildflowers
Limiting my palette to yellow, for the challenge and the sunshine cheeriness of the colour, I went searching for wildflowers in bloom in my local area this week. These are the dozen I managed to find …
20 Monday Dec 2021
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
Perhaps O should really be for obsession, as it seems I have a bit of an obsession for orchids: they have featured in no fewer than nine blog posts this year. Early-purple orchids were the first to flower back in May, followed soon afterwards by the Common spotted-orchids, which also featured in a second post in late June about the variation in their colours and markings. Also in June, the Bee orchids showed their jolly faces, and I tried to get to grip with identifying Southern marsh-orchids. In July, more orchid species that like damp places were in the spotlight, first the Heath spotted-orchids of Aberbargoed, followed soon after by Rhoose Quarry’s magnificent Marsh helleborines. The late-summer-blooming Broad-leaved helleborines featured on the first day of August, and the first days of autumn were brightened by the sight of spiralling Autumn lady’s-tresses. What a feast for the senses these flowers are!
05 Sunday Dec 2021
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers, winter
It may be the first week of winter but there are still plenty of wildflowers in bloom. I hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I enjoyed finding them.
21 Sunday Nov 2021
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
During Friday’s search for more leafmines, I ventured along roads I hadn’t walked before, and I’m so glad I did as I found a new plant – well, an abundance of new plants really, growing all along the roadside verge in front of Cardiff’s main Royal Mail delivery centre. This is Gallant-soldier (Galinsoga parviflora).
I’ve read several variations of its history in Britain: here’s what is written in Flora Britannica:
Gallant-soldier … was brought to Kew Gardens from Peru in 1793, bearing a name that commemorated the Spanish botanist Don Mariano Martinez de Galinsoga. The plant itself was rather less imperious, being a thin, lax and greenish-flowered daisy with weedy habits. In the early 1860s it escaped from Kew and became widely established in gutters, gardens and waste places around Richmond … Galinsoga was corrupted to ‘Gallant soldier’.
Since their escape from Kew, these soldiers have marched far and wide, though they haven’t yet reached all parts of the British Isles, and there are not a lot of Welsh records. You can see a map of their whereabouts on the NBN Atlas website.
31 Sunday Oct 2021
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
Despite last week’s surprising total of 31 wildflowers still in bloom, I knew when I posted last week’s video that I hadn’t photographed all the flowers I’d seen that week so, during this week’s meanders, I’ve been keeping an eye out for more. By the end of Friday, I’d found exactly 31 more still in flower, and made my video.
Then, on yesterday’s walk, I found 4 more: Barren strawberry, Tormentil, Yellow corydalis and, astonishingly, several Oxlips. And I know I’ve missed some of the smaller plants along the back lanes, like Shepherd’s-purse, Chickweed and Petty spurge, as well as ignoring some of the yellow-flowered Dandelion lookalikes, so my total of 66 wildflowers in bloom over these two weeks is actually an underestimate.
24 Sunday Oct 2021
Posted in autumn, flowers, wildflowers
As this autumn has been very mild, the verges and paddocks, woodland rides and footpath edges are still full of blooming wildflowers. It’s a delight.
19 Tuesday Oct 2021
Posted in autumn, flowers, wildflowers
Tags
autumn-flowering Cyclamen, British wildflowers, cyclamen, Cyclamen hederifolium, naturalised Cyclamen
What a fabulous sight these flowers were during a recent meander around one of Cardiff’s cemeteries!
These are Cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium), which may once have been a single bulb planted on a loved one’s grave by a grieving relative that have now spread and become naturalised, a common occurrence in the churchyards of southern Britain. They certainly brighten up the autumn landscape with their gorgeous subtle shades of lilac and purple.
Why Sowbread? Well, according to the National Records Scotland website, ‘It is often referred to as sow bread because the corms looked like small loaves and were thought to have been favoured by pigs in the wild.’ The website is worth a look for the other interesting information it provides.
17 Sunday Oct 2021
Posted in autumn, flowers, plants, wildflowers
A celebration of seed heads, plant life of the future . . .
27 Monday Sep 2021
Tags
British leafmines, leaf-mining fly, leaf-mining fly larvae, leafmine on Himalayan balsam, leafmine on Indian balsam, leafminer, leafmines, Phytoliriomyza melampyga
Here’s a leafmine I hope you don’t find but you probably will, and easily. So, why do I hope you don’t? Because this mine is found on plants of the Impatiens species, including the highly invasive plant Himalayan balsam (or Indian balsam, as it’s officially known; i.e. Impatiens grandulifera).
The leafminer is the larva of Phytoliriomyza melampyga, which creates an initial narrow twisting gallery that then widens into a variable whitish blotch. The larva’s frass can easily be seen within the mine. The adult fly is actually rather cute, with mostly yellow, a bit of black colouring. (You can see a short video of it on Wikipedia.)
The NBN Atlas is currently showing just 192 records for this species in Britain, though, like most flies, it’s probably under-recorded.
29 Sunday Aug 2021
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
Tags
bright summer wildflowers, British wildflowers, late summer wildflowers, yellow flowers, yellow wildflowers
A selection of the wildflowers in bloom during these last weeks of summer – last week, my video featured flowers of more mellow, subtle hues; this week, you’ll need your sunglasses as these are the brights!
Featuring Agrimony, Bird’s-foot trefoil, Bristly oxtongue, Creeping buttercup, Creeping cinquefoil, Dandelion, Fleabane, Gorse, Honeysuckle, Meadow buttercup, Meadow vetchling, Melilot, Mouse-ear hawkweed, Nipplewort, Ragwort, Scarlet pimpernel, Smooth sow-thistle. Tutsan, Wild parsnip, Wood avens, Yellow corydalis, and Yellow-wort.
earthstar 
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