22 Friday Apr 2022
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
I have no fungi to share this Friday so let’s have a floral Friday theme instead. This sublime bloom is my first orchid of the year, an Early-purple (Orchis mascula), one of three surprise finds during a woodland walk on Wednesday.
10 Sunday Apr 2022
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
In which I share a little video of the latest wildflowers to bloom in my neck of the woods …
07 Thursday Apr 2022
Woot! This teeny tiny beastie is my first weevil of 2022, as you can probably guess from the yellow flower it’s sitting on, a Gorse weevil (Exapion ulicis). I’ve read that they usually feed by poking their snout (properly known as a rostrum) into gorse stems and seeds but this one had its snout so firmly inserted into the flower that it looked like it would almost tip over.
27 Sunday Feb 2022
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers, winter
The title of today’s post may be later winter wildflowers but, in fact, my video includes some glorious hints of the spring colour we can all expect to see very soon. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed finding them.
20 Sunday Feb 2022
The Cherry tree outside my window has chosen these weather-beaten, wind-blown days of Storms Dudley, Eunice and now Franklin to open its first blossoms of the year. It’s incredibly cheering on a dull grey wet day.
06 Sunday Feb 2022
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
Despite being battered by drenching rain and storm-force wind gusts these hardy daffodils were still looking gorgeous.
In fact, the remaining water droplets seemed only to add to their beauty.
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.
earthstar 
You must be logged in to post a comment.