01 Sunday Aug 2021
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
I’ve been watching these Broad-leaved helleborines since I first noticed their flower stems emerging through the grasses and wildflowers in a local park in early June.
They are plentiful and lush this year – presumably the very wet spring encouraged their growth but, unfortunately, our week-long heat wave has caused many to shrivel and dry before opening fully. Still, I find their flowers rather beautiful.
27 Tuesday Jul 2021
Tags
British leaf mines, Chromatomyia ramosa, leaf mines, leaf mines on Teasel, leaf-mining fly larvae, leafminers
Another day, another leafmine on Teasel. This is not what I’d planned to blog about today but, by sheer coincidence, I discovered this new-to-me leafmine during yesterday’s walk so thought I’d share. And, in fact, once I had the national expert check my identification, he also confirmed that this is the first record of these mines in south Wales.
The larvae of the tiny fly Chromatomyia ramosa are responsible for these mines, feeding both on Teasel and on the various Scabious plant species. As you can see in my photos, the larvae feed along the midrib of the leaf and also in short galleries leading off from the midrib. Though under-recorded, this fly is thought to be widespread in Britain, so I’ll certainly be on the look out for more of its leafmines.
26 Monday Jul 2021
Posted in plants
Tags
Agromyza dipsaci, British leaf mines, fly mines on Teasel, leaf mines, leaf-mining fly larvae, leafminers, Teasel
I wasn’t aware of any leafmines on Teasel until I saw a post on Twitter on 23 June by @leafminerman Rob Edmunds. Since then, I’ve been checking the newly sprouted leaves of Teasel whenever I see them. And, finally, on Friday I spotted some mines on a small group of Teasel plants at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park.
These are the mines of the fly Agromyza dipsaci, another tiny creature I’ll probably never see but I know it’s around from seeing its larval home. The mines appear in early summer once the Teasel leaves start growing, the blotch usually starting at the edge of the leaf and broadening as the larva consumes more and grows. Its large grains of frass can often be seen inside the mine, as shown in the photo on the right above.
The British leafminers website reports that this is an uncommon miner in the UK so I thought I’d check the records. Sure enough, there are only four Welsh records showing in Aderyn, the country’s biodiversity database – five when my record is included, and only seventeen records (including the four Welsh ones) on the NBN Atlas, the British database. It may be, though, that like many invertebrate species, this little fly is under-recorded. So, if you spot these mines on Teasel near you, please make sure to record your sightings.
22 Thursday Jul 2021
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
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.
07 Wednesday Jul 2021
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
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).
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?
03 Saturday Jul 2021
Tags
British leaf mines, British moths, Enchanter's nightshade, Larval mines of Mompha langiella, leafmines on Enchanter's nightshade, Mompha langiella, moth leafmines
I’ve been lingering over leafmines again and have a new one to show you, this time on the lovely little plant that carpets the woodland floor at this time of year, Enchanter’s nightshade (Circaea lutetiana).
The mines, which start off as galleries but are often subsumed into the later blotches, are made during June and July by the larvae of Mompha langiella, a rather nondescript little brown moth. The larvae, as described on the British leafminers website, are ‘light yellow, with darker thoracic legs’ (see photo left below), and, most fortunately, I also found a pupa (below right), which are located ‘occasionally in a mined leaf or in a cocoon between the leaves or on the leaves’.
Though Enchanter’s nightshade is widespread in the places where I walk, I’ve only found one site with these leafmines so far. Can you spot them in your local woodland?
08 Tuesday Jun 2021
Tags
British insects, insect larvae, larvae on Guelder rose, larvae on Oak, Oak sawfly, Oak sawfly larvae, Viburnum beetle, Viburnum beetle larvae
Seeing these two different species of larvae was a good reminder to me that not all ‘caterpillars’ are butterflies or moths.
This first is the larva of an Oak sawfly (Periclista lineolata) that was happily munching away at a delicious young Oak leaf.
And these other little nibblers, above and below, covered in dots and dashes and munching on the leaves of Guelder rose, will grow up to be beetles, Viburnum beetles (Pyrrhalta viburni).
I doubt I’ll ever see the adult Oak sawfly, as they seem rather elusive, but I have more chance of spotting these beetles as adults so must remember to keep an eye out for them in July and August.
06 Sunday Jun 2021
Posted in plants, wildflowers
Tags
#NoMowMay, Bee orchid, British wildflowers, Native British orchid, native orchids, urban orchids, wildflowers in road verges
If you live in or around or anywhere near Cardiff and you like orchids, then get yourself down to Ferry Road in Cardiff Bay, because there is a Bee orchid fiesta happening right now, and probably for the next few weeks.
It’s completely free. All you have to do is walk along the pavement on the west side of the road adjacent to the Cardiff Bay Retail Centre and look at the verge, because the good folks who manage the Retail Centre agreed to stop mowing said verge this spring, and the result is an explosion of Bee orchids.
I kid you not! One of the council’s community rangers did a count yesterday and reckons there are over 800 spikes, many of which are not yet in bloom. It is seriously amazing, and just shows what botanic marvels are in our road verges if the councils and corporations would just let them grow.
04 Friday Jun 2021
It’s Fungi Friday and, though this time of year is not what I usually think of as prime fungi time, fungi are always with us, around us, underneath our feet, in the air we breathe, and I did find some prime examples earlier this week.
The vibrant yellow-orange-red patches on these Stinging nettles are Nettle rust (Puccinia urticata), and there were a lot of them.
As you can imagine, they were not easy to photograph, particularly as the plants were swaying slightly in the gentle breeze.
Fortunately, I spotted a patch of Dock nearby and used a leaf of that to shield my fingers while I held the plants steady.
06 Thursday May 2021
As part of this spring’s project to watch trees and shrubs come to life, I’ve been keeping a close eye on Wayfaring trees during my local walks. Viburnum lantana is a tree – or shrub, if the potential to grow 5 metres tall means it can still be called a shrub – I’ve mostly ignored in the past but now I have a much better appreciation of its beauty.
The leaf buds when they first begin to develop are brown and furry and very sculptural.
And the flowers are equally lovely. The first of these photos was taken on 23 March, the most recent just two days ago, on 4 May.
You can read more about the Wayfaring tree on the Woodland Trust website, where the entry includes the fascinating information that arrows made from stems of this tree were found on the frozen body of ‘Ötzi the Iceman’, the man from 4000-3500BC whose body was found in the Austrian Alps in 1991.
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