Category Archives: wildflowers

Wild word: phenology

10 Wednesday Jan 2024

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Phenology: noun; the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life (Oxford Dictionary).

In 2020 I was amazed to find my first Lesser celandine of the ‘spring’ flowering on 8 January (First Lesser celandine of 2020). This year, I was even more amazed to find my first even before the turning of the year, on 29 December, and then located another two flowers at a different site on my 1 January walk around Cardiff Bay. The way our changing climate is affecting plant phenology (i.e. how flowering times are influenced by seasonal weather variations) is just crazy.

240107 lesser celandine

Winter 16

07 Sunday Jan 2024

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The wet and windy weather may have passed but now it feels more like proper winter, with daytime high temperatures in single digits. Still, there are wildflowers to be found in bloom, some that we would usually see in a couple of months time rather than this early in the year. These sixteen are those I found on a walk around the outskirts of my town yesterday and this morning.

240107 winter16

Wild word: viviparity

03 Wednesday Jan 2024

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Viviparity: noun; (of seeds) germinating before separating from the parent plant (from the Latin words vīvus, meaning alive, and parere, meaning to bring forth) (the adjective is viviparous), (Collins Concise Dictionary).

240103 viviparity

I’d seen a couple of photographic examples of viviparity on Twitter but had never seen this myself until a walk at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park on 28 December. The tiny green shoots on this Teasel are its own seeds which, for some reason, have not been released from the seed head and have now begun to sprout.

W is for wildflowers

28 Thursday Dec 2023

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Wildflowers: they brighten dull, grey and rainy days; they encourage me to expand my botanical knowledge, which is much needed; they provide a reason to get out of the house when I’m feeling lazy; they cheer me when the world feels sad, bad and mad. As the year draws to a close, I thought I’d share some wildflower collages from throughout the year, to brighten your winter day (at least, for those of you in the northern hemisphere) and also to encourage you to take part in this year’s New Year Plant Hunt, which is running from 30 December 2023 to 4 January 2024 (details on the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland website). This first image is from 8 January.

231228 wildflowers 230108

This second assembly, in the form of a video slideshow, contains the flowers I found during the week ending 26 February, an end-of-winter selection.

Next up, in 3 images, are the many flowers found on 24 September, an early autumn abundance of colour.

231228 wildflowers 230924 (1)231228 wildflowers 230924 (2)231228 wildflowers 230924 (3)

And this final series is very recent – these are the flowers I found during my meanderings for the week ending 17 December, an amazing and most unexpected 31 species. They certainly brightened up the short grey days!

231228 wildflowers x31 (1)231228 wildflowers x31 (2)231228 wildflowers x31 (3)231228 wildflowers x31 (4)

Three campions

26 Sunday Nov 2023

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Here are three campions I’ve found during this week’s walks. The first was a late-flowering surprise I found on Wednesday and is in the best condition of these three campions as it was photographed before the hard frost we had yesterday, Saturday. This is the lovely Red campion (Silene dioica).

231126 red campion

The White campion (Silene latifolia) also looked lovely when I saw it on Wednesday but these photos were taken today so the flowers were showing the effects of the weather, drooping, wet from this morning’s drizzle, the petals almost transparent but still pretty. I’ve included a second photo, a side view of the flower so you can see the difference between White and the third campion, below, which also has white petals.

231126 white campion

And this is the third campion of the week, very much past its best now, with the merest slivers of petals still remaining. The shape that gives the Bladder campion (Silene vulgaris) its name is very obvious and, once again, I’ve included a second image, this one taken in June, to show this pretty flower at its best.

231126 bladder campion

It’s spring!

22 Wednesday Nov 2023

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Spring? Oh, wait. We haven’t had winter yet. Well, I found my first flowering Primrose – the traditional harbinger of springtime –lurking under the trees and shrubs in the scruffier part of a local park during today’s walk. Although it has been even wetter than usual this autumn, it has been very mild so perhaps that has fooled some plants into thinking spring is just around the corner.

231122 primrose

Hop trefoil

19 Sunday Nov 2023

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At first I hesitated to name this Hop trefoil (Trifolium campestre) as it’s a new plant for me but, when I posted some photos online, I got a thumbs up from a botanist and, looking at the ID guidance on the Naturespot website, I think it meets the criteria:

231119 Hop trefoil (1)

Short, hairy, erect plant. Trifoliate, leaflets oval, narrowed towards the base, the central one short stalked. Flowers pale yellow, becoming pale brown eventually, 4 to 5 mm long in small, globose, stalked heads to 15 mm across

And

… Larger and paler than Lesser Hop-trefoil, and turns brownish with age. Both trefoils are similar to Black Medick in flower, but Black Medick leaves are much more hairy and have an apiculate point (i.e a short fine ‘needle’ from the end of the leaflet)

231119 Hop trefoil (2)

59!

12 Sunday Nov 2023

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I was surprised at the start of the week to find wildflowers blooming that should long since have gone to seed and that inspired me to see just how many wild flowers I could find during this week’s walks. The answer, of course, is in the title of this post – 59! That is to say, I have 59 images to share but there were a few more plants in flower that I didn’t manage, for one reason or another, to photograph. Some wildflowers were quite unexpected, like the Carline thistle that had one flower open and 3 more buds still to develop; some were abundant, like the Yellow-wort still standing tall in a field at Cosmeston; others, like the Common stork’s-bill, were the last survivors of the strimmers that have been very active this month. Here they all are …

Crane’s-bill vs stork’s-bill

29 Sunday Oct 2023

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It occurred to me today, after seeing both Common stork’s-bill (Erodium cicutarium) and Meadow crane’s-bill (Geranium pratense) still flowering locally, to wonder what the difference is between stork’s-bills and crane’s-bills. According to my Flora Britannica, it’s to do with the length of the birds’ bills, i.e. the seed cases of the stork’s-bills are longer than those of the crane’s-bills. The photos below show the relative differences, Meadow crane’s-bill above, Common stork’s-bill below.

231029 meadow crane's-bill vs common stork's-bill (1)

And because they both have lovely flowers, albeit of very different sizes (Common stork’s-bill is a tiny plant compared to Meadow crane’s bill), here they are, again Meadow crane’s-bill above, Common stork’s-bill below.

231029 meadow crane's-bill vs common stork's-bill (2)