Category Archives: wildflowers

Winter 18

28 Sunday Jan 2024

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January’s weather has been all over the place. First, we shivered through a week of colder than average temperatures, then two wild and windy named storms blew away what few flowers had survived the cold, and now our weather is milder than usual. As a result, our flora (and fauna) seem confused about whether it’s winter or spring, and finding wildflowers in bloom has been hard work this week. However, after walking my patch for several years, I know where the more sheltered places are and so have managed to find 18 wildflowers in bloom.

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Just in case you don’t recognise them, these are: Daisy, Dandelion, Field speedwell, Gorse, both the female and male flowers of Hazel, Hoary mustard, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Mayweed, the white-flowered version of Pink campion, Primrose, Sea radish, Snowdrop, Sweet violet, Three-cornered leek, Wild strawberry, and Winter heliotrope.

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Bulrushes

25 Thursday Jan 2024

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As the weather has now turned unseasonally mild, I had hoped to find a Water vole when I meandered past the dipping pond at Cosmeston but none had ventured out of their holes. So, instead, you get bulrushes – not quite the same, I admit, but I’ve always liked their flowerheads, particularly when, like these, they’re shedding their fluffy seeds.

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Though other plants are also called bulrushes, the ones shown here are what most of us recognise when we hear that word. This is Great reedmace (Typha latifoli), a tall, long-leaved plant that typically grows on the margins of freshwater ponds and ditches.

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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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