Sea aster

21 Sunday Sep 2025

Posted by sconzani in autumn, flowers, wildflowers

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Aster tripolium, autumn colour, British wildflowers, native Michaelmas-daisy, saltmarsh wildflowers, Sea aster

According to Richard Mabey in Flora Britannica, Michaelmas-daisies were introduced to Britain in the early 1700s from their native North America, and many of those introduced species have now escaped their garden settings to become naturalised in the wider countryside. Not so the Sea aster (Aster tripolium), as this is a native British species of Michaelmas-daisy.

I had noticed some Sea asters in flower during my previous visit to Weymouth in late July but not many were in bloom. During my most recent visit, the flowers were much more abundant, which I’ve now discovered is because the peak flowering period for most species of Michaelmas-daisy coincides with Michaelmas Day on 29 September; I guess that should have been obvious from their name.

As the common name of our native species implies, the Sea aster is most at home in salty conditions, flourishing in coastal saltmarshes, though, apparently, it will sometimes appear alongside roads that have been heavily salted for de-icing purposes during the winter months.

Reddening Glasswort

14 Sunday Sep 2025

Posted by sconzani in autumn, plants, wildflowers

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autumn colour, Glasswort, reddening plant, RSPB Lodmoor, Salicornia species, saltmarsh plants, seaside plants

You may have noticed, in a couple of yesterday’s Ruff photos – as in the photo below (which includes Lapwings, Starlings, a Cormorant drying its wings, with a Grey heron lurking in the background) – the birds are moving around amongst a reddish-coloured plant.

This is Glasswort, one of the Salicornia species, though I don’t which of several species this might be. For one thing, due to the watery environment in which Glassworts thrive, I couldn’t get close to any of the plants, but also these plants can be tricky to distinguish one from the other. If you see Glasswort and want to give it a try, the Wildflower Society website has a downloadable pdf ‘A Guide to the Identification of the Glassworts of the British Isles’.

The Glassworts are plants of seasides and saltmarshes, and are common all around the British coastline. Until this latest visit to RSPB Lodmoor, I hadn’t particularly noticed these plants but this time, as the season is changing from summer to autumn, the Glassworts begin to change colour, and, I think, look stunning. I’m sure the photographers amongst you will also appreciate what a wonderful backdrop this colour provides for images of the local birds.

Mignonette

31 Sunday Aug 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Mignonette, Reseda lutea, Reseda odorata, Wild mignonette, wildflowers

As I’ve never sniffed their flowers, I’m not sure whether the Mignonette plants I see in various locations around Cardiff Bay are Wild Mignonette (Reseda lutea) or the escaped and naturalised garden variety Reseda odorata (the latter, a plant that’s more at home in Mediterranean countries, has a musky scent apparently).

Both species are common throughout the UK, in a wide variety of locations – along the edges of railway lines, on areas of waste ground, bordering car parks and garbage tips, around arable fields – in general, anywhere the ground has been disturbed and is mostly dry. You can see in the photos below how well the Mignonette plants are coping with the current drought conditions here in south Wales, compared to most other plants that are shrivelled, crispy and dying.

Soapwort and smut

24 Sunday Aug 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, fungi, plants, wildflowers

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anther smut, anther smut on Soapwort, archaeophyte, British wildflowers, fungus on Soapwort flowers, Microbotryum saponariae, Saponaria officinalis, Soapwort

During a walk around Cardiff’s Bute Park last week, I spotted a wildflower growing alongside my path that I couldn’t ever recall seeing before. It had pink flowers and looked a lot like Red campion so I wondered if it might be a cultivated variety of campion that had escaped from someone’s garden.

A look through the appropriate section of my wildflower guide when I got home proved me half right and half wrong. It was definitely a member of the campion family but this was Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis), no garden escape but not native either. It’s classified as an archaeophyte, which means this extremely useful detergent-plant was introduced to Britain in ancient times, prior to 1500 AD.

A few snippets from Flora Britannica:

Simply rubbing a leaf between the fingers will produce a slight, slippery froth. Boiled in water, the plant produces a green lather with the power to lift grease and dirt, especially from fabrics. … due to the presence of saponins – chemicals which, like inorganic soaps, appear to ‘lubricate’ and absorb dirt particles.
… cultivated for laundering woollens in Syria … and in Britain employed as a soaping agent by medieval fullers … because vegetable saponins are so much gentler than soaps, Saponaria has been used much more recently for washing ancient tapestries … Victoria &Albert Museum it was last used for cleaning fragile fabrics in the 1970s. The National Trust have also used it, for bringing up the colours in antique curtains.

Now, the keen-eyed amongst you may have noticed something a little odd about the flowers in some of my photos; the centres of the flower heads look black. This is because many of the plants I found were suffering from anther smut, in this case caused by the fungus Microbotryum saponariae. The pollen in the flowers’ anthers has been replaced with fungal spores, meaning the plant is unable to reproduce. This may be a recent infestation as I found plenty of plants growing along the path as I walked further. I often see something similar on Red campion flowers, though that is caused by a different fungal species, Microbotryum silenes-dioicae. So, two for the price of one today: a fascinating plant and an equally fascinating fungus.

White melilot

17 Sunday Aug 2025

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alien flora, alien plants, British wildflowers, Melilotus albus, White melilot

When I first saw this plant, I thought it was some weird variation on a vetch. I was wrong – I frequently am! – but I did have the correct family. This is White melilot (Melilotus albus), a member of the pea family, the Fabaceae (or Leguminosae).

I’ve only ever seen it growing in this one location, an area of waste ground on the western side of Cardiff Bay, which leads me to wonder how it arrived there. In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that it was ‘originally introduced to this country from Europe as fodder plants’ and is ‘now well naturalised at the edges of arable fields, on roadsides and in waste places’. That’s certainly one explanation but I wonder if this particular colony has a different origin.

I know from my time volunteering on the Mary Gilham Archive Project that, in the days of sail and the once very active docks that flourished around the Bay, ships often used sand as ballast. When they arrived at Cardiff, the ships offloaded their sand before loading up with a cargo of coal, and the sand was often dumped or used to reclaim land. That sand contained a huge variety of dormant seeds, which is why the land around Cardiff Bay – and the ports of other cities – often contain alien plant species. Whatever the truth of its arrival, White melilot is an attractive, if straggly little plant, which, I think, deserves to grow more widely.

Coleophora argentula

16 Saturday Aug 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects, plants, wildflowers

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case-bearing caterpillar, case-bearing larvae, case-bearing moth larva, Coleophora argentula, moth larvae on Yarrow, Yarrow

These may not look like much – in fact, when looking at these images, you might struggle to see anything but fading flower heads of Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) – but I’ve been checking almost every Yarrow flower I see, looking for these, since I first saw them mentioned on social media a few years ago.

These tiny brown tubes, camouflaged with a plant material covering, are the larval cases of the moth Coleophora argentula. From within their home-made protective covering, the little larvae poke their heads out to munch on the Yarrow flowers and on the seeds when they begin to develop.

According to the British Leafminers website entry on this species, the larvae are usually active from September through to May, so these are a little early; I’m finding many things are early this year, presumably due to the continuing warm weather. You can see the adult moth, a very pretty little thing, with pale brown and white stripes, over on the UK Moths website.

And now, have another look at the first photo. How many of the little brown cases can you find? Answers on a postcard. 🙂

A confusion of Comfreys

10 Sunday Aug 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Comfrey, Comfrey as healing plant, herbal medicine, RSPB Radipole, Symphytum species, Wildflowers at RSPB Radipole

In Flora Britannica, author Richard Mabey explains that Common comfrey (Symphytum officinale) hybridises freely with Russian comfrey (S. x uplandicum) and Rough comfrey (S. asperum), so I make no apology for not being able to be precise about today’s wildflower species. To further confuse the picture, White comfrey (S. orientale), an introduction from west Russia and Turkey, has become naturalised, and is commonly found in hedgerows and on waste ground in southern England. The combination of species certainly provides a wonderful mix of white, blues, lilacs and purples in the Comfrey flowers, which I noticed the bumblebees were particularly enjoying (the flower nectar, not the colours).

The Comfrey plants shown here was at RSPB Radipole in Weymouth, thriving in the reserve’s damp environment, growing beside the footpaths and along the edges of the reed beds.

You probably know that Comfrey is very commonly used in herbal medicine, especially in connection with healing open wounds, broken bones and severe bruising, hence its common names of Knitbone and Nip-bone. It contains Allantoin, a substance that encourages the healing of connective tissue, and Flora Britannica lists many reports from contributors of poultices being used to heal severe cuts, ease the severely bruised knees of miners, and assist with the knitting of broken bones. One of my grandmothers always grew Comfrey in her garden and would drink an infusion of the leaves to ease her sore back and aching limbs, though Mabey warns that Comfrey contains alkaloids that can cause liver damage, so infusions and tablets are now discouraged.

Skullcap

03 Sunday Aug 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, wildflowers

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blue flowers, blue wildflowers, blue-flowered wildflowers, British wildflowers, flowers of damp places, Scutellaria galericulata, Skullcap

I don’t know how I’ve missed this pretty little plant during my summertime walks around Cardiff’s Roath Lake; I think it’s likely that it had been strimmed in previous years, as, for no good reason, that’s what usually happens to the wildflowers around the lake’s edge.

This is Skullcap (Scutellaria galericulata), a plant with delicate blue flowers that is most often found growing, as at Roath Lake, on the banks of lakes, ponds, marshes, and areas of slow-flowing water.

The very strange common name apparently refers to the shape of the flowers, which reminded those responsible for naming the plant of the helmet worn by soldiers in the Roman armies. I’ve seen references to a helmet called galerum (from galerus, meaning a cap made of leather or skin) and also a metal helmet named galea; neither cap nor helmet look like the tube-shaped flower to my eye, but Skullcap is certainly a memorable name for a plant!

Tansy

27 Sunday Jul 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, summer colour, Tanacetum vulgare, Tansy, yellow flowers

This is the only Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) plant I know of and it’s in an odd location, growing as it does on a grassy slope on the Cardiff Bay Barrage. Who knows how it got there but it seems to be thriving and its golden-yellow button-like flowers make for a stunning display of summertime colour.

Those flowers also provide welcome food for insects at a time when many other plants are shrivelling due to the heat and lack of rain. (In case you’re wondering, the bee is a Colletes species but cannot be positively identified without closer examination – I did try asking an expert.)

I always enjoy reading the interesting snippets of information my copy of Flora Britannica provides about our various wildflowers. This is what Richard Mabey writes about Tansy:

Tansy’s leaves are pungent and bitter, and at one time they were eaten at Eastertide, to kill off the ‘phlegm and worms’ which the Lenten fish diet gave rise to. They were mixed with eggs, milk and flour, presumably to make them more palatable, and from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, a ‘tansye’ was a generic term for any omelette or pancake-like dish flavoured with bitter herbs.

Woolly thistles

20 Sunday Jul 2025

Posted by sconzani in wildflowers

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British thistles, British wildflowers, Cirsium eriophorum, symmetry in flower heads, symmetry in nature, thistles, Woolly thistle

I’m a big fan of all thistle species; I love the purple colour and the shape of their flowers, and I appreciate what valuable plants they are for wildlife, both for insects and birds.

I don’t see Woolly thistle (Cirsium eriophorum) very often but it is certainly one of my favourite thistles, for the woolly looking stems and the generous size of its flowers and, most especially, for the spiralling symmetry of the flower heads.