Category Archives: wildflowers

61/366 Lilac and yellow

01 Sunday Mar 2020

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Rather than a full list of wildflower sightings this week, I’m focusing on just three, this week’s new (to me) blooms. And, in fact, this first wildflower, Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), was a first-ever sighting for me. Originally from southern Europe, this plant is a member of the buttercup family, and, if the database records of this beautiful flower are any indication, it’s a plant that is quite rare in the wild in Wales.

200301 winter aconite

This is a dog-violet, possibly Early dog-violet, though I didn’t take good enough photos of the particular features needed to differentiate the Early (Viola reichenbachiana) from the Common (Viola riviniana).

200301 early dog-violet

And, finally, this delightful combination of the two colours of the above blooms, lilac and yellow, a Primrose. Though not the usual cream-coloured flower we most commonly see, this is, I believe, a natural colour variation of the native Primrose, rather than something humans have bred.

200301 primrose pink variety

54/366 Winter 29!

23 Sunday Feb 2020

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Despite the appalling weather we’ve been having, the natural world obviously feels the coming of Spring as this week I’ve found 29 wildflowers in bloom, including firsts of Coltsfoot, Common corn salad, Spotted medick and Wood anemone.

The full list is: Alexanders, Coltsfoot, Common comfrey, Common cornsalad, Common field speedwell, Cow parsley, Creeping buttercup, Daisy, Dandelion, Forget-me-not, Gorse, Groundsel, Hairy bitter-cress, Herb Robert, Hogweed, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Nipplewort, Oxeye daisy, Primrose, Red dead nettle, Red valerian, Shepherd’s-purse, Smooth sow-thistle, Snowdrop, Spotted medick, Sun spurge, Winter heliotrope and Wood anemone.

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40/366 In bloom this week

09 Sunday Feb 2020

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This week’s wanderings produced sightings of two new wildflowers for the year, Dog’s mercury (Mercurialis perennis), thriving under a hedgerow, and Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum), an exceedingly common plant along the local coastal path.

200209 1 Dogs mercury200209 2 alexanders

I’d seen Crocuses already but this swathe, growing on a small green in the village of Michaelston-le-Pit, was a lilac delight.

200209 3 crocuses

Not a wildflower, but the local Cherry plum trees have burst into bloom this week. They say Spring to me!

200209 4 cherry plum

Snowdrops are out en masse now, and more and more bursts of bright yellow Lesser celandines can be found, sprinkled along paths and in the local woodlands. So cheery!

200209 5 snowdrops200209 6 lesser celandine

35/366 A flowering saxifrage

04 Tuesday Feb 2020

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Today’s walk produced yet more evidence of our changing climate in the form of another very early Spring flower, this time Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium), which my wildflower guide tells me shouldn’t be flowering for at least another month.

200204 opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (2)

Today’s location was typical of this plant’s favoured habitat: in woodland, along the edges of a well-shaded small stream. Its liking for damp conditions is perhaps one of the reasons it grows best in western parts of Britain and is less common in the eastern counties.

200204 opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (3)

It can be confused with its cousin Alternate-leaved golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium alternifolium) – the key thing, as the names suggest, is to check the arrangement of the leaves. In the first photo and the one below you can see how the pairs of leaves are growing opposite each other along the stem. You can only see its slightly odd flowers – they have no petals, just eight yellow stamens.

200204 opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (1)

33/366 This week in wildflowers

02 Sunday Feb 2020

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These are the blooming wildflowers I was able to find during yesterday’s and today’s local meanders, an impressive total of 21, due to the continuing mild weather we have been experiencing this winter.

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They are: Bramble; Comfrey – a nice surprise; Common ragwort (with a bonus Marmalade hoverfly, my first for 2020); a Crocus (probably planted, now wild); Daisy; one of the Dandelions; Gorse; Groundsel; Hairy bittercress; a female Hazel flower – a tree, I know, but I couldn’t resist the dash of pink; Herb Robert; Ivy-leaved toadflax; Lesser celandine – quite a lot of these flowering now; perhaps one of the Hawkweeds; Primrose; Red valerian; Snowdrop; one of the Sowthistles; a Speedwell species, possible Field Speedwell; an umbellifer; and the pretty pink of Winter heliotrope.

30/366 Fascinating fasciation

30 Thursday Jan 2020

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I’ve posted about this phenomenon before (see Wild word: fasciated, back in July 2018) but, as some of you may not have been following me back then, I thought it was worth repeating, especially as I’ve found such a magnificent example.

200130 fasciation (1)

So, this Dandelion stem and flower are fasciated, i.e. both parts of the plant exhibit an abnormal fusion which has resulted in a flattening of their structure. In this particular case, it almost appears as if three separate stems and flowers have fused into one.

200130 fasciation (2)

I couldn’t resist the alliteration in the title as my spellchecker kept changing fasciated to fascinated – what a difference an ‘n’ makes!

200130 fasciation (3)

 

26/366 Three-cornered leek

26 Sunday Jan 2020

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200125 three cornered leek (3)

In New Zealand we call this plant Onion weed but, here in Britain, its common name is Three-cornered leek. As its scientific name, Allium triquetrum, indicates, this bulbous plant is part of the garlic and onion family, the Alliums, and triquetrum refers to the triangular shape of its flower stem.

200125 three cornered leek (2)

In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that this smelly plant was ‘introduced to Britain in 1752’ and ‘began to escape into shady hedge-banks and churchyards in Cornwall in the 1860s. By the 1930s it was in Devon’ and, in 1995, Mabey found it in the Chilterns, near London. Obviously, it’s spread even further since then, as it’s jumped the border and is thriving here in Wales. These were my first Three-cornered leek flowers for 2020.

200125 three cornered leek (1)

22/366 First Snowdrops

22 Wednesday Jan 2020

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I saw my first Snowdrops of 2020 today in Cardiff’s Bute Park.

200122 snowdrops (1)

Candlemas bells, Mary’s taper, Snow piercer, February fairmaids, Dingle-dangle – all vernacular names for Snowdrops, according to my Flora Britannica. In Welsh, Snowdrop is Eirlys (pronounced Ire-liss), a lovely word that’s sometimes used as a girl’s name. How pretty!

200122 snowdrops (2)

13/366 Sweet violets

13 Monday Jan 2020

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As the gusty winds of Storm Brendan began to blow the trees around and I slipped and slid along Cosmeston’s muddy paths, I came upon this host of spring flowers.

200113 sweet violets (1)

Not the traditional host (of Daffodils) these, but rather Sweet violets (Viola odorata), considered native in some parts of Britain, invasive garden escapees in others. I’m not sure which these are but they were lovely to see.

I didn’t detect any smell but that could perhaps just have been the wind and rain or my inadequate nose, as I’m fairly sure they are Sweet violets – blunt sepals, hairy stems and leaves, the right leaf shape and growth pattern, flowering very early. A delight on a grey day.

200113 sweet violets (4)