Tag Archives: blue flowers

Skullcap

03 Sunday Aug 2025

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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!

Bells of blue

27 Sunday Apr 2025

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I had hoped to get to my local slice of ancient woodland for a walk amongst the native Bluebells this week but it didn’t happen so here are some beautiful non-native but naturalised Bluebells that I’ve encountered in this week’s urban meanders. I hope you all have woodlands near you with Bluebells to enjoy.

A viperish plant

27 Sunday Jun 2021

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Of Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare), Richard Mabey writes in Flora Britannica:

[It] is a viperish plant in all its parts. The sprays of flowers that spiral up the stem are half-coiled; the long red stamens protrude from the mouths of the blue and purple flowers like tongues; the fruits resemble adders’ heads. Even the ‘speckled’ stem (it is hairy in fact) suggested snakes’ skins to early herbalists.

And like all members of the Echium family, this glorious plant is much loved and visited by insects, especially (from my own observations) bumblebees.

91/366 The bells are ringing

31 Tuesday Mar 2020

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The Bluebells are in bloom!

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Sadly, these are not native Bluebells but they were growing in a semi-wild location rather than in a park. As I passed along the edge of one local park yesterday, I noticed the Bluebells inside are also starting to open their gorgeous flowers but, as the park is currently closed, I can’t get in to enjoy them. Are the Bluebells out yet where you live?

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128/365 Pinks and blues

08 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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Rain, rain, rain today but I managed to get out for a local bimble without getting too wet.

Due to the risk of rain damaging my good camera, I just took my point-and-click and, as there weren’t many insects braving the weather, the subject today had to be inanimate, in this case wildflowers, for no particular reason in shades of pinks and blues. Can you name them?

114/365 Blue runner

24 Wednesday Apr 2019

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Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea) is a type of dead-nettle, common in woodlands, lurking under hedgerows and scrambling over dampish spaces. Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica tells me this pretty little plant was once known as blue runner because of its blue-ish flowers and its habit of spreading via overground runners. Another interesting titbit: ‘before hops became widely used in brewing, it was once one of the chief bittering agents in the making of beer’, which is why another of its common names is ale-hoof.

Eyecatching blue

05 Friday Oct 2018

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There’s just something about a blue-coloured flower that catches my eye and this Chicory grabbed me by the eyeballs as I walked home from Penarth Marina yesterday.

Although Chicory (Cichorium intybus) is a native British wildflower, these particular plants were not truly wild; they’re growing in a series of large wildflower beds planted around the edges of Penarth Marina Park. (Interestingly, the park itself is also artificial – it was once part of the inner basin of Penarth Docks, then became a rubbish dump, before being repurposed as a park in the 1980s – details and photos here.)

Chicory, also known as Succory, used to be widely cultivated. Its spears (buds) and leaves were eaten, and the dried and ground root has been used as a substitute for coffee. I think I’ll stick with my cup of tea, thanks.

Seeing blue

24 Sunday Dec 2017

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Blue feathers, blue water, blue flowers, blue butterflies …

The reasons why our eyes perceive these things as blue (or don’t, if we’re colour-blind) vary depending on what we’re looking at. With birds’ feathers, for example, the blue is actually a ‘structural colour’, because ‘When white light strikes a blue feather, the keratin pattern causes red and yellow wavelengths to cancel each other out, while blue wavelengths of light reinforce and amplify one another and reflect back to the beholder’s eye’ (from the amazing Smithsonian website).

Water looks blue because it more readily absorbs light in red, orange and yellow wavelengths but reflects the blue wavelength, so it’s reflecting the colour of the sky above. Blue flowers occur in plants that are able to chemically modify red anthocyanin pigments to reflect white light as blue, and those butterflies that look blue are also reflecting white light, the blue colour being dependent on the placement of the minute scales on their wings. Colour is so complicated!