Tag Archives: British wildflowers

Common gromwell

21 Sunday May 2023

Posted by in wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

This was the third highlight of my visit to Slade Wood on Wednesday, a plant I’d never seen before. It wasn’t too difficult to identify once I got home, as the flowers looked a lot like those of Forget-me-not so I turned straight to that section of my wildflower guide. Say hello to Common gromwell (Lithospermum officinale) (also known as European stoneseed).

230521 common gromwell (1)

It’s a perennial, flowers from May to August, and is quite prominent in the landscape, a rough hairy plant growing up to one metre tall, so must’ve been in situ during my previous visits to this woodland. Perhaps I was so focused on butterflies, I didn’t notice it. Woodland rides – and rough, stony scrubby areas – are where this native plant thrives, but only in the southern parts of Britain, so any northerners out there will have to come south to see it.

230521 common gromwell (2)

Six Speedwells

14 Sunday May 2023

Posted by in wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

This week’s #WildflowerHour challenge was to find and identify as many of the Speedwell species as possible. I managed to find six, had hoped for more but will just have to keep searching on future walks. Close-ups of the flowers of my six are shown below – they are Field, Germander, Heath, Ivy-leaved, Thyme-leaved and Wood speedwell.

230514 six speedwells (1)

And here are photos showing their more general features. These are in the same order as above – their scientific names are Veronica agrestis, Veronica chamaedrys, and Veronica officinalis.

230514 six speedwells (2)

And the final three: Veronica hederifolia, Veronica serpyllifolia, and Veronica montana. If, like me, you’re confused about the Speedwells and what some hints on how to identify them, Moira (@NatureLark on Twitter) has produced an excellent crib sheet which you can find here.

230514 six speedwells (3)

Field madder

07 Sunday May 2023

Posted by in flowers, wildflowers

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

A member of the Bedstraw family, Field madder (Sherardia arvensis) is a low-growing annual that supposedly grows in both disturbed and cultivated ground on chalky soils. I write ‘supposedly’ because the Field madder pictured here grows along a sheltered damp and mossy road verge next to blocks of flats. Also, I’ve read – and my wildflower book states – that Field madder can grow up to 30cm tall but the plants I’ve seen have been tiny, only 5-10 cm. I guess wildflowers don’t read what’s written about them!

230507 field madder (2)

Popping out like stars against a dense background of bristly whorls of leaves, the clusters of four-petalled tiny flowers range in colour from pale pink to mauve. And, as you may have guessed from the name, the roots of Field madder can be used to make a red dye, though it is described as ‘an inferior source’ on the Oxford University Herbaria website. If you’re interested in learning more, the website also explains the source of the Sherardia name.

230507 field madder (1)

White not pink

05 Friday May 2023

Posted by in flowers, nature, wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

The flowers of Dove’s-foot crane’s-bill (Geranium molle) are usually described as pinkish-purple, and certainly all the plants I’ve seen previously have had tiny pink flowers, as shown in the comparison photos below. But I’ve discovered a small area at the Cosmeston Lakes Country Park where the flowers are a true white.

230505 Geranium molle (2)

I’m not sure what has caused this colour variation but it’s probably something in the soil. Before it became a country park, parts of Cosmeston were quarries, spoil tips and rubbish tips. If you follow this link to the Mary Gillham Archive website (a project I volunteered on, as my older followers will recall), you can see details – including maps and photographs – of Cosmeston during its transformation into a country park.

230505 Geranium molle (3)

One legacy of its former use is undoubtedly the presence of toxic chemicals in some areas. Indeed, the top portion of the east paddock is fenced off, not for conservation purposes but, I am reliably informed, to protect park users from whatever is buried there. Residues in the soil may well account for unusual qualities in the park’s flora and fauna.

230505 Geranium molle (1)

The Boraginaceae

16 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by in spring, wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Finding flowering specimens of the Borage family was the target of this week’s Wildflower Hour. This family, the Boraginaceae, includes the various Forget-me-nots (Myosotis species), the Comfries (Symphytum species), Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis), Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare), the Gromwells (Lithospermum species), Green alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens), Borage (Borago officinalis), of course, and a few other species as well. Unfortunately, our wet Spring, the recent cold spell and storm mean many of these wildflower species are not yet flowering locally but I have managed to find three species.

Comfrey : I’m not sure which of the Symphytum species this is. It’s growing on the edge of a carpark so is probably a wind-blown garden escape or was perhaps seeded via a bird dropping.

Lungwort : Sadly, this isn’t a common plant locally – I only know of two locations where it grows. I wish there was more as the bees love it.

Forget-me-not : Did you know that the yellow ring at the centre of the Forget-me-not flower fades from egg-yolk yellow to white after pollination, which indicates to insects that there’s no more nectar and they should try another flower?

Rue-leaved saxifrage

09 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by in plants, spring, wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Another week, another new plant – I’m on a roll!

230409 rue-leaved saxifrage (1)

This hairy little annual, with the sweet white flowers, is Rue-leaved saxifrage (Saxifraga tridactylites). Its three-lobed leaves (hence the tridactyl in its name) are quite distinctive and are often tinged with red, as are the plant’s stems.

230409 rue-leaved saxifrage (2)

In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that this saxifrage is widespread but declining, though the book is now 25 years old so I’m not sure if that is still the case. Certainly, it’s not a plant I’ve come across before in my meanderings and these few were growing on the much-overgrown route of a former railway line so could originally have been carried this way by a train.

230409 rue-leaved saxifrage (3)

American winter-cress

02 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by in plants, spring, wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

One of my local green spaces, Grangemoor Park, in Cardiff, an old landfill site, has been much churned up over the past year due to the need for repairs to its drainage system. Seeing the amount of damage done to the park, the huge numbers of trees cut down, the wide gravel paths laid down where once were wildflowers and scrub, has been very depressing but I’m hoping Nature will quickly repair the human damage. In the meantime, trying to be positive, I’ve been keeping an eye on the disturbed ground for any botanical surprises. And this is one!

230402 american winter-cress (1)

I’m 99% sure that this lovely little treasure is American winter-cress (Barbarea verna), a new plant for me. I’ve had a botanist confirm my identification but with one proviso. She thought ‘Yes I think it looks like it is B. verna as opposed to B. intermedia. If you should happen to see it again when it is in fruit, it should have long (over 4cm) curved fruits, whereas intermedia has shorter (less than 4cm) straight fruits.’ Needless to say, I will be checking the fruits in due course.

230402 american winter-cress (2)

In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that Barbarea verna has proven to be ‘popular and successful as a vegetable. Originally from south-west Europe, it has been introduced as a cultivated vegetable not just to the United States and northern Europe, but to South America and Australasia. It has become widely naturalised in all these places.’ I will be tempted, once it has grown, to harvest some of the leaves, which can be used like ‘rocket’ in a salad, though it is growing in the perfect spot for passing canines to anoint so will have to be washed very thoroughly.

230402 american winter-cress (3)

The Baccy plant

26 Sunday Mar 2023

Posted by in wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

I wrote about this plant’s alternative common names and supposed medicinal properties several years ago (Coltsfoot for your cough?, 26 February 2016), but the Plantlife website entry for Coltsfoot has some additional interesting snippets:

Whilst the great herbalists of antiquity including Dioscorides and Pliny recommended smoking the herb to help the throat. Although this practice probably won’t help the throat to heal, smoking coltsfoot is still thought to be a good substitute to tobacco. Hence the common name Baccy plant. Also owing to the fact that the dry felt on the leaves smoulders well, it has been used as tinder.

230326 coltsfoot (1)

Rest assured, I have no wish to encourage any of you to start smoking any of the Coltsfoot plants you see – I simply thought the information interesting. And I also found interesting the variations in flower colour I noticed within this display of Coltsfoot in a local park. They reminded me of autumn … but let’s enjoy spring and summer before we head back to the colder months once more.

230326 coltsfoot (2)

Small white brassicas

19 Sunday Mar 2023

Posted by in wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This week I decided to have a go at the wildflower hour challenge to find the six brassica species that have small white flowers. Yesterday, when I wrote the first draft of this post, I had managed to locate five of them. During today’s walk, most unexpectedly, I found the sixth. You can find a pdf of the list, with photos and tips on how to identify each species, on dropbox (courtesy of the lovely botanist Dinky Moira).

230319 bitter-cress hairy and wavy

On the left above is Hairy bitter-cress (Cardamine hirsuta), whose flowers have four stamens and whose seed pods stand straight up, and on the right is Wavy bitter-cress (Cardamine flexuosa), with its six stamens and ‘sticky-out seed pods’ (Moira’s very apt description).

230319 common whitlowgrass

Common whitlowgrass (Erophila verna) seems to be everywhere at the moment, in particular alongside paths and at the edges of back lanes. It’s tiny but worth bending over for a look.

230319 shepherd's-purse

Shepherd’s-purse (Capsella bursa-pastoralis) is so named because of the shape of its seed pods, though, personally, I think they look like tiny hearts. Shepherd’s-heart anyone?

230319 thale cress

Thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) is a new plant for me so I was very chuffed to find this one. It’s rather like Shepherd’s purse but has slender rod-shaped seedpods.

230319 danish scurvygrass

And this is today’s find: Danish scurvygrass (Cochlearia danica), which I had seen before in Cardiff, alongside the River Taff near the city centre, but I hadn’t ventured that far during yesterday’s walk. Today, I found it on the edge of a pavement near Cardiff Bay, just one plant, but one is all I needed to complete this challenge.