Tag Archives: British wildflowers

204/366 Musk thistle

22 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by in nature, plants, wildflowers

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

This gorgeous thistle was a new plant for me when I discovered it in a local farm field a couple of days ago. It’s a Musk thistle (Carduus nutans), also known as Nodding thistle, and it’s precisely the nodding habit of its growth that alerted me to something new.

200722 musk thistle (1)

Its flowers, though a glorious and vibrant pinky purple, droop downwards, nodding on long spineless stems and, in fact, compared to the upright habit of other thistles I see, this one’s growth habit overall is very droopy. It’s a bit of a sloucher, though, as its name suggests, those flowers have a musky smell that bees find particularly attractive, and several butterflies seemed to like it too.

200722 musk thistle (2)

The Plantlife website provides some interesting facts about the Musk thistle: apparently ‘its fleshy stem is edible and said to be delicious after peeling and boiling’ and ‘medicinally, the leaves have been used as a tonic to stimulate liver function, whereas the flowers have been used to reduce fevers and purify the blood.’

200722 musk thistle (3)

201/366 Small and white

19 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in nature, wildflowers

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Many of the local wildflowers currently in bloom have small, white flowers. These are some of them …

200719 fairy flax

Fairy flax (Linum catharticum): this is the smallest, a tiny delicate plant that appears to shake and quiver even in the lightest breeze. It is also known as Purging flax as, in past times, herbalists prescribed it as a laxative.

Hedge bedstraw (Galium mollugo): not the bedstraw that was used to sweeten the smell of straw mattresses (which is the yellow-flowered Lady’s bedstraw), but its close cousin, which can be found scrambling along hedgerows, particularly on calcareous soils.

Eyebright (Euphrasia sp.): I didn’t know until I checked this plant on the Plantlife website that the various species of Eyebright are semi-parasitic, stealing the nutrients of other plants, like grasses.

200719 common mouse ear

Common mouse-ear (Cerastium fontanum): A type of chickweed, which many gardeners will know as a persistent ‘weed’, this little plant gets its mouse-ear name from its hairy leaves that grow in pairs on either side of the plant’s stem.

200719 common centaury (1)

Common centaury (Centaurium erythraea) is usually pink flowered (see the variations below) but many of the plants I see locally, like those above, have white flowers. The Plantlife website gives the fascinating information that centaury is ‘named after the centaur Chiron, who, according to legend, discovered its healing power and used it to cure himself from the effects of a poisoned arrow.’

198/366 Sneezewort

16 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in flowers, nature, wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica) is not a wildflower I see very often so I was delighted to find a few plants of it blooming in a local meadow during yesterday’s wander.

200716 sneezewort (1)

The First Nature website explains its scientific name: Achillea ‘stems from the belief that Achilles used flowers of this genus to cure his soldiers’ wounds; ptarmica … comes from the Greek and means to cause a sneeze’. And, as well as Sneezewort, it has a host of other wonderful common names, including Sneezeweed, Bastard pellitory, Fair-maid-of-France, and Goose tongue.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

182/366 Flowering rush

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by in flowers, nature, wildflowers

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

200630 flowering rush

When I see the grasses and sedges and rushes that grow in and around rivers and ponds, canals, ditches and wetlands, I don’t expect to see such gorgeous flowers as these. This is the umbel-shaped flower of Flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus), hence the umbellatus epithet. According to the eFloras website, Butomus is from the Greek bous, meaning cow, and femno, meaning to cut, which refers to the belief that the sharp leaves would cut the mouths of cattle. Fortunately, no cattle are at risk from this particular Flowering rush plant, which is growing at Cardiff Bay wetlands reserve.

173/366 Beautiful Betony

21 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by in nature, wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

This was a pretty find in an unmown roadside verge earlier this week. It looks more pink than my wildflower guide and most online images show, but I’m fairly sure this is Betony, which now goes by the scientific name of Betonica officinalis, but was previously Stachys officinalis.

200621 betony (2)

Its common names include Common hedgenettle, and Bishopwort or Bishop’s wort, and my Flora Britannica labels it ‘one of the great “all-heals” of medieval herbalists’. The various old herbals claim it was effective for everything from treating arthritis and gout, to preserving the liver and curing drunkenness. Roman physician Antonius Musa reckoned it counteracted sorcery, and Christians planted Betony in churchyards as a ghost-busting tool.

200621 betony (1)

I’ve read that various subspecies are available that produce different flower colours so perhaps this is one of those and the plants have developed from seed dropped via bird droppings, though the verge contains a wealth of other wildflowers – Yarrow, as you can see in one of my photos; Oxeye daisies; Knapweed; Bird’s-foot trefoil; and even three Pyramidal orchids. Before the high-rise apartment blocks and office blocks were built, this riverside location must have contained a wealth of wonderful plants and, perhaps now that the verge is not being mowed, the plants are making a comeback.

200621 betony (3)

200621 pyramidal orchid

171/366 Buttercups

19 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by in nature, wildflowers

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

I’ve been trying to learn about buttercups, specifically how to identify the three species that are most common in my area and, three cheers, I think I’ve finally got it! Each species has several distinguishing characteristics – these are simply the features I find most helpful.

200619 meadow buttercup (1)

Meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris): This is probably the easiest to put a name to, partly because it’s the tallest and also because its leaves are very distinctive – they are quite finely cut, and remind me of geraniums. This is the buttercup I see most often, especially in local wildflower meadows.

200619 creeping buttercup (1)

Creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens): I see Creeping buttercup frequently too, and find its leaves the best way to identify it – they are broader, with three lobes and with pale marks on each lobe.

200619 bulbous buttercup (1)

Bulbous buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus): Bulbous is the buttercup I see least often. The distinguishing feature I find easiest to remember is the way the sepals underneath the flower bend back against the stem, rather than cupping the flower. I had to turn over a lot of flowers before I found this one!

166/366 Wild and yellow

14 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by in nature, wildflowers

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

It’s grey here in south Wales today, which is not a bad thing as we desperately need the accompanying rain, and it also makes me appreciate even more the days when vibrant, sunshiny, cheery yellow is the dominant colour of my day. Here’s some of the yellow that’s been brightening my walks in recent days.

200614 1 dyers greenweed

Dyer’s greenweed (Genista tinctoria), found at several local sites, and the food plant for the larvae of a couple of rare moths, though I’ve yet to find any.

200614 2 evening primrose

Evening-primrose (Oenothera agg). There are several different species, which can be difficult to differentiate, and they also hybridise with each other, hence the ‘agg’.

200614 3 silverweed

Silverweed (Potentilla anserina). The Plantlife website has some fascinating information about this pretty plant – did you know, for example, that Roman soldiers used to pad their shoes with Silverweed to ease their feet on long marches?

Prickly sow-thistle (Sonchus asper). Most thistles have flowers in shades of pink-lilac-purple but not this one. I’ve included two photos, one to show the structural beauty of the flower, one to show the prickly leaves.

200614 5 smooth sow-thistle

Smooth sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus). Another sow-thistle, but without those pesky prickles, and with flowers a more lemon-yellow.

200614 6 agrimony

Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria), a plant of hooking-bristle seed heads, as you may remember from my earlier post Hooked, September 2019.

200614 7 creeping cinquefoil

Creeping cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans), a plant that thrives on waste and bare ground.

159/366 Daisy power

07 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by in flowers, insects, nature, wildflowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

I walk past this magnificent display of Oxeye daisies quite often, and it always makes me smile.

200607 ox-eye daisies (1)

It runs alongside a local footpath, behind a wire fence that borders a school playground, and transforms an ugly bank of earth, which prevents footpath walkers from seeing the children at play, into a stunning floral flourish.

200607 ox-eye daisies (2)

You might be forgiven for thinking the flowers look a bit ‘empty’ – where are all the insects that love feasting on these wildflowers? Well, though sunny, this was quite a windy day, with huge clouds scudding rapidly across the sky, changing bright warmth to grey coolness in the blink of an eye. But, when I looked closely in the more sheltered spots, the insects were there, sometimes more than I expected on a single flower head, sharing the nutrient power of these glorious daisies.

200607 ox-eye daisies (3)

150/366 Short bobs and Black Jacks

29 Friday May 2020

Posted by in nature, plants, wildflowers

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

When I saw this field of Ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata) nodding their flower heads in the gentle breeze, I had to make them my post for the day.

200529 ribwort plantain (1)

My Flora Britannica lists several common names for this plant, including Fighting cocks, Short bobs, Soldiers and sailors, and Black Jacks, which all come from the fact that the plant is apparently used for children’s games. This is not something I had heard of but it seems one variation of the game is similar to conkers, where kids try to knock off each other’s flower heads.

Though the gardeners amongst you may regard this as a pesky garden weed, I think it’s an attractive plant. Its flowers provide sustenance for insects like butterflies, moths and hoverflies and, if its seed heads are not chopped off, they provide food for seed-eating birds like Goldfinches. Interestingly, though, the Plantlife website says ‘ribwort plantain is surprisingly unpopular with slugs and snails [as] they find the leaves unpalatable.’