18 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in nature, spring, wildflowers
Yesterday’s star finds, during a walk around Grangemoor Park, were my first Cuckooflowers of 2020. They’re such dainty little beauties and, with a newly arrived Chiffchaff calling in the trees behind, it felt like Spring really had arrived.
15 Sunday Mar 2020
Posted in nature, plants, wildflowers
With its spotted leaves and flowers that start out pink but change quickly to blue, Common lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) is a very attractive plant. I’ve blogged before about the origin of its name and some of its other common names but the Royal Horticultural Society website has an even longer long list of vernacular names for this plant: Jerusalem sage, Adam and Eve, Bedlam cowslip, beggar’s basket, bugloss cowslip, Jerusalem cowslip, lady’s cowslip, lady’s milk, Mary’s honeysuckle, Mary’s tears, sage of Bethlehem, soldiers and sailors, spotted dog, and Virgin Mary’s honeysuckle.
I’m sure many of the Lungwort plants I see are relatively recent garden escapes but the plants shown in today’s photos may perhaps be a little older. They were growing along the boundary fence of the medieval village at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, a village which is a reconstruction of the actual buildings that existed on this site around 600 years ago. Was it one of the herbal plants used by the locals in those days? I like to think so.
08 Sunday Mar 2020
Posted in nature, spring, wildflowers
Tags
#PavementPlants, #WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, Coltsfoot, Common cornsalad, Daisy, dandelion, Herb Robert, Lesser Celandine, primrose, Red dead-nettle, Shepherd's purse
Now that Spring has sprung, the folks who run #WildflowerHour on social media are issuing weekly challenges for followers to focus their searches around. This week it was #PavementPlants, searching for any plants in bloom that were growing in the cracks or along the edges of their local pavements. Challenges like this do mean you get some odd looks from people when you’re photographing your finds but I’m very used to that these days.
Here’s what I found: Coltsfoot (I love how tenacious these plants are – they were pushing up between the cracks in an old set of steps connecting two local streets); Common cornsalad; Daisy; Dandelion; Herb Robert; Lesser celandine; Primrose; Red dead-nettle; and Shepherd’s-purse.
03 Tuesday Mar 2020
Roses are red, violets are white
If you’re confused, that’s alright.
Though most violets are usually, well, violet coloured, some can be much lighter shades of lilac and Sweet violets (Viola odorata) also have a white variety. I was surprised and delighted to find good numbers of these gorgeous white beauties growing alongside a local pathway yesterday. In fact, as it’s a route I walk often, I was particularly surprised that I haven’t noticed their presence in previous years.
01 Sunday Mar 2020
Posted in flowers, nature, wildflowers
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.
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).
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.
23 Sunday Feb 2020
Posted in nature, wildflowers
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.
17 Monday Feb 2020
A new Spring flower has appeared in my local area, this time six bursts of the bright sunshine yellow that is Coltsfoot, the flower that appears before its leaves. I had just been sheltering, rather ineffectively, from a short sharp shower of rain when I spotted the flowers beside the path ahead of me. What a delight!
09 Sunday Feb 2020
Posted in nature, spring, wildflowers
Tags
Alexanders, British wildflowers, Cherry plum blossom, crocus, Dog's mercury, Lesser Celandine, snowdrop, Spring blossom
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.
I’d seen Crocuses already but this swathe, growing on a small green in the village of Michaelston-le-Pit, was a lilac delight.
Not a wildflower, but the local Cherry plum trees have burst into bloom this week. They say Spring to me!
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!
04 Tuesday Feb 2020
Posted in nature, spring, wildflowers
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.
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.
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.
02 Sunday Feb 2020
Posted in flowers, nature, wildflowers
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.
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.
earthstar 
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