12 Sunday May 2024
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
Until this last week of hot dry weather, this large clump of Yellow flag irises (Iris pseudacorus) had its roots in a pool of water, their preferred habitat, the leaves looked lush and verdant, the flowers sunny and glorious.
These plants can withstand quite dry conditions, but, as I write this late Sunday afternoon, we have constant thunder and torrential rain, so I think their feet will be damp once again and the irises will be looking lovely for some time yet.
05 Sunday May 2024
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
Tags
British wildflowers, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Cowslip, natural colour variation in Cowslip, red-flowered Cowslip, Spring colour
I wish I’d found these for #WildflowerHour’s recent Cowslip challenge: a small number of red-flowered Cowslips amongst a sea of yellow at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park. This is a natural variation, just like the occasional pink-flowered Primroses you might see growing in the wild, though I’ve only ever seen these at Cosmeston.
28 Sunday Apr 2024
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
I’m sure most of you are familiar with Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum), a very common wildflower that can found everywhere from pavement edges to woodland rides, from the southern coasts of England and Wales to Scotland’s northern isles (you can see the 2020 Plant Atlas distribution map here).
What I had never seen until very recently was the attractive white-flowered variety of Herb Robert, this one growing alongside a well-trodden path come side road in Cardiff Bay. I don’t think this is a native variety as the Plant Atlas mentions that ‘White-flowered forms, in particular, may be deliberately grown in gardens and sometimes escape’. Though this location is surrounded by multi-storey apartment blocks, I guess the seed must have blown in from somewhere.
07 Sunday Apr 2024
Posted in flowers, insects, wildflowers
Tags
British butterflies, British wildflowers, butterfly, dandelion, dandelion flowers, insects on dandelions, Small white, Small white butterfly
I missed celebrating National Dandelion Day earlier this week so today’s wildflower post focuses on the wonder that is the Dandelion and the many insects that rely on its early source of nutrition. This little group of photos also includes my first Small white butterfly of the year, found on Friday.
24 Sunday Mar 2024
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
Tags
British wildflowers, Spring colour, spring flowers, white wildflowers, white-flowered wildflowers
As I mentioned yesterday, this week’s #WildflowerHour challenge on social media was to find native and/or naturalised white-flowered wildflowers and, by walking around with my eyes engaged in a weird version of vertical tennis spectating (eyes to the ground for plants, eyes to the skies for birds – not recommended!), I managed to find seventeen white-flowering plants.
I felt the lushness of Daisies (above) deserved a photo all of its own. The following sixteen are Bramble, Common chickweed, Common mouse-ear, Common whitlowgrass, Cow parsley, Danish scurvygrass, Garlic mustard, Hairy bittercress, Hogweed (purple edged but mostly white), white-flowered Red valerian, Shepherd’s-purse, Snowdrop, Sweet violet, Three-cornered leek, Wild garlic, and Wild strawberry.
23 Saturday Mar 2024
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
As this week’s #WildflowerHour challenge on social media is to find white flowers (they will feature in tomorrow’s blog), I thought that today I would post about the coloured wildflowers that have begun to bloom in my local area, so here they are:
A quite random combination of Forget-me-not and Cuckooflower
Both the traditional blue and the pinkish-lilac variation of Spanish bluebells
The yellows: Cowslips and Marsh marigolds and, not really new but beginning to flower in greater numbers now, Dandelions
Flowers with leaves shaped like Ivy: Ivy-leaved speedwell and Ivy-leaved toadflax
Members of the Geranium family: Common stork’s-bill, Herb Robert and Shining crane’s-bill
17 Sunday Mar 2024
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
Tags
British wildflowers, Dog's mercury, Euphorbia peplus, green flowers, green-flowered wildflowers, Helleborus foetidus, Mercurialis perennis, Petty spurge, Stinking hellebore
As the Wildflower Hour team wrote on social media when announcing this week’s challenge: ‘Some of the loveliest wildflowers are green! Can you find one for this week’s challenge?’. Well, yes, I can. In fact, I found three on yesterday’s meander, and I’m sure there must be more that I missed. My finds are:
Dog’s mercury (Mercurialis perennis). I didn’t know until today, when I was reading the First Nature website, that ‘Dog’s Mercury is an extremely poisonous plant and when eaten it has been known to cause vomiting, jaundice and coma.’ Of course, you’d have to be pretty stupid to eat it, but some foragers are pretty stupid!
Petty spurge (Euphorbia peplus), a common sight along the edges of lanes and pavements, and scattered across any patch of waste ground. It’s just getting started again in my area after being knocked back by the cooler winter weather and the interminable rain.
Stinking hellebore (Helleborus foetidus). This was a surprise find along a local river embankment and, though Stinking hellebore is a UK native, because of its sudden appearance in that location, I think this particular specimen is probably a garden escapee.
03 Sunday Mar 2024
Posted in plants, spring, wildflowers
I dipped my toe in to the ‘name that rosette’ waters very briefly back in February 2022 (Name that rosette, 1, 13 February 2022), very quickly realised it was much more difficult than I had anticipated, and yanked my toe rapidly back out again. However, this week’s challenge for #WildflowerHour on social media is about identifying plant rosettes, so I thought I’d have another try. I admit I chose plant’s that are relatively easy and cheated a bit by finding flower-less rosettes next to those with more advanced growth and flowers already beginning to bloom, which helped tremendously. So, I’m fairly confident that these rosettes are Bittercress (Cardamine sp) – not sure if it’s possible to tell at this stage which species this will become; Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale agg.); Lesser celandine (Ficaria verna); and Woolly thistle (Cirsium eriophorum).
25 Sunday Feb 2024
Posted in wildflowers
I’m a bit late to the party but last Wednesday, 21 February, was Celandine Day, so named, according to the PlantLife website, ‘since 1795, when the renowned naturalist Gilbert White noted that the first celandines usually appeared in his Hampshire village of Selborne’. The date for the appearance of the first blooms has changed rather a lot in the intervening 229 years but these gorgeous wildflowers are still worth celebrating, I think.
18 Sunday Feb 2024
Posted in wildflowers
I’ve been checking this little area each time I’ve passed in recent weeks, looking for early signs of growth. It’s very overgrown with straggly brambles and long grass but, last Friday, after poking about the area with a stick, I found what I was hoping to see, my first Coltsfoot flower of the season.
This spot, on the edge of a local park, is where I’ve seen my first Coltsfoots in bloom in the past but, as seems to be the case with most flora and fauna, this flower is at least a week earlier than my sightings in previous years.
earthstar 
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