The hatchling, and family

12 Wednesday Jun 2024

Posted by sconzani in insects, wildflowers

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British weevils, British wildflowers, Cionus scrophulariae, Common figwort, Figwort weevil, Scrophularia nodosa

My little alien has hatched. As I had begun to suspect, it’s the most gorgeous Figwort weevil (Cionus scrophulariae).

240612 figwort weevil (1)

I’ve just returned from delivering my tiny miracle to the small group of Figwort (Scrophularia nodosa) plants near where I first found its cocoon.

240612 figwort weevil (2)

These are two other Figwort weevils I found on those plants; they are probably some of its siblings. Aren’t they just delightful creatures?

240612 figwort weevil (3) 240612 figwort weevil (4)

On the Oxeyes

09 Sunday Jun 2024

Posted by sconzani in insects, wildflowers

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British insects, British wildflowers, insects on Oxeye daisies, Oxeye daisy

Perhaps because they are so common and abundant I am guilty of ignoring both the beauty and the usefulness of Oxeye daisies.

So, during my walks over the past few days I have been taking more notice and taking photos of the creatures either using the daisies as perches or feeding on their pollen.

If the weather had been more cooperative, without the constant breezy conditions, I probably would have got more photos.

Still, it was nice to see such a variety of invertebrates: bees and hoverflies, ladybirds and their larvae, several species of spider, grasshoppers and froghoppers and tiny beetles.

Common broomrape

26 Sunday May 2024

Posted by sconzani in plants, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, broomrape, Common broomrape, Orobanchaceae, Orobanche minor, parasitic plant

The broomrapes, the Orobanchaceae, are curious plants – as they’re unable to produce their own chlorophyll they get it by parasitising the roots of other plants. Until last week, I had only ever seen Ivy broomrape (Orobanche hederae) but, on my way to Grangemoor Park for a meander, growing amongst wildflowers along a road verge, I found another of the nine native species of broomrape in Britain. This strange beauty is Common broomrape (Orobanche minor), which most often taps in to the roots of members of the pea family (the Fabaceae) and the daisy family (the Asteraceae), but will also parasitise many other plant species.

240526 common broomrape

Just peas, no carrots

19 Sunday May 2024

Posted by sconzani in flowers, wildflowers

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Black medick, British wildflowers, Broom, Bush vetch, Common bird's-foot trefoil, Common vetch, gorse, Grass vetchling, Pea family, red clover, Spotted medick, White clover

The challenge for the regular Sunday night 8-9pm Wildflower Hour (#WildflowerHour on most social media platforms) this week was to find flowering members of the carrot and pea families (#CarrotsAndPeas). I decided, for no particular reason, to stick with the peas, the Leguminosae, and here they are …

240519 birdsfoot trefoil and vetchling grass

Common bird’s-foot trefoil and Grass vetchling

240519 broom and gorse

Broom and Gorse

240519 clover red and white

Red and White clover

240519 medick black and spotted

Black and Spotted medick. These look very similar so you need to check the leaves: Spotted medick has splotches on its leaves, while the leaves of Black medick have no marks but have tiny points at their ends.

240519 vetch bush and common

Bush vetch (top) and Common vetch (bottom). I’m a bit confused about the white-flowered vetch in the centre – is it Bush or is it Common? I’ll ask the experts on tonight’s Wildflower Hour.

Yellow flag irises

12 Sunday May 2024

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British wildflowers, Iris pseudacorus, wetland plants, Yellow flag iris, Yellow iris

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.

Red-flowered Cowslips

05 Sunday May 2024

Posted by sconzani in flowers, spring, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Cowslip, natural colour variation in Cowslip, red-flowered Cowslip, Spring colour

240505 red-flowered cowslips (1)

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.

240505 red-flowered cowslips (2)

White-flowered Herb Robert

28 Sunday Apr 2024

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British wildflowers, Geranium Robertianum, Herb Robert, whitef-lowered Herb Robert

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).

240428 herb robert

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.

240428 herb robert WHITE

Dandelions and friends

07 Sunday Apr 2024

Posted by sconzani in flowers, insects, wildflowers

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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.

240407 dandelions and critters

The white wildflower challenge

24 Sunday Mar 2024

Posted by sconzani in flowers, spring, wildflowers

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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.

A weekend of wildflowers

23 Saturday Mar 2024

Posted by sconzani in flowers, spring, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Spring colour, 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:

240323 wildflowers blue and pink