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~ a celebration of nature

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Tag Archives: British wildflowers

Green-flowered wildflowers

17 Sunday Mar 2024

Posted by sconzani in flowers, plants, wildflowers

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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:

240317 dog's mercury

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!

240317 petty spurge

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.

240317 stinking hellebore

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.

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Name that rosette, 2

03 Sunday Mar 2024

Posted by sconzani in plants, spring, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, identifying early plant growth, plant identification, plant rosettes

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).

240303 rosettes

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Celandine Day

25 Sunday Feb 2024

Posted by sconzani in wildflowers

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Tags

British wildflowers, Celandine Day, Lesser Celandine

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.

240225 lesser celandine

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First Coltsfoot

18 Sunday Feb 2024

Posted by sconzani in wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Coltsfoot, spring flowers, Tussilago farfara, yellow flowers

240218 coltsfoot (2)

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.

240218 coltsfoot (3)

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.

240218 coltsfoot (1)

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Heartsease

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

Posted by sconzani in wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Heartsease, Merthyr Mawr NNR, Viola tricolor, Wild pansy

This photograph was taken several years ago, at Merthyr Mawr National Nature Reserve, but I’ve not shared it before and, though I don’t personally celebrate Valentine’s Day, I was looking for something appropriate to today’s love theme for those of you who do. Heartsease (Viola tricolor), a delicate and delightful little pansy, grows wild on the edges of the dunes at Merthyr Mawr.

240214 heartsease

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Mid-February winter 10

11 Sunday Feb 2024

Posted by sconzani in flowers, trees, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, tree flowers, winter colour, winter wildflowers in bloom

Despite this having been a very wet week, the temperatures have been quite mild and, in some cases – as with the ornamental Cherry tree outside my flat, for example – I’ve felt like I could almost see the buds fattening. So, it comes as no surprise to me that, this week, I’ve managed to find ten species of wildflower and tree in flower: Alder, Field speedwell, Dandelion, Lesser celandine, Primrose, Wild strawberry, Sweet violet, Common fumitory, Three-cornered leek, and Red dead-nettle.

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First Crocuses

04 Sunday Feb 2024

Posted by sconzani in flowers, plants, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, croci, crocus, Crocuses

Or should that be Croci, like Hippopotamuses becomes Hippopotami? On a grey damp day, these were a sublime sight.

240204 crocuses

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Winter 18

28 Sunday Jan 2024

Posted by sconzani in wildflowers, winter

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

British wildflowers, winter wildflowers, winter wildflowers in bloom

January’s weather has been all over the place. First, we shivered through a week of colder than average temperatures, then two wild and windy named storms blew away what few flowers had survived the cold, and now our weather is milder than usual. As a result, our flora (and fauna) seem confused about whether it’s winter or spring, and finding wildflowers in bloom has been hard work this week. However, after walking my patch for several years, I know where the more sheltered places are and so have managed to find 18 wildflowers in bloom.

240128 wildflowers (1)

Just in case you don’t recognise them, these are: Daisy, Dandelion, Field speedwell, Gorse, both the female and male flowers of Hazel, Hoary mustard, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Mayweed, the white-flowered version of Pink campion, Primrose, Sea radish, Snowdrop, Sweet violet, Three-cornered leek, Wild strawberry, and Winter heliotrope.

240128 wildflowers (2)

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Snowdrops are go

21 Sunday Jan 2024

Posted by sconzani in wildflowers, winter

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British wildflowers, cemetery wildflowers, First snowdrops, Snowdrops

A detour through the local cemetery produced my first Snowdrops of the year today, just a few and looking a little blurry in my image as Storm Isha was already beginning to blow and shake the landscape, but a delicious sign of botanical treats to come.

240121 snowdrops

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Wild word: phenology

10 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by sconzani in wildflowers, winter

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British wildflowers, Lesser Celandine, phenology, winter colour, yellow flowers

Phenology: noun; the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life (Oxford Dictionary).

In 2020 I was amazed to find my first Lesser celandine of the ‘spring’ flowering on 8 January (First Lesser celandine of 2020). This year, I was even more amazed to find my first even before the turning of the year, on 29 December, and then located another two flowers at a different site on my 1 January walk around Cardiff Bay. The way our changing climate is affecting plant phenology (i.e. how flowering times are influenced by seasonal weather variations) is just crazy.

240107 lesser celandine

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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Recent blog posts

  • The return of the Willow warblers April 23, 2026
  • Bug: Harpocera thoracica April 22, 2026
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