Wild and flowering

16 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by sconzani in flowers, spring, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Bush vetch, Garlic mustard, Herb Robert, Honesty, Red campion, Shining crane's-bill, Spring colour, spring wildflowers

These gorgeous wildflowers are now blooming in the sunnier, more sheltered spots I pass on my daily walks:

210416 bush vetch

Bush vetch (Vicia sepium), the first of the vetches I’ve seen this year.

210416 garlic mustard

Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), also known as Jack-by-the-hedge

210416 honesty

Honesty (Lunaria annua), originally a garden escapee but now naturalised in the local countryside

210416 red campion

Red campion (Silene dioica)

210416 herb robert

Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum) and, below, its cousin, Shining crane’s-bill (Geranium lucidum). As you can see, the flowers of these two are very similar but the leaves are quite different.

210416 Shining crane's-bill

117/366 It’s Pea time

26 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature, spring, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Bush vetch, Common bird's foot trefoil, Common vetch, Grass vetchling, Red campion, Spring colour, spring wildflowers

You know the summer’s not far away when members of the extensive Pea family start to flower and, during this week’s exercise walks, I’ve spotted four Pea species newly come in to flower. The first were three of the vetches …

200426 Bush vetch

Bush vetch (Vicia sepium)

Common vetch (Vicia sativa) … and friends.

200426 Grass vetchling

Grass vetchling (Lathyrus nissolia)

200426 bird's-foot trefoil

And, also, one of my all-time favourites – possibly because it’s also a favourite with a lot of the butterflies and day-flying moths I adore so much, Common bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus).

200426 Red campion

Oh, and this week’s new blooms also included one not-a-pea wildflower, the always lovely Red campion (Silene dioica).

A wildflower catch-up

25 Friday May 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Bush vetch, Common vetch, Herb Bennet, Oxeye daisy, Ragged robin, Russian comfrey, Wood avens

Time to catch up on which wildflowers are currently flowering in the waysides …

180525 Bush vetch

I often see the mottled purplish flowers of Bush vetch (Vicia sepium) in the wonderfully scruffy areas on the edges of roads and paths.

180525 Common vetch

Often accompanying its Bush cousin, the Common vetch (Vicia sativa) has a delicate pink, often single flower, very much like the popular garden plant the Sweet pea, to which it is also related.

180525 Oxeye daisy

There’s something innately cheerful about the Oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare), which also goes by the common names of Dog daisy, Horse daisy, Moon daisy and Moonpenny (I almost typed Moneypenny!).

180525 Ragged-robin

The perfectly named Ragged-Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) likes to have its feet in damp places so look for it in marshy areas, near drains and streams.

180525 Russian Comfrey

Given the deep purple of its flowers, I think this might be Russian comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum), a hybrid of Common and Creeping comfrey. I found it growing well in a coastal location near where I live.

180525 Wood avens

Though officially known as Wood avens (Geum urbanum) I always think of this plant as Herb Bennet, which, according to Flora Britannica, is a corruption of the medieval Latin herba benedicta, meaning the blessed herb. Its roots were widely used in herbal medicine.

Botanising: A walk above Brynna

28 Sunday May 2017

Posted by sconzani in nature, plants, wildflowers

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botany mentee, British flora, Bush vetch, Common vetch, Field horsetail, Glamorgan Botany Group, Mouse-ear hawkweed, Welsh poppy, Zigzag clover

Last weekend I enjoyed another full day’s walk with the Glamorgan Botany Group in the hills and vales above Brynna, in south Wales, and, though I am the first to admit that I came home with more photos of insects than plants, I am learning. It’s just that, for someone who wasn’t brought up in Britain and so didn’t learn from an early age the names of even the most common wildflowers, there’s a huge amount to take in.

170528 Brynna

So, what have I learnt? I can now tell the difference between Common vetch (Vicia sativa), on the left, and Bush vetch (Vicia sepium), on the right below.

I know this is Field horsetail (Equisetum arvense) because the first joints of the leaves (which form a skirt around the stem when you break them off) are longer than the stem section (the little dark v-shaped marks on the stem in this photo).

170528 1 Field horsetail

Though the two species are very similar, I know this is not Red clover (Trifolium pratense) but rather Zigzag clover (Trifolium medium) partly because the white marks on its leaves are not as obvious but, most definitively, because at the widest part of the leaf the veins meet the edge at a 90 degree angle.

I know that the plant on the left is Mouse-ear hawkweed (Hieracium pilosella) and that beautiful flower on the right is my very first Welsh poppy (Meconopsis cambrica) growing in the wild!