Wild words: strobilus

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

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#WildWords, British flora, Equisetum arvense, Equisteum, Field horsetail, Horsetail, strobilus, wild words

Strobilus: noun; a botanical term, which came originally from the Greek strephein meaning ‘to twist’, and which is used to describe the cone of a pine, fir or other conifer; and also ‘a structure resembling the cone of a conifer, such as the flower of the hop’ (Oxford Dictionary).

180404 strobilus

I have the lovely Helen of Plantlife Cymru to thank for this word because, when I originally posted this photo on Twitter, she responded by saying that ‘the strobilus is ascending’. My photo shows the newly emerged stalks of Equisetum (possibly Field horsetail, Equisteum arvense), which is a dinosaur of the plant world, a plant that reproduces using spores rather than seeds. The spores are produced in the strobili, the cone-like structures you can see on the tips of the stems.

Botanising: A walk above Brynna

28 Sunday May 2017

Posted by sconzani in nature, plants, wildflowers

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

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!