New awakenings

23 Sunday May 2021

Posted by sconzani in flowers, spring, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Common comfrey, Field scabious, Flax, knapweed, Oxeye daisy, Ragged robin, Red campion, Red valerian, Spring colour, Yarrow

Despite our un-spring-like weather, more and more wildflowers are coming in to bloom. Here are some I’ve noticed during the past fortnight’s ramblings in my local countryside: Comfrey, Field scabious, Flax, Knapweed, Oxeye daisy, Ragged robin, Red campion and Red valerian, and Yarrow. Though my video shows a decidedly blue-pink range of hues, there are other-coloured species in bloom – it’s just that I intend doing some family- or species-specific blogs so will save those photographs for now.

124/366 Ragged robin

03 Sunday May 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature, spring, wildflowers

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Bee-fly, British wildflowers, Grangemoor Park, Lychnis flos-cuculi, Ragged robin, Silene flos-cuculi, Spring colour, spring flowers

At Grangemoor Park on Friday, I spotted my first flowering Ragged robin for the year.

200503 ragged robin (1)

This gorgeous wildflower was formerly known as Lychnis flos-cuculi, but is now Silene flos-cuculi – from a scientific article I browsed, this seems a complicated story of almost constant reclassification of the species! You will still see both names used in books and on line, which is why I’ve mentioned both here.

200503 ragged robin (2)

According to a couple of books I discovered on the ‘language of flowers’, Ragged robin’s symbolic meaning is ‘wit’, and it is dedicated to Saint Barnabas. The ever-informative First Nature website says:

Lychnis, the genus name, comes from the Greek noun lychnos, meaning lamp; it refers to the use of a plant in this genus as the wick of an oil lamp. The specific epithet flos-cuculi means ‘flower of the cuckoo’ and was probably chosen because the first flowers of Ragged Robin appear just as the first cuckoos are being heard (in Britain and Ireland at least) in May.

200503 ragged robin (3)

A special moment: to try to stop it swaying in the breeze so I could get a sharp photo, I was holding one of the blooms when a bee-fly decided to zoom in for a feed of nectar. That super long proboscis comes in handy for long narrow flowers like these.

200503 ragged robin (4)

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.

Looking frazzled!

03 Saturday Jun 2017

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, wildflowers

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British flora, British native flowers, British wildflowers, Ragged robin, Silene flos-cuculi

Ragged robin (Silene flos-cuculi) certainly lives up to its name. To me, it always looks a tad stressed, a touch frayed around the edges, a bit frazzled, as if it’s had a long hard day in the meadows, but its distinctive ragged shape does at least make it one of the easiest British wildflowers to identify.

Ragged robin (4)

I say ‘always’ but I don’t actually see this pretty native very often. Perhaps that’s because it prefers to dip its feet into the damper grass- and woodlands, though the word is that it has declined in recent years in many parts of Britain, mostly due to agriculture taking over its habitats.

It was, then, even more special to spot these plants in one of my local wild places this week, and I wasn’t the only one smiling at the sight. The bees were obviously pleased to see them too! Ragged Robin flowers from May through to August so I hope you’re lucky enough to spot some too.

Ragged robin (1)

A wealth of wildflowers

19 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, wildflowers

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Creeping jenny, Devil's-bit scabious, Dock, Meadowsweet, Narrow-leaved everlasting pea, Ragged robin, Ribwort plantain, Rosebay willowherb, Sneezewort, Tall Melilot

It’s Friday! It’s Floral Friday! It must be time for more wildflowers. Here’s the latest selection from my wanderings around parks, meadows and reserves:

Creeping jenny (Lysimachia nummularia), Devil’s-bit scabious (Succisa pratensis), Dock (Rumex sp), Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), Narrow-leaved everlasting pea (Lathyrus sylvestris), Ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi), Ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata), Rosebay willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium), Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica) and Tall Melilot (Melilotus altissimus).