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~ a celebration of nature

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Tag Archives: spring

Cherry plum or Blackthorn?

10 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, trees

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

blackthorn, blossom, Cherry plum, Prunus cerasifera, prunus species, Prunus spinosa, spring, Spring blossom

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Being a relative newbie to Britain, I’m still very much a learner when it comes to identifying plants (and everything else, to be honest), so I was pleased recently to learn how to tell Cherry plum blossom from Blackthorn.

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It’s partly in the timing – Cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) usually flowers first, apparently – and also in the growth pattern, but a sure-fire way to tell whether the gorgeous blossom you’re puzzling over is this or Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), which flowers soon afterwards, is to look at the back of the flower.

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In the Blackthorn the sepals (those leaf-like bits that originally enclose the flower but split apart when the flower opens) lay flat along the backs of the flower petals, or between them when fully open (photos above), whereas in the Cherry plum, the sepals are folded back (photos below).

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We have blossom!

16 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, trees

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

#FloralFriday, blossom, Cherry blossom, Cherry tree, spring, Spring has sprung, springtime

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The ornamental cherry outside my living room window is a little behind last year in its blossoming, probably because of that really cold snap we had a couple of weeks back, but the blossom started to open this week. Spring!

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Happy St David’s Day!

01 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring

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Tags

daffodil, First day of spring, spring, Spring colour, spring flowers, St David's Day, Welsh national day

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Dydd Gwŷl Dewi hapus! And Happy Spring!

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Mad with joy

07 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

spring, Spring colour, spring flowers, wildflowers

‘People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.’ ~ Iris Murdoch

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Merry marsh marigolds

25 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, wildflowers

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Caltha palustris, marsh marigold, spring, spring flowers

Yellow is the colour of happiness, optimism, enlightenment, creativity, hope, cheerfulness, and sunshine. Yellow is also the most luminous in the colour spectrum – the colour that most easily catches our eye and the eyes of bees so it’s no surprise that yellow is the most common flower colour, and the quintessential colour of Spring.

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One of the wonderfully vibrant plants whose flowers have been catching my eye over the past couple of weeks is the Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris). As its name implies, this wildflower likes the dampness of marshes, fens, ditches and the wetter areas of my local woodlands. According to Wikipedia, it ‘is probably one of the most ancient native plants, surviving the glaciations and flourishing after the last retreat of the ice in a landscape inundated with glacial meltwaters.’

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The Marsh marigold is commonly known as Kingcup – its Latin name Caltha comes from the Greek word for goblet and its large golden cup-shaped flowers certainly look glorious enough to adorn the table of a king.

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Coltsfoot for your cough?

26 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by sconzani in nature, nature photography, wildflowers

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Coltsfoot, spring, spring flowers

I saw my first coltsfoot in bloom this week. Though it looks a little like a dandelion, coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) is actually a member of the sunflower family. It is favoured by herbalists as its leaves and flowers apparently make an effective cough remedy – the scientific name tussilago comes from the Latin tussis, which means cough, and ago, which means to act on. However, coltsfoot has been found to cause problems with the liver so long-term constant use is probably not wise.

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This is another wildflower with a multitude of common names including, not surprisingly, coughwort, but also tash plant, ass’s foot, bull’s foot, foal’s foot, foalswort, and horse foot. Apparently, all those references to ‘foot’ result from the fact that the leaves are a similar shape to animal hooves, though I haven’t yet seen the leaves myself – they don’t appear until the flower has set its seed.

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In Britain, there is also a confection called Coltsfoot Rock, made exclusively by Stockley’s Sweets, in Oswaldtwistle, in Lancashire. Though its exact recipe is secret, this rock candy is flavoured using the leaves of coltsfoot. I wonder if any of my readers can tell us what it tastes like.

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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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