Tansy

27 Sunday Jul 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, summer colour, Tanacetum vulgare, Tansy, yellow flowers

This is the only Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) plant I know of and it’s in an odd location, growing as it does on a grassy slope on the Cardiff Bay Barrage. Who knows how it got there but it seems to be thriving and its golden-yellow button-like flowers make for a stunning display of summertime colour.

Those flowers also provide welcome food for insects at a time when many other plants are shrivelling due to the heat and lack of rain. (In case you’re wondering, the bee is a Colletes species but cannot be positively identified without closer examination – I did try asking an expert.)

I always enjoy reading the interesting snippets of information my copy of Flora Britannica provides about our various wildflowers. This is what Richard Mabey writes about Tansy:

Tansy’s leaves are pungent and bitter, and at one time they were eaten at Eastertide, to kill off the ‘phlegm and worms’ which the Lenten fish diet gave rise to. They were mixed with eggs, milk and flour, presumably to make them more palatable, and from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, a ‘tansye’ was a generic term for any omelette or pancake-like dish flavoured with bitter herbs.

By the sea

20 Sunday Aug 2023

Posted by sconzani in plants, seaside, wildflowers

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#WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, Echium vulgare, seaside wildflowers, Silene latifolia, Tanacetum vulgare, Tansy, Teucrium scorodonia, Viper's-bugloss, White campion, Wood sage

This week’s challenge for #WildflowerHour was ‘What can you find blooming along the coast?’. I’ve had a couple of walks around parts of Cardiff Bay this week and could’ve included a lot of plants but have selected just four.

230820 vipers-bugloss

As Cardiff Council has (amazingly!) refrained from cutting the Barrage grass in recent months, the few Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare) plants that were previously growing there have increased markedly. There must be over 50 plants now spread across the expanse of the Barrage, and the blue flowers make a lovely contrast against the grass green.

230820 tansy

I rarely see Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), so this single plant, thriving on the sandy slope below the children’s playground on the Barrage, was a delightful surprise.

230820 white campion

Growing just along from that Tansy plant, was this lone White campion (Silene latifolia) plant. It wasn’t looking as healthy as the Tansy but was covered in seed heads so I think it was just past its best.

230820 wood sage

This Wood sage (Teucrium scorodonia) was a total surprise as you wouldn’t necessarily expect a plant with ‘wood’ in its name to be growing alongside a seaside path. My book says it prefers acid soils but, when I googled, I found many examples of Wood sage growing on scree slopes, amongst limestone, and close to sand dunes, so I guess it’s very adaptable.