Fruits

12 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by sconzani in autumn, plants, trees

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#WildflowerHour, autumn berries, autumn colour, autumn fruit, berries, drupes, fruits, hips, rose hips

This was @wildflower_hour’s tweet announcing this week’s #WildflowerHour challenge:

Samaras, siliques, nuts, drupes, berries, hips and capsules, how many different types of wild fruit can you find? That’s the challenge this week for #WildflowerHour. Share your pics this Sunday 8-9pm using the hashtag #fruits.

I’m saving my samaras, siliques, nuts and capsules for another day but here are my drupes, berries and hips: an assortment of Black bryony, Bramble, Buckthorn, Crab apple, Dewberry, Red-osier dogwood (with vivid red stems and white fruit) and Common dogwood, Guelder rose, Hawthorn, the hips of Japanese rose (these grow wild at the local country park) and Dog-rose, Sloe, Whitebeam, Woody nightshade and Yew.

The Yellow challenge

11 Sunday Apr 2021

Posted by sconzani in flowers, spring, wildflowers

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#WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, Spring colour, yellow flowers, yellow wildflowers

This week’s Wildflower Hour challenge was to find yellow-flowered wildflowers currently in bloom. Here are my finds – a blast of spring sunshine to enjoy this Sunday evening:

210411 yellow (1)

Colt’s-foot, Dandelion, Gorse

210411 yellow (2)

Lesser celandine, Marsh marigold, Meadow buttercup

210411 yellow (3)

Groundsel, Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (perhaps a bit of a stretch to say this is yellow, but it does have ‘golden’ in its name), Yellow archangel

210411 yellow (4)

Prickly sow-thistle, Cowslips, Ragwort

210411 yellow (5)

Pushing the envelope on these ones but … Alexanders (greenish-yellow), Primrose (buttery yellow), Pussy willow (not strictly a wildflower, but I’m having it)

New Year’s Plant Hunt

03 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by sconzani in flowers, plants, wildflowers, winter

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#WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, New Year Plant Hunt, winter wildflowers

The New Year Plant Hunt is happening again this year, from 1 to 4 January, but participants must, of course, stick to the Covid-19 restrictions in their areas. (In case you’re new to the idea of the Plant Hunt, all the details are on the BSBI website here.) I am taking part, of course, and, as a practice run, I used my meander around local streets and countryside footpaths on New Year’s Eve to see what I could find. It was very chilly, as you’ll see from the ice crystals still on a couple of the flowers, but I was very pleased to find 14 plants still in bloom: Alexanders, Bramble, Common vetch, Daisy, Dandelion, Gorse, Groundsel, Ivy, Knapweed, Primrose, Red clover, Red valerian, Shepherd’s purse, and Winter heliotrope.

96/366 On the wall

05 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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#wallplants, #WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, spring wildflowers, wildflowers growing on walls

This week’s WildflowerHour challenge was to find wildflowers, in bloom, growing on walls. You might think walls would be inhospitable places for plants to grow but it turns out that rather a lot of our British wildflowers relish life on a wall. It’s certainly a good place for a plant to find shelter, and a wall might also supply reflected or stored heat so, for those plants that are able to push their roots into tiny cracks and crevices and don’t mind a life of hanging around, a wall can be an ideal habitat.
Here are the wall-bound wildflowers I found during this week’s exercise walks: Daisy, Dandelion species, Forget-me-not, Groundsel, Herb Robert. Ivy-leaved toadflax (this seems to be growing in abundance on every local wall!), Red valerian, and, my favourite, Yellow corydalis.

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68/366 Pavement plants

08 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature, spring, wildflowers

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#PavementPlants, #WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, Coltsfoot, Common cornsalad, Daisy, dandelion, Herb Robert, Lesser Celandine, primrose, Red dead-nettle, Shepherd's purse

Now that Spring has sprung, the folks who run #WildflowerHour on social media are issuing weekly challenges for followers to focus their searches around. This week it was #PavementPlants, searching for any plants in bloom that were growing in the cracks or along the edges of their local pavements. Challenges like this do mean you get some odd looks from people when you’re photographing your finds but I’m very used to that these days.

Here’s what I found: Coltsfoot (I love how tenacious these plants are – they were pushing up between the cracks in an old set of steps connecting two local streets); Common cornsalad; Daisy; Dandelion; Herb Robert; Lesser celandine; Primrose; Red dead-nettle; and Shepherd’s-purse.

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61/366 Lilac and yellow

01 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, wildflowers

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#WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, Dog violet, primrose, Winter aconite

Rather than a full list of wildflower sightings this week, I’m focusing on just three, this week’s new (to me) blooms. And, in fact, this first wildflower, Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), was a first-ever sighting for me. Originally from southern Europe, this plant is a member of the buttercup family, and, if the database records of this beautiful flower are any indication, it’s a plant that is quite rare in the wild in Wales.

200301 winter aconite

This is a dog-violet, possibly Early dog-violet, though I didn’t take good enough photos of the particular features needed to differentiate the Early (Viola reichenbachiana) from the Common (Viola riviniana).

200301 early dog-violet

And, finally, this delightful combination of the two colours of the above blooms, lilac and yellow, a Primrose. Though not the usual cream-coloured flower we most commonly see, this is, I believe, a natural colour variation of the native Primrose, rather than something humans have bred.

200301 primrose pink variety

33/366 This week in wildflowers

02 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, wildflowers

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Tags

#WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, winter colour, winter wildflowers

These are the blooming wildflowers I was able to find during yesterday’s and today’s local meanders, an impressive total of 21, due to the continuing mild weather we have been experiencing this winter.

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They are: Bramble; Comfrey – a nice surprise; Common ragwort (with a bonus Marmalade hoverfly, my first for 2020); a Crocus (probably planted, now wild); Daisy; one of the Dandelions; Gorse; Groundsel; Hairy bittercress; a female Hazel flower – a tree, I know, but I couldn’t resist the dash of pink; Herb Robert; Ivy-leaved toadflax; Lesser celandine – quite a lot of these flowering now; perhaps one of the Hawkweeds; Primrose; Red valerian; Snowdrop; one of the Sowthistles; a Speedwell species, possible Field Speedwell; an umbellifer; and the pretty pink of Winter heliotrope.

356/365 Winter solstice wildflowers

22 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, plants, wildflowers, winter

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#WildflowerHour, #winter10, British wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom, winter wildflowers, winter-blooming wildflowers

It may be the shortest day of the year but I’ve found more blooming wildflowers this week than in the previous weeks of wildflowerhour’s winter 10 challenge. Here we have: a Buttercup species; Daisy; one of the many Dandelion species; Hemlock water dropwort; still quite a bit of Herb Robert about; Ivy-leaved toadflax is flourishing in the wet weather; a Knapweed; a lovely surprise, a couple of plants of Musk mallow; Oxeye daisy; plenty of Petty spurge; surprisingly, a few Primroses already in flower (though most partly eaten); Common ragwort; Red clover; quite a lot of Red valerian; what I assume is Sea radish; plenty of Shepherd’s purses; one of the Sowthistles; Violets – sweet, I think; a Thistle species; White clover; an umbellifer which I think is Wild carrot; quite a lot of Winter heliotrope in flower now; Yarrow; and, a bright burst of Yellow corydalis.

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349/365 Another winter 10

15 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by sconzani in nature, wildflowers, winter

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#WildflowerHour, #winter10, British wildflowers, winter colour, winter wildflowers

I think I could have found more than ten wildflowers in bloom for this week’s wildflowerhour but my walks were a little restricted by the weather and chores. Still, I am happy to have seen these ten: a Buttercup species, Daisy, a Gorse species, Groundsel, Hemlock water dropwort, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Ragwort, Red clover and Red valerian, and the lovely Yarrow.

191215 buttercup sp 191215 daisy 191215 gorse sp 191215 groundsel 191215 Hemlock water dropwort 191215 ivy-leaved toadflax 191215 ragwort 191215 red clover 191215 red valerian 191215 yarrow

342/365 Winter 10, again

08 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, plants, wildflowers, winter

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

#WildflowerHour, #winter10, British flora, British wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom, winter wildflowers

Though my title is ‘Winter 10’, I’ve actually found 18 wildflowers in bloom during this week’s meanderings. They are: Bittercress species, Black nightshade, Bristly oxtongue, Daisy, a Gorse species, Groundsel, one of the Hawkbits, Herb Robert, the invasive Himalayan balsam, still one flower of Meadow crane’s-bill, Petty spurge, Common ragwort, Red clover, Red valerian, one of the umbellifer species, Winter heliotrope (this bud is not quite open but I couldn’t reach the one that was), and Yarrow.

My apologies for the sometimes blurry images and my fingers appearing in some shots – it’s been a week of frequent gusty winds and rain, not conducive to macro photography.