5/366 Musk mallow

05 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature, wildflowers, winter

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British wildflowers, Malva moschata, Musk mallow, wildflowers in bloom, winter colour, winter wildflowers

This Musk mallow (Malva moschata) must be the prettiest wildflower I’ve found still in bloom so far this year.

200105 musk mallow (1)

They can usually be found in dry places, like ‘chalk pastures, roadsides, churchyards and old quarries’, according to my Flora Botanica: this one was on a roadside verge next to Grangemoor Park, a former rubbish dump now park.

Plantlife’s website has some fascinating snippets about this pretty plant. Did you know …

The ancient Greeks used musk mallow to decorate friends’ graves.
Musk mallow was once an ingredient in soothing cough syrups and ointments, and it was also valued as an aphrodisiac!
In the Victorian “Language of Flowers” it is said to be a symbol of ‘consumed by love’, persuasion, and weakness.

Can you spot the itsy-bitsy spider?

2/366 New Year Plant Hunt

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature, wildflowers, winter

≈ 4 Comments

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British wildflowers, Cardiff Bay, New Year Plant Hunt, wildflowers in bloom, winter wildflowers

While I was walking around Cardiff Bay yesterday, not only was I keeping an eye on the sky for birds, I was also looking down a lot, trying to find as many wildflowers in bloom as possible for the New Year Plant Hunt – to be honest, it’s amazing I didn’t fall over, with my head bobbing up and down like one of those nodding dogs you used to see in the back windows of cars (some of you may be too young to remember those!).

The New Year Plant Hunt actually goes on for four days, from the 1st to the 4th, so you’ve still time to join in. The event is run by the BSBI, the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland, and aims to ‘find out how our wildflowers are responding to changes in autumn and winter weather patterns’. You can read all about it on their website, and follow along on the social media of your choice.

I was surprised and delighted with my haul from yesterday, finding 28 (!) wildflowers in bloom. My tentative identifications are: a thistle species; Common ragwort; Winter heliotrope; Red clover; a Gorse species; Daisy; one of the Cat’s-ears (I think); a member of the carrot family, perhaps one of the parsleys; Bristly oxtongue; Red valerian; Hemlock water dropwort; a dandelion species; Black nightshade; a sowthistle species; a mayweed, I think; a buttercup species; Bramble; Sea radish; a hawkweed species; Groundsel; Petty spurge (with a rust fungus); Narrow-leaved bittercress; White melilot; Yarrow; Oxeye daisy; Common kapweed; Shepherd’s-purse; and Herb Robert.

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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342/365 Winter 10, again

08 Sunday Dec 2019

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

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#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.

328/365 Winter 10, 2019

24 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by sconzani in autumn, nature, wildflowers

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

Now that most insects have morphed in to their over-wintering pupae or are hibernating somewhere warm and dark, my eye naturally turns to whatever else I can find in the natural world around me and one of those things is the wildflower. You might think they, also, have faded away but, depending on the weather, there are usually flowers to be found all year round. If you don’t believe me, try following #wildflowerhour on social media, every Sunday night from 8 to 9pm, to see what folks have managed to find for the weekly #winter10 challenge. Here are my finds from this week’s local walks …

289/365 Hedge woundwort

16 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by sconzani in autumn, flowers, insects, nature, plants

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autumn wildflowers, flower bug, Hedge woundwort, south Wales coastal path, wildflowers in bloom

Determined to make the most of a few hours of sunlight yesterday, I headed along the south Wales coastal path to see what I could find, taking just my small camera as more rain was forecast.

191016 hedge woundwort (1)

Vegetation along the path had been severely cut back since my last walk that way, which meant that wildflowers were few and far between, though I did find a few plants of Hedge woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) still flowering.

191016 hedge woundwort (2)

And while trying to get some close-ups of the flowers, I had the distinct feeling I was being watched. A tiny, early instar flower bug (not sure which species) was sitting atop one of the flowers and, as if curious, it pranced across from the further flower to the nearer to see what I was doing. Cute!

191016 hedge woundwort (3)

271/365 Wildflowers at Cosmeston

28 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in autumn, flowers, nature, wildflowers

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autumnal wildflowers, British wildflowers, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, flowering in September, wildflowers in bloom

Last Monday, on the day of the autumnal equinox, I decided to see how many still-flowering wildflowers I could find during my wander around the east and west paddocks at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park. My total was 33 – though I probably missed a few, I thought that number was impressive for the time of year. Here they are …

94/365 Wet and wild

04 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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#365DaysWild, British flora, British wildflowers, spring wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom

We’re in the grip of a wintery blast here at the moment, though without the snow my friends in the Valleys have (not) been enjoying. Luckily, I managed to time my stroll around the local parks to coincide with a break in the heavy rain and hail showers, searching for whichever wildflowers I could find in bloom. They’re all rather damp but I quite like them adorned with raindrops.

grape hyacinth

dandelion

three-cornered leek

cow parsley

red valerian

forget-me-not

primrose

violet

daisy

lesser celandine

wild strawberry

ivy-leaved toadflax

Wildflower update

13 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, wildflowers, winter

≈ 4 Comments

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#WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom, winter wildflower challenge

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last checked which wildflowers are still flowering so, as I wandered the countryside this week, I kept my eyes open for what was still about. Perhaps surprisingly, as it has been a bit colder and frostier, those plants still flowering are pretty much the same as on my New Year’s plant hunt, with one exception. I’ve not discovered any Red Campion locally but found a couple of plants in bloom on Wednesday during my walk from Parc Slip Nature Reserve back to the railway station in Tondu. It’s the first flower shown below, and the others are all the locals I’ve spied.

New Year Plant Hunt

30 Sunday Dec 2018

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

≈ 7 Comments

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#7DaysofWildChristmas, #NewYearPlantHunt, British flora, New Year Plant Hunt, wildflowers in bloom, winter-blooming wildflowers

From 29 December to 1 January don’t be surprised if you see people taking photos of blooming wildflowers, puzzling over pictures in ID books, scratching their heads over the differences between one plant species and another. We are the New Year Plant Hunters, doing our best to find and identify as many wildflowers in bloom as possible throughout Britain to help the BSBI (Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland) keep track of what’s happening in the botanical world around us. And you can join in. Go for a walk, list what you find and submit your list on the BSBI website. So, for day 6 of my #7DaysofWildChristmas, I took myself on a walk around Penarth and was delighted to find these 27 species in bloom.