Wild blooms

28 Sunday Feb 2021

Posted by sconzani in flowers, plants, wildflowers, winter

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British wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom, winter colour, winter wildflowers

The results are in! After a concerted effort to check as many different local habitats as possible, walking 31.5 miles over 5 days, I managed to find 29 different wildflowers in bloom this week. Two (Ragwort and Smooth sow-thistle) were too distant for good photos; the other 27 feature in this week’s little video. I hope you’re also seeing plenty of flowers in your areas now too.

The 27 are: Alexanders, Barren strawberry, Colt’s-foot, Cow parsley, Cowslip, Creeping buttercup, Daisy, Dandelion, Dog’s mercury, Field speedwell, Forget-me-not, Gorse, Groundsel, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Opposite-leaved golden-saxifrage, Petty spurge (with little yellow spots of the rust Melampsora euphorbiae), Primrose, Red dead-nettle, Red valerian, Shepherd’s-purse, Snowdrop, Spurge laurel (a shrub really but I’m including it), Sweet violet, Three-cornered leek, Wavy bitter-cress, and Winter heliotrope.

Midwinter wildflowers

17 Sunday Jan 2021

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British wildflowers, midwinter wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom, winter colour, winter wildflowers

Nature’s resilience amazes me! It’s the middle of winter, we’ve had some very hard frosts and really chilly days as well as torrential rain, yet I’ve still been able to find 25 species of wildflower in bloom this week.

These heroes are Alexanders, Bramble, a garden-escapee Campanula species, Creeping buttercup, Daisy, Dandelion, Field speedwell, Gorse, Groundsel, Herb Robert, Hogweed, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Mayweed species, Meadow buttercup, Nipplewort, Oxeye daisy, Primrose, Ragwort, Red valerian, Shepherd’s purse, Smooth sow-thistle, Sweet violet, Wild radish, and Winter heliotrope.

327/366 Around the town

22 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, wildflowers

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autumn colour, autumn wildflowers, British wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom

For this week’s wildfloral fest, I’ve taken a couple of meanders around my town to see what I could find along the back lanes, in cracks on stone walls, on the verges, bordering the pavements, in the churchyard and cemetery. And here are the bloomers: Bramble, Daisy, Dandelion, Field speedwell, Hedge bindweed and Hedge woundwort, Hemp agrimony, Herb Robert, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Nipplewort, Oxeye daisy, my first Primrose of the season, Purple toadflax, Red dead-nettle, Red valerian, and Wood avens. Not a bad haul for late November.

320/366 Zigzag flowers

15 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, wildflowers

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autumn colour, British wildflowers, Penarth zigzag path, wildflowers in bloom, Zigzag path, Zigzag path wildflowers

I haven’t checked what’s flowering along the local zigzag path for a while so I thought I’d take a look for this week’s Sunday wildflower post and #wildflowerhour on social media. Imagine my delight when I found these 14 species: Ragwort, Cinquefoil (a nice surprise), Creeping thistle, Hedge bindweed, Meadow crane’s-bill (which is doing really well since the Council stopped cutting the vegetation on this site), Common vetch, Red clover, Bramble species, Herb Robert, Field scabious, Tufted vetch (nice to see the two vetches in bloom), Winter helleborine (another nice, unexpectedly early surprise) [ed. heliotrope, not helleborine – thanks, Vicky!], Black medick, and Meadow buttercup.

313/366 Flowers in a field

08 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, wildflowers

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autumn colour, autumn wildflowers, British wildflowers, farm field wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom

Running alongside the local coastal path are a series of farm fields, belonging, I understand, to the Welsh government.

201108 a field

These fields are usually leased for farming but, because there are currently plans to build 500 houses here (and don’t even get me started on how ludicrous that is!), it seems no local farmer was willing to lease the fields this year so they have not been cultivated. This has been an incredible bonus for wildlife (this is a well-used flyway so migrating birds have taken advantage of the re-wilded environment) and for the wildflowers that would usually be sprayed to death prior to crop planting.

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This week I’ve checked which flowers are still in bloom in these fields and their surrounding hedgerows, and found the following: Hedge bindweed, Bramble species, Bristly oxtongue, Creeping thistle, Dandelion species, Field speedwell, Rape, Scarlet pimpernel (the day was too dull for the flower to open), Smooth sow-thistle, Spear thistle, Sun spurge, and Ragwort.

201108 x ragwort

299/366 Blooming now

25 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, wildflowers

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autumn colour, autumn-flowering wildflowers, British wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom

Today’s blast of colour is brought to you by the colour purple, with splashes of pink and blue and lilac. All these gorgeous wild plants are still flowering in my local area and, on grey days, when we here in Wales are once again in full Covid-19 lockdown, seeing these on my daily exercise walks is a spirit-lifting delight!

For those who want to know, these are: Buddleja, Bush vetch, Common knapweed, Creeping thistle, Devil’s-bit scabious, Field scabious, Hedge woundwort, Herb Robert, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Meadow crane’s-bill, Musk-mallow, Purple toadflax, Rosebay willowherb, Teasel, and Tufted vetch.

286/266 Still blooming

12 Monday Oct 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, wildflowers

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autumn colour, autumn wildflowers, British wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom

Botanically speaking, I’ve been a bit preoccupied in the past few weeks with the structural shapes of seedheads and the autumn bounty of fruit, so yesterday, during a walk across farm fields and along woodland rides, I thought I’d record how many wildflowers I could find in bloom. Turns out, there are still rather a lot, including Agrimony, Bramble, Broad-leaved willowherb, Creeping buttercup, Creeping thistle, a Dandelion species, Hedge woundwort, Hemp agrimony, Herb Robert, Knapweed, Meadow vetchling, Ragwort, Red campion, Red clover, White clover and Yarrow.

54/366 Winter 29!

23 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature, wildflowers

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British flora, British wildflowers, wildflowers in bloom, winter wildflowers

Despite the appalling weather we’ve been having, the natural world obviously feels the coming of Spring as this week I’ve found 29 wildflowers in bloom, including firsts of Coltsfoot, Common corn salad, Spotted medick and Wood anemone.

The full list is: Alexanders, Coltsfoot, Common comfrey, Common cornsalad, Common field speedwell, Cow parsley, Creeping buttercup, Daisy, Dandelion, Forget-me-not, Gorse, Groundsel, Hairy bitter-cress, Herb Robert, Hogweed, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Nipplewort, Oxeye daisy, Primrose, Red dead nettle, Red valerian, Shepherd’s-purse, Smooth sow-thistle, Snowdrop, Spotted medick, Sun spurge, Winter heliotrope and Wood anemone.

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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

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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.