Tag Archives: winter colour

Wild blooms

28 Sunday Feb 2021

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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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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.

Yellow brain fungi

08 Friday Jan 2021

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Yellow is such a cheery colour, and the sight of these bright yellow fungi during a walk on a particularly grey, gloomy day certainly brought a smile to my face.

Although there are two very similar-looking, yellow, jelly-like fungi, I’m 99% sure these are Yellow brain fungi (Tremella mesenterica) because they are parasitic on the Peniophora species of crust fungi (rather than the Stereum hirsutum fungi, on which the other yellow fungi Tremella aurantia are parasitic), and you can, hopefully, just make out the Peniophora fungi (the lilac-grey crust on the wood) in the photo immediately below.

210108 yellow brain fungi (3)

I explained more about these two fungi in my blog Golden ears and Yellow brains, February 2017.

33/366 This week in wildflowers

02 Sunday Feb 2020

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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.

5/366 Musk mallow

05 Sunday Jan 2020

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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.
200105 musk mallow (2)

Can you spot the itsy-bitsy spider?

349/365 Another winter 10

15 Sunday Dec 2019

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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 sp191215 daisy191215 gorse sp191215 groundsel191215 Hemlock water dropwort191215 ivy-leaved toadflax191215 ragwort191215 red clover191215 red valerian191215 yarrow

Berries full to bursting

26 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in autumn, nature, plants, wildflowers, winter

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The name ‘bryony’ is entirely appropriate for this plant as it comes from the Greek word bruein which, apparently, means ‘to be full to bursting’. However, though the berries of Black bryony (Tamus communis) are cherry-red and luscious-looking, please don’t be tempted to eat them as they are deadly poisonous.

171126 Black bryony berries (2)

There are, in fact, two plants with the bryony name in Britain, White bryony and Black, but they are not part of the same plant family. Rather surprisingly, Black bryony is the only member of the yam family to grow here but, again, don’t be tempted to eat its roots. In spring and summer, Black bryony’s long tangling vines can be found rambling over, under and through the shrubs and bushes of hedgerows and scrub-lands, and in autumn and winter, though the heart-shaped leaves brown and drop, the masses of red berries brighten up the countryside for many months.