Cycling along the coast between Roscoff and sand dunes at Plounévez-Lochrist, there was lots of fennel and wild parsnip but oddly no-one else wanted to keep stopping to take photos of flowers. On the dunes there was wild carrot, common restharrow, sea rocket, tree mallow, thrift, and frosted orache, with vervain in the lanes nearby.
Month: July 2016
Clovers and more
Red clover is prolific but there are also some big clumps of the less common zigzag clover growing between Moorhaven and Green Lane, and also along Bittaford Road. Zigzag clover flowers are looser and larger, and always a deep dark pink. They stand away from the leaves, on stalks about a centimetre long. Where the…
Things that look like cow parsley part 3
Hogweed is at its most handsome this month, and is joined by greater burnet saxifrage. GBS has white flowers like a delicate cow parsley but is easily distinguished by its leaves, which are glossy dark green. According to my flower books, it is not particularly common across the UK but it is growing in the…
Biodiversity
I counted over 90 different species currently flowering between Moorhaven and Green Lane, starting with the weeds in our garden (1-36), progressing to Moorhaven communal gardens where Perforate St John’s Wort (37) and Dark Mullein (38) were growing in a weedy border (they could have been planted there originally), and then via Wrangaton Road to the…
Bogs!
The head of Lud Brook is transformed into a magical green and gold world of spearwort, bog asphodel, sphagnum moss and sundew, with tiny frogs hopping here and there. Delicate bog pimpernel nestles among the grass and sphagnum, with bright red patches of insect-eating round-leaved sundew Other tiny gems are eyebrights,…
Dartmoor in June
Towards the end of June, tiny eyebrights were sparkling the grass. Small white blobs opened to become identifiable flowers of heath bedstraw, occasionally interspersed with heath speedwell. Sheep’s bit by the gate to Leigh Lane on 1st July: and I think this is procumbent pearlwort
Dandelions
Dandelions can reproduce asexually, without pollination, which means that a random mutation can create a new ‘microspecies’. There are several hundred of these microspecies but all have the familiar yellow flowers, toothed leaves and sappy stems. Despite their reputation as a persistent weed, dandelions have benefits for gardens attracting bees, moths and butterflies, particularly early in…
June
June flew by too fast! New arrivals in the hedgerows were bistort and common valerian and numerous yellow flowers like dandelions. I’ll deal with those in another blog. Figwort has interesting flowers but is easy to overlook among the luxuriant summer growth Black medick and lesser trefoil growing side by side makes it easy to spot their differences. Note the cylindrical clusters of seeds…
Moorhaven to Green Lane 