Orchids

In woods near South Brent last weekend, we saw five specimens of the rare greater butterfly orchid. Many thanks are due to the man walking dogs who offered to show us the first one. There was also a specimen of rather late early purple orchid. Beaked hawksbeard Common sorrel Marsh thistles

White Oxen and Zempson

Lots of crosswort in the damp meadows at White Oxen and hedgerows around Zempson. The first early purple orchids are flowering, and the first ragged robin, bugle, buttercups, and yellow pimpernel. Also in flower were lady’s smock, bog stitchwort, cornsalad, primroses, common dog violets, sticky mouse-ear, wavy bittercress, thale cress, daisies, germander speedwell, red dead-nettle and red campions….

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…

At White Oxen

Mum and Dad have beautiful wildflower meadows with a variety of flowers that enjoy wet grassland, including bog stitchwort and ragged robin. Bugle grows among the grasses, along with what I believe is a white-flowered form

Elsewhere in April

Elsewhere in the past couple of weeks, some interesting tiny coastal plants under the viaduct in Bittaford: common scurvygrass (heart-shaped leaves, distinctive spherical seed pods; once used by sailors to prevent scurvy) and Danish scurvygrass (ivy-shaped leaves) come inland where roads are salted. My phone wasn’t quite up to photography on this miniature scale. Thale cress was growing in…