Wild patch in winter

The wild patch looks quite bare but there is plenty to see on close inspection.   How it will look in May Elsewhere, in the iris bed I made in the autumn, a tiny, beautiful and rather unseasonal sprig of common ramping fumitory

Windflowers

There were lots of wood anemones at Penstave Woods last week. They have some lovely vernacular names, including windflowers and moggy nightgown. According to Plantlife, moggy nightgown comes from Derbyshire where moggy means mouse, thus mouse’s nightgown. A rusty-back fern growing in a wall:

More spring, more snow

A splash of purple scented violets under the viaduct, and the first few white specimens in the verge on Bittaford road this week. It was just light enough to take photos while walking home from the station. Dandelions were looking glorious in the sunshine; they are an important source of food for insects early in…

Winter again

A month ago at White Oxen there were drifts of primroses and snowdrops, a few white sweet violets, self-heal and dandelions. A nuthatch was noisily proclaiming its territory. Stinking hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) is native in parts of Britain (in a band from Kent to North Wales, according to Harrap’s Wild Flowers) and nationally scarce. This specimen,…

Sweet violets

Sweet violets make me happy. They look so delicate but flower so early, nestling under their leaves with an unmistakeable old-fashioned scent. There is a patch under the viaduct in Bittaford. The first cow parsley is flowering and the frilly hart’s tongue fern is still growing in the verge near Filham. Several other specimens were…

Along Bittaford Road

Spring has definitely arrived along the verge. Near the houses, there are bright blue forget-me-nots and carpets of yellow celandines and primroses. Ivy-leaved toadflax on the walls, and cornsalad. On the grassy verge, daisies, primroses, common mouse-ear, greater stitchwort, Alexanders, dog’s mercury, cow parsley, and a rather early greater burnet saxifrage.  Purple and white sweet violets and early dog…

White violets

All along the southern verge of Bittaford Road, from Bittaford to the station, there are big clumps of sweet violets. All are white rather than purple. There is also a cowslip. At White Oxen, some purple violets (common dog violets), red dead-nettle, and carpets of golden saxifrage and barren strawberries. Also two fallow deer and a…

Spring flowers and another alien

Not a great photo, but this may be another alien species, Kontikia ventrolineata, so called because of the stripes running along the midline. Found under an old metal parasol base. There are better photos on this website.       In the woods at Shinners Bridge, lots of dogs mercury, snowdrops, and split open seed capsules…

January

My plan this year is to catalogue flowers on the southern verge of Bittaford Road, between Bittaford and Ivybridge train station, while keeping an eye on what is flowering along Wrangaton Road between Moorhaven and Green Lane. In the garden, there was ice on the pond but there are some beautiful flowers out too, including climbing…

March inventory

Linda lent me her camera, which seemed a good excuse to take stock of what is growing between Moorhaven and Green Lane this month. On March 12th 2016, there were the first flowers of golden saxifrage and pink purslane, with a solitary purple and yellow flower of ivy-leaved toadflax that was a bit too small for the…

Violets

Scented sweet violets, nestling under a hedge.     I think this is wavy bittercress. It has a zigzag flower stem, 6 stamens (2 shorter than others – I needed a lens to count them). It is not frost hardy and shouldn’t be flowering until March-April, but it has been very mild. Like hairy bittercress, which grows everywhere…