Sunday 1 July 2018

Flowers From Midsummer

Well, it was midsummer when I photographed most of the flowers below. I went along to the same places just yesterday and the mix of flowers present has changed - some seem more abundant having come into flower, while others have faded and died back.

Biting Stonecrop

A common bright jewel of dry stony places. It's peppery taste gives it the alternative name of Wall Pepper. There's a very similar plant called Tasteless Stonecrop; I didn't eat any to make sure which one this was!


Viper's Bugloss

Another plant of dry places, especially frequent in the Breckland area. It's a rough, tough plant though its nectar is very attractive to bees.


Meadow Cranesbill

I love these little flowers and grew a lot of their cultivated cousins for many years in the shady part of my mother's garden. When I say I "grew a lot" of them I mean that they self-seed and multiply like crazy, and when I say "for many years" I mean that I couldn't have got rid of them if I'd wanted too!


Field Scabious

Just starting to come into flower is this pretty little flower that we called Blue Buttons when I was a child, it's also known as the Gypsy Rose. It has a rough stem which is supposed to look like skin affected by scabies and was, by association, thought to be a cure for that condition. For that reason it acquired the name "scabious".


Tufted Vetch with busy visitor

A very common plant in some undrained meadowland near me. When I took this picture on midsummer's day it was just starting to appear, earlier this week there was a lot more of it in flower, much to the satisfaction of the insect population.


Harebell

These tiny, almost insignificant, flowers are easy to overlook. In Scotland they call them Bluebells, so when Jimmy Shand and his Band were playing Bluebell Polka this is the flower they would have been thinking of.


Pyramidal Orchid

One of the local nature reserves near where I live has produced more Orchids this year than I've ever seen there before. It may be because of the gradual return to its natural state which has been encouraged by the conservation work that's taken place, or perhaps I've just had more time to visit since I retired from work.


Twayblade

Twayblade gets its name from the two leaves at its base. It's actually an orchid, though not the most colourful or immediately obvious.


Orchid

This one could be a Narrow-Leaved Marsh Orchid. It certainly had narrow leaves and was in the right sort of habitat - marshy land on limey soil. Though it might also be the paler form of Common Spotted Orchid and below....


Orchid

.....is probably the dark form of the Common Spotted Orchid, though if anyone knows better I'd be glad for their input. I was very happy to see them growing locally whatever they are (!) and then my eye fell on the one below....


Bee Orchid

Another plant which I've never seen before in this location. They've probably been here all along and it's just the timing of my infrequent visits in past years which meant that I missed them. If you go along to the same place now, just over a week later, the flowers have died off and they are all much less obvious.


Take care.



17 comments:

  1. Everything here is dying off in the drought John. I love vipers bugloss it was one of my father's favourite wild flowers.

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  2. A beautiful collection of flowers. .Are they all wild? I didn't know you had orchids in the wild. Amazing plants.

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  3. Great capture of orchids, whatever their genre' might be. So we need to be out walking more often, eh?

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  4. What a treat to see the orchids in their habitat!

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  5. What a nice variety of flowers to see.

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  6. Hi John - stunning flowers and thanks for labelling them. Interesting that as we retire we do have time to repeat 'gentle' walks and see the land change ... wonderful photos - cheers Hilary

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  7. How lovely all the orchids are and how wonderful to see so many. The bee orchid is stunning:)

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  8. Beautiful photo of a Bee Orchid - we have them on our Common, but they are very difficult to spot hiding in the long grass.

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  9. It is the Common Spotted Orchid, but when they grow in a damper area they tend to be much darker in colour.

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  10. Interesting how scabious flowers got their name. We have the colourful Viper's Bugloss here, too but not the unusual orchids. The Bee orchid is pretty special.

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  11. Love all your colorful wildflower pics! Most of those are new to me, except the stonecrop. That grows in our mountains here.

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  12. Lovely photos of beautiful flowers. Some of them grow also here (in Eastern Finland)... unfortunately the orchids not.
    Field scabious is common here, it's pretty but one of the very few wild flowers that are often infested by aphids.
    You too, take care.

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  13. The joys of being able to revisit local places... Did you mean to feature mostly purples or is that just what happened to be out?

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  14. I like your close ups very much, John. The orchids are amazing!

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  15. For your curious readers, I do think you should have tasted to see if the Stonecrop would bite, or not, John. :-). I love all the purples of summer.

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