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.