British wildflowers

[Chris Johnson]

The Uists are covered in this glorious species but a little way off flowering yet.

[johnralphcarpenter]

 Wallflowers growing in the wall of Beeston Castle, Cheshire.

[johnralphcarpenter]

Found this Spindleberry, Euonymous europaeus, growing at the edge of a wood between Pluckley and Charing in Kent today. Much easier to recognise in the autumn with its distinctive pink fruit.

[johnralphcarpenter]

Not a wildflower and not British, but there is a magnificent stand of three Sweet Chestnut trees, Castanea sativa, beside a footpath through an orchard between Pluckley and Little Chart. We walk here often and these trees are impressive whatever the season.

[jomowi]

Blackstonia perfoliata taken on July 2nd on a derelict industrial site.  It was on a narrow piece of land sandwiched between the Manchester Ship Canal and the northern limit of the River Weaver Navigation with the Mersey estuary visible on the other side of the Ship Canal.  I don't think this plant is found in Scotland, and I last saw it in the Pyrenees.

[Anthony Darby]

According to Clapham, Tutin and Warburg (1951) Blackstonia perfoliata was found in Kirkcudbright.

[Chris Johnson]

... It was on a narrow piece of land sandwiched between the Manchester Ship Canal and the northern limit of the River Weaver Navigation with the Mersey estuary visible on the other side of the Ship Canal. ...

Gosh, that brings back distant memories. I used to go birdwatching there and the nearby Frodsham Marsh. It was reckoned that if you fell in the Manchester Ship Canal, you would dissolve. 

Chris

[Matt T]

The machair is looking rather fine at the moment, with good colour across the cropped and fallow areas.

[Maggi Young]

Matt, that picture is "a picture" - so to speak! 

[jomowi]

Gosh, that brings back distant memories. I used to go birdwatching there and the nearby Frodsham Marsh. It was reckoned that if you fell in the Manchester Ship Canal, you would dissolve. 

Chris

Yes, Chris, I can quite believe it, but things have changed.  I was talking to a lock keeper, and he said the Weaver Navigation was the 3rd most polluted river in Europe and the atmosphere too was one of the most polluted.  There are still some chemical plants in place, but they have cleaned up their act.  I was on a canal hotel boat holiday - we spent a night moored alongside the Frodsham marshes, - very rural and out of site of any industry. 

[jomowi]

According to Clapham, Tutin and Warburg (1951) Blackstonia perfoliata was found in Kirkcudbright.

Not according to the 1997 edition of Stace, Anthony.  Another wild flower bitten the dust in the intervening years North of the border maybe?  Can anyone confirm?

[Maggi Young]

 Is this any help?

Hectad map of Blackstonia perfoliata (Yellow-wort) in GB and Ireland
  http://www.bsbimaps.org.uk/atlas/map_page.php?spid=243.0

[jomowi]

Thanks, Maggi, - it looks as though we have lost it. And I see that a single blue dot (2010) possibly marks the spot of the ones I found near the Mersey estuary.  They were plenty in that one small area.  Also in the same spot were lots of Centaurium, - I would like to think C. littorale as we were close to the estuary, but I didn't have my flower book, and couldn't remember the distinguishing features to differentiate it from the more common C. erythraea. 

Matt, - I love your machair picture.

[Anthony Darby]

Bentham and Hooker (my 1947 edition was revised in 1924) says "in Britain, limited to England, where it is local, also in Ireland".

[Maggi Young]

Read Andy Byfield's latest blog, on orchids seeding and the menace of early verge cutting  here