British wildflowers

[Chris Johnson]

Hello Matt, a good photo of A. tenella. I have never seen it or must have overlooked it when not in flower.

Hi Ian and Matt

I think Anagallis tenella is having a particularly good flowering year. I don't recall seeing a better display.

[Matt T]

I have to agree with Chris. A. tenella likes our climate/habitats here but it is clearly it is enjoying our especially wet "summer" this year. It is easily overlooked when not in flower, the leaves are tiny and the whole plant is totally prostrate.

[jomowi]

The late flowering season that the UK has experienced this year is still evident.  In 2007 when I first encountered the helleborines on Almond bing between Linlithgow and Falkirk, they were well past their best on August 13.  I have visited the site for the last 3 years and found the same.

This year Ann (treasurer of the Stirling Group) and I went there on August 9 and they were only in bud.  Dactylorhiza fuchsii (common spotted orchid) though, was looking good whereas in previous years it has been OTT by this date. We went again today, and the helleborines were just at their peak.  We also explored a part of the bing I hadn’t covered before and found Pyrola media rosettes in profusion.  The sparse flowers were well past as one would expect by now.

1 & 2 Epipactis helleborine (I think the brown leaves might have been scent marked by a fox as they didn’t look like natural ageing to me)
3 & 4 Dark and pale E. helleborine. 
5. Pyrola media

[ian mcdonald]

Maureen, I wonder if they are all E. helleborine. I know that species is variable but there may be others there as well.

[ian mcdonald]

Epipactis dunensis for comparison to the smaller ones Maureen. There are others reported from your area as well.

[jomowi]

Maureen, I wonder if they are all E. helleborine. I know that species is variable but there may be others there as well.

Ian,- when I visited in 2007, there was a study going on with individually marked plants.  This was when E. youngiana was thought to be a separate species, but it has since been demoted to a 'var'. (A news item appeared at the time: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7081306.stm )  The funding for the research was withdrawn as a result.  I understood that just because a plant was pale flowered, that it did not necessarily mean it was E. youngiana or as it has now become -  E. helleborine v. youngiana.  The pic you show is more like I remember the description of youngiana to be.

[ian mcdonald]

Hello Maureen, there is more to defining an orchid to a group than one attribute, flower colour, leaf shape etc. as you will know. I was told that a group of botanists visited a site and took one look at a bed of Epipactis and pronounced them as E. helleborine. One of the group had spent a lot of time studying the species and stayed behind to look more closely. He said that quite a few of the plants were in fact E. dunensis. The plant I posted was given a cursory glance by me and identified as E. helleborine, the "normal" local species. The leaves looked different, narrower than E. helleborine and not arranged spirally up the stem. E. helleborine is quite variable. This still did not make me think it was anything other. It was not in flower at the time of finding. Something kept telling me to look the following year and I asked the person studying the species to have a look. He measured each flower with a micrometer, looked at the pollinia, the flower lip etc. before he would commit to a final decision. It just shows what we may be missing because we are told "you don,t get that there." The maxim is "wildlife can,t read." We found northern marsh orchids where they should not be, we are "too far south." Good hunting.

[jomowi]

Ian - you are right - the plants haven't read the books.  There is so much variation within a species that whether this is broken down further depends on whether you are a 'lumper' or a 'splitter'.  Either way, I don't have enough botanical knowledge to comment further. 

I looked out the pics I took in 2007 which at the time I had down as E. youngiana.  They look quite different certainly from E. helleborine.  Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the whole plant - for a start only the lower flower had opened at that stage and my attempt at the whole plant was lost in the background.

[ian mcdonald]

Hello Maureen, I am not a very good photographer, although I have been photographing wild flowers for 40 years. I find that if a plant is tall it may be better to take two photos. One of the flowering stem and another of the lower stem. It might be better to take a ground sheet and lie down with the camera on its side. Using a tripod is useful. If seen you get some strange looks from the public. As for the naming of "difficult" species, I wonder if we are just taking a snapshot of evolution and the plant will become something else in the next 100 years? I prefer to "lump" plants because it is the easier option. The only exception is if a site survey is the intention. In that case a definite ID is required so that a repeat survey has the correct information to relate back to. Most wildlife recording is done by "amateurs" whose records are infrequently published. Sites, such as the Forum, give people the chance to pass their findings on.

[ian mcdonald]

Looking back to spring, img 1000083 spring squill. img 100086 early purple orchids and a pink form of mountain everlasting. img 1000282 is herb paris.

[ian mcdonald]

A useful site for photographs of UK wild flowers is Britishwildflowers.co.uk

[ian mcdonald]

Some wild flowers still in bloom. img. 1000729, scottish primrose. img. 1000673, pale butterwort. img. 1000761, autumn gentian (Gentianella amarella). img. 1000596, basil thyme.

[ian mcdonald]

Ajuga pyramidalis img. 1000237.

[johnralphcarpenter]

The woods are coming to life. A walk in Ham Street Woods yesterday (a National Nature Reserve) revealed the first wood anemones and lots of primroses.

[ian mcdonald]

Hello John, the sun is out so it is time for the less adventurous to be out and about. Good to see the anemones in flower. "If winter comes, can spring be far behind," Shelley.