Wild flowers?

[mark smyth]

Here is a male orange-tipped feeding on the plant

[Anthony Darby]

Flowering here, now, also but will soon be destroyed along roads by the Roads Service when they cut the grass

Miriam Rothschild will be turning in her grave. She campaigned for years to get the halfwits in the councils to stop cutting roadside verges until August (or, better, once every two years in the Autumn) to allow flowers, butterflies, moths and other insects to flourish.

[Anthony Darby]

Last weekend on my way the perth, and also Saturday 5th April when I drove to The Wirral, I noticed the lovely carpet of pink, and occasionally white, Danish Scurvy-grass (Cochlearia danica) along the central reservation of the motorways/dual carriageways.

[Maggi Young]

Last weekend on my way the perth, and also Saturday 5th April when I drove to The Wirral, I noticed the lovely carpet of pink, and occasionally white, Danish Scurvy-grass (Cochlearia danica) along the central reservation of the motorways/dual carriageways.

Yes, Anthony, we have been marvelling at the depth of colour in these carpets of tiny flowers, making the road edges glow.... really lovley.... wonder how many people know what the flowers ARE??

[Anthony Darby]

It is rapidly becoming 'The Motorway Plant'!
www.ukwildflowers.com/Web_pages/cochlearia_danica_danish_scurvy_grass.htm

[Roma]

Does anyone know how Cochlearia danica became so widespread on motorways and dual carriageways?  The wildflower books say it is a seaside plant. I first noticed it a number of years ago on the A 96 north of Aberdeen out past the airport roundabout but the road people dug out the soil and replaced it with a greater depth of gravel. I don't know if the plant has returned yet as I rarely drive in to Aberden since I retired.

[Anthony Darby]

It's an annual and spreads rapidly. The salt used in the winter when gritting the roads probably makes motorways the ideal habitat.