OH ALRIGHT - THERE ARE FLOWERS TOO!

While bemoaning grey days and bleak economics, one can't pretend that green plants and bright flowers aren't great lifters-of-spirits-ers.

There are the obvious ones for the time of year.

Like blackthorn blossoms that open before their leaves arrive.

And I am specially encouraged by flowers which spring open in city streets. Ones which live there despite the odds. (Or, perhaps it's odd that we don't expect them and sometimes don't see them there.)

March 26th 2013

This flower is growing at the top of a flight of underpass steps in Bournemouth city centre. (A city with a population of around 168,000.) It's a Speedwell. Maybe a Common Field-Speedwell (Veronica persica) (which can also be called 'Persian Speedwell' - pretty exotic name as well as pretty flower!).  Or it might be a Green Field-Speedwell (Veronica agrestis). Maybe I'll get a definite ID from iSpot?

March 26th 2013

This is the plant the flower is growing from. As you can see, there are quite a few buds waiting to open.

And between the cobbles of speed bumps in a Weymouth housing estate.

March 31st 2013

Common Whitlowgrass (Erophila verna). Each flower takes up about two square millimeters. These are not growing in a busy road - but dustcarts and cars do drive over them. I doubt (though I haven't stood there to check) that anyone (except me and people who've stopped to ask why I'm crawling around in the road) have noticed they are there.

Oh, and why not

March 31st 2013

notice the daisies? These are growing in an un-trampled area of a park. Unsurprisingly un-trampled because there is one basket ball hoop and one five aside goal. Not entirely inspiring when both are for team sports!

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FLOWERS IN THE PARK

Leaves tremble. It's a nuisance when you want to take pictures of them but they can't be persuaded to stop. Flowers - the light reflects from their petals and produces white blodges. Sometimes, you have to take several shots before they come out 'right'. The good thing about hedgerows though, I've been thinking, is that the plants there are tough and there are lots of them. This is generally an easy blog. I potter along, take some photos, come home, puzzle about what to miss out when I've seen so many interesting things and . . . post! Delicate plants are not for me.

'Delicate', I've tended to think, is a sort of synonym for 'exotic'. I've never met an orchid but I expect they count. Certainly, there are fewer orchids in the fields than nettles.

Hardly an orchid!
Groudsel growing in through the substantial gap between the roundabout and the grass.
Growing in the same gap as the groundsel (above).
June 17th 2012

As you can tell, my thinking was muddled (exotic = delicate = rare = hard to photo; common = easy) when I decided to take pictures of plants in a park.
I didn't expect much of a challenge. After all, most plants which grow wild in parks are counted as weeds. I'd see what I could find, click - and be done.

Cut-leaved Crane's-bill (Geranium dissectum)
June 17th 2012

'Park' is a loose word for the place I chose. It's more like a field with slides and swings plonked down in it.

I don't yet know what this is.
It's like pineapple mayweed only more substantial and without the smell.

One basket ball net - one. One goal post for five a side - one! (What kind of sports did the designers have in mind?) There's a roundabout and a jiggly version of a seesaw on a spring. Every so often someone comes along and mows the grass. In the meantime, it can grow quite tall, not tall-tall but, away from the trampled areas, it's about eight inches high at present. This, I say with approval. Too much mowing is a bad thing. I reckon. Short grass is alright when kept in its place. Too much and it's boring.

White Clover (Trifolium repens) in the grass.

(I know it's not white all the way through

but that's one of its characteristics - 

that this kind of clover can have pink petals mixed in.)

People with tanks of weed killer used to come and spray it but I haven't seen any recently so maybe they've stopped. There's a picnic table and a bench. Children swing on the swings and clamber about on the frame that leads to the slide. It's not an abandoned playground, not in the least, but it is, to my eyes, bleak . . . even though there's a large expanse of grass which is rarely used - after all, how do you play football when there's only one goal?

If I looked, what would I find? Lots. What's more, I found things difficult to photograph. None of these are rare plants but it's taken me more than a week of going back and back to get any photographs worth showing. Wild urban plants wobble, shut their petals, glare back and are much more of a pain to photograph than . . . than nettles. I've had to photograph them over and over again till they came 'right'. (Rainy days haven't helped.)

And it's not just within the park that you notice these flowers.

White Clover (Trifolium repens) from the street side.
(The tarmac is the pavement.)
June 11TH 2012

They creep under the fence too.

Scarlet Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis)
 June 17th 2012

Scarlet Pimpernel flowers have been specially difficult to photograph. Not only are they small, with fluttering petals (how much they move is not necessarily noticeable till you look (frustratedly!) through the lens) but the flowers have been staying closed through most of the day. Even when it's been sunny, they haven't opened till the afternoon. Because I didn't expect this (know about it?) I kept traipsing backwards and forwards. I have lots of pictures with the flowers shut - in case the plant got pulled up or too rain battered.

Scarlet Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis)
 June 17th 2012

Although this was annoying, it turned out in an interesting way because over this period is that more have come up in the grass. Above is one in the park but taken through the fence from the outside.

Common Bird's-foot-trefoil (Lotus corniculatus)
June 13th 2012

We probably need a close up for this one!

Isn't it lovely that it's got 'lotus' in its name?

 Black Medick
(Medicago lupulina)
June 6th 2012

Black Medick is one you would quite likely step on - especially as it is beginning to wander out from the edge of the park and on to the pavement. Once again, I find the Latin name surprising. It is not black - and it looks nothing like a lupin! If I carry on learning the scientific name for plants, more will become clear. In the meantime, I'm treasuring the surprise, the mystery, the apparent irrelevance.

And last, but beautifully not least . . .

The dandelion!

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And here's a post-script. I'd like to recommend a blog some of you may not yet have come across

Notes of Nature

by

Tim Havenith

You'll find plants, creatures, ladybird eggs (!) and more. If you like Loose and Leafy, you're almost bound to like Notes of Nature too.

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