Wildflower Season
Old roads shine in the glowing evening light
The reign of the bluebells has ended, for this year at least. The vibrant wash of blues and purples and lilacs has faded from our woodlands and the fresh summer green has reclaimed its place once more. There are a few remaining bluebells hanging on their heads hung low, their colours washed out, but they are overcome by newcomers. The wildflowers of a new season – nature’s palette is shifting to the colours of summer.
The country lanes and roadside verges are dominated now by cow parsley, with its white frothing umbels that lean towards the road. Wrens flit amongst them, fae-like, and come to rest on the strong hollow stems.
It’s part of the carrot family – a large family of plants that are often hard to tell apart, but the cow parsley flowers the earliest, and its soft petals release the scent of aniseed when crushed between curious fingers.
Amongst the whiteness of the cow parsley grow clumps of pink petals – red campion. It grows on roadside verges and scrubland, in quiet meadow corners, and hedgerows but favours ancient woodland; where it glows against the greens in dappled light. Popular with pollinating insects, butterflies and the busy wings of evening moths – perhaps confused with the fairies that are said to use this vibrant flower to hide amongst.
It’s also on the roadside verges that the ox eye daisies nod their heads. Big, bold petals with a sun yellow centre moved in the breeze and the passing of cars.
Red Campion
As the roads change to footpaths and the footpaths change to field the plants change with them. Wedding cakes, milkmaids and shirt buttons sit quietly in field corners – all names for the greater stitchwort that gathers as a sun-drenched carpet of white petals. Old tales and country lore suggest that the picking of these flowers lead to the rolling in of thunderstorms.
Further on into the meadow the buttercups reach skyward, their bold splashes of colour easily visible to anyone in passing. More than likely to be meadow buttercups that favour well grazed land, but there are boggy patches in this field, wet corners and damp edges which will no doubt host the creeping buttercup as well, which prefers damper climes.
A well-trodden path cuts its way around the field margin, the grass flattened and trampled, well worn by all those that travel through, humans and wildlife alike. It’s along this grassy path that the germander speedwell gathers. A small, bright blue flower that can be found in woodlands and grasslands as well as by the roadside in built up areas. It’s the traveler’s charm. A good luck symbol to those on the move and it gathers in the spots that wanderers may pass to ‘speed you well’. It could also be considered a good-luck charm for solitary bees that seek out its bright blue flowers for nectar.
Striking foxgloves guard the entrance to the woods, like it is theirs and theirs alone. Only those they deem fit can pass through into their hallowed glade. Their vibrant pink a far cry from the cooler tones of the bluebells that resided here earlier and will again, next year, in the Spring.
But for now, it’s the turn of summers palette- the pinks and greens and frothy whites that spill out into the season. The wildflowers of summer are beginning to stake their claim on the landscape.
Greater Stitchwort
