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where the wildflowers are

where the wildflowers are

Category Archives: flowering in January

Snowdrop

12 Sunday Feb 2017

Posted by theresagreen in British wildflowers, flowering in February, flowering in January, flowering in March, folklore of plants, North Wales, white flowered plants, wildflowers of Wales

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Galanthus nivalis L., snowdrop

SNOWDROP – Galanthus nivalis

Flowering : (January) February to March

Snowdrops are iconic flowers that traditionally herald the ending of winter and are the first bulbs to bloom and to show signs of life after the winter months. In Britain, Snowdrops are possibly both native and naturalised and were not recorded as growing wild here until the 1770s. It is likely that many of our colonies of wild Snowdrops originated with ecclesiastical plantings. The pure white blooms of the Snowdrop have long been accepted by the Catholic Church as a symbol of Candlemas, celebrated on February 2nd, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, and their association with monastic sites is apparent right across Britain.

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Common English name: Snowdrop Scientific name: Galanthus nivalis L. Welsh:Eirlys

Other common names: Candlemas bells, Mary’s taper, Snow-piercer, February fairmaids, Dingle-dangle

Description: Height 15-25cm (6-10″). Strap-shaped bluish-green leaves grow at the base of each stem, which bears a single drooping blossom. The flower has three spreading sepals that grow longer than the its green-tipped petals.

Conservation status: Rated as Near Threatened (NT) according to IUCN Red List criteria.

Habitat: On the European continent Snowdrops grow in wild habitats, in damp woods and meadows up to 1,600 metres.130216-chirk-castle-2

One of the local names for the snowdrop is the ‘snow piercer’ and this describes exactly how the flower pushes its head up through the snow or winter-hardened earth to brighten otherwise gloomy February woodlands.

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A small leaf-like spathe, or protective sheath, covers the tip of the flowering stem and enables the snowdrop flower to force its way up through the snow.

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FOLKLORE

130216-chirk-castleAlthough the flowers are sanctified for Candlemas, the snowdrop is one of the many white blossoms that are still regarded as being unlucky if brought into the house. In parts of Northumberland, Westmorland and Hampshire, single flowers particularly are still viewed as ‘death-tokens’. This may be as one Victorian explanation was that the flower “looked for all the world like a corpse in its shroud”. According to the ‘language of the flowers’, the snowdrop was an emblem for virginity, and a few blooms enclosed in an envelope were often used to warn off over-ardent wooers. In a similar vein, in Yorkshire there was an old custom, again celebrated on Candlemas, for village maidens to gather bunches of snowdrops and wear them as symbols of purity. (extracts from Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey)

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RELATIONSHIP WITH INSECTS

130216-chirk-castle-7The snowdrop provides an early source of nectar for bees, which in turn pollinate the flowers. Nectar is secreted by the green-spotted inner petals of the snowdrop and as the bee forages, it brushes onto the female stigma some of the pollen that has stuck to its body whilst visiting other flowers.

TRADITIONAL USES

Ornamental. Medicinal. Insecticide.

MEDICINAL USES

The alkaloid Galantamine, which was initially isolated from snowdrops, has been used in treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, neuritis and neuralgia. In parts of eastern Europe, rubbing snowdrops on the forehead was a folk remedy used for pain relief.

Known hazards: Snowdrops and their bulbs are poisonous to humans and can cause nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting if eaten in large quantities.

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Winter Heliotrope

20 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by theresagreen in British wildflowers, flowering in January, North Wales, pinkish-lilac flowered plants, wildflowers of Wales

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Petasites fragrans, Winter heliotrope, winter wildflower

Almost hiding the ground with its leaves, Winter heliotrope is a creeping, patch-forming perennial plant that thrives in damp places, often beneath trees and shrubs where it may well overpower other herbaceous plants. The rounded leaves are present all year, then the flowers appear from December to March, although are at their best at the beginning of January.

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Winter heliotrope – Petasites fragrans

170102-berc-73-winter-heliotropeThe pinkish-lilac flowers are 10-12mm across, have a delicious vanilla or heliotrope scent and are carried in spikes 20-25mm long.

Fruits are achenes.

The leaves are present all year round. They are a pleasing rounded heart shape, green above and greyish beneath, measure about 20mm across and are long-stalked.
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The name heliotrope derives from the old idea that the inflorescences of the plant turned their rows of flowers to follow the sun. Helios is Greek for ‘sun’ and trepeine means ‘to turn.’

Heliotrope is much used in the perfume industry and features in many popular  fragrances.

Heliotrope is also the name of a colour taken from the pink-purple of the flowers of a species of this family of plants, first recorded as a colour name in English in 1882.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wildflowers in January

19 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by theresagreen in flowering in January, pinkish-lilac flowered plants, wildflowers of Wales, wildflowers with berries, wildflowers with fragrance, yellow-flowered plants

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gorse, hazel catkins, Herb Robert, holly, iris foetidissima, ivy berries, plants with berries in January, stinking iris, Winter heliotrope

January 2017, first two weeks

Weather has its part to play in the timing of the appearance of our wildflowers and this year has already presented our bit of the North Wales coast with a mixed bag of it. So far we’ve had cold frosty days, cold strong-windy days, bright sunshine-filled days and this week, mild but dull misty days. Generally January is probably the least productive month for wildflowers in Wales, and indeed most of the British Isles, but other than in the harshest of weather, there are some that are tough enough to bring forth their blossoms to brighten our walks.

Wildflowers in season

“When gorse is not in flower, kissing is out of season”

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The old quotation above is meant to imply that as kissing is never ‘out of season’, then rarely is gorse not in flower, which is largely true. Although it blossoms more prolifically in some months than in others, it is usually to be found somewhere along a walk, bringing a burst of welcome sunshine gold to the dullest January day. Although cold days don’t coax out the blossom’s delicious coconut-vanilla fragrance into the air, it’s always worth getting in close to seek it out. It’s such an uplifting scent.

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Gorse-January 2nd

Winter heliotrope is another plant worth getting close to for their lovely vanilla-like scent. This is one of the more unusual wildflowers that grows here and I know of only two patches locally, so they probably originally escaped from one of the gardens of one of the nearby large Victorian houses.

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Winter heliotrope – January 2nd

Although they are a wild flower, the snowdrops I come across are mostly in gardens. These are my first ones for this year.

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Snowdrops – January 2nd

Maybe a little early? 

170111-berc013-walk-hazel-catkinsHazel begins to produce its new catkins in the late autumn, but I was surprised to find one tree with a full crop of fully-grown catkins quite this early. It is one tree of many growing in a little grove of once-coppiced hazel trees that line part of one of my regular walking paths. I can’t begin to guess why it so far ahead of its neighbours, unless it has a particularly sheltered spot reached by the sun perhaps?

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Hazel catkins – January 11th

There may be a shortage of flowers to be found, but there are still berries to be found on holly, wild rose and hawthorn. They may not last long now as most will have been ‘frosted’, which may need to happen before birds eat them.

Fruits in the wake of  flowers

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Holly berries

Rose hips

Rose hips

Haws

Haws

Tutsan is present here, doubtless a one-time escapee from a local garden but now included as a wildflower. It has retained many of its leaves and its berries are now fully ripe, black and beginning to wither.

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Ivy is prolific here and berries are in varying stages of ripeness in different locations; they are an extremely important source of winter food  for many species of birds when little else is available to them.

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The curious Stinking Iris (Iris foetidissima) is native to this part of the country and fairly prolific now, quite possibly due to the distribution of its bright red berries by birds, particularly blackbirds, although they are not eating them yet. It too retains its foliage throughout the winter.

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Some plants retain their seedheads throughout the winter, most famously the Wild Clematis, or Old Man’s Beard for the way in which it drapes its white fluffy seedheads over other shrubs.

Old mans beard over blackthorn

Old mans beard over blackthorn

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Knapweed too still has its seedheads and a stand of them on the hillside looked pretty when lit by the low sunshine.

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All-year rounders

When winters are mild, some wildflowers will produce blooms throughout the year. The starry little Common Daisy is one such, although this year I have seen only one so far.

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Common daisy-January 2nd

Post-Summer Survivors

In a sheltered corner of an old limestone ruin, a dainty Herb Robert shows a single little flower. I’m including this as a late survivor as this is not quite an all-year round plant, flowering ‘officially’ from (March) April to November.

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Herb Robert – January 11th

Shetered by another wall, this time along the roadside, a Sow thistle, quite comfortable thank you.

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Sow thistle-January 2nd

New beginnings

In sheltered spots there are already plants producing new leaves. Those of Alexanders, which will be one of the first to bring forth its flowers, usually during February, are already quite well grown in the shelter of the woods.

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Alexanders – January 11th

Also sheltered by shrubbery, dead leaves and last year’s dried stems, these new Stinging nettle leaves have already been nibbled.

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Stinging nettle – January 11th

That’s what I’ve photographed in the last couple of weeks, so although January may appear to be resting time, just waiting for the Spring, nature never truly sleeps.

 

Lesser Celandine

29 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by theresagreen in flowering in February, flowering in January, flowering in March, folklore of plants, traditional medicinal plants, traditional uses of plants, wildflowers of Wales, yellow-flowered plants

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lesser celandine, ranunculus ficularia

Lesser Celandine- Ranunculus ficularia, also known in English as pilewort, small celandine, smallwort, figwort, brighteye, butter and cheese. In Welsh it is Lygad ebrill.

150318TG-Old Colwyn-Celandine flowers 3Amongst the earliest wildflowers to bloom, the Lesser celandine has long been one of my favourite wildflowers. When I was a child growing up in Northamptonshire, a part of my walking route to school was along a Green Lane. This was a narrow pathway with grass verges backed by hedgerows and mainly used as a short-cut to the village by anyone walking or riding a horse or bike.

Behind the hedge on one side was a small field that was often boggy and there was a drainage ditch on the lane side to prevent it flooding. Needless to say it was damp there and generally shady; the perfect place for celandines to thrive. They were the first of the wildlowers to appear here and I looked forward to their appearance avidly.

f329582190I used to think their shiny golden yellow faces captured some of the sunshine whilst it shone, then held it within their tightly closed petals to keep them warm on cold dull cloudy days. I learnt very young that these were not the flowers to pick to take home to my mum, but I remember how the sight of them used to gladden my heart, as it still does, signalling that the spring was on its way.

21/2/12-Lesser Celandines, Colwyn Bay

The plant itself is small (5-30cm tall). The dark green, shiny, heart-shaped leaves grow spirally arranged around long weak stalks from the base. The leaves are sometimes mottled with light or dark markings; they lie flat on the ground unless held up by surrounding plants.The flowers are bright, glossy yellow, fading to nearly white at the petal base as they age.

The Lesser celandine is one of the first flowering plants to appear at the end of the winter (February to May). Gilbert White, the famed author of  ‘The Natural History of Selborne’  reported that the plants came out on February 21, but it is more commonly reported to flower from March until May, and is sometimes called the “spring messenger” as a consequence.

IMPORTANCE TO INSECTS

As with most early flowering plants, the lesser celandine provides welcome nectar to a variety of insects and although they are pollinated by bees, such as the Buff-tailed bumble bee, Red-tailed bumble bee, flies and beetles, very few seeds are typically set. They open when few insects are around so not many seeds are produced and spread is mainly vegetative by tiny bulbils which develop in the leaf axils and these drop onto the soil as the plant dies back.

THE MEANING OF THE NAME

The plant’s  common name, lesser celandine, was mistakenly given to it when it was thought to be one and the same plant as the true or greater celandine, to which it bears no resemblance except in the colour of its flowers – both being yellow. The word celandine comes from the Greek word chelidon, meaning swallow, the greater celandine coming into bloom when these birds arrive, and withering on their departure. The scientific name Ranunculus is Late Latin for “little frog,” from rana “frog” and a diminutive ending. This probably refers to many species being found near water, like frogs. The plant grows from root-tubers, which are said to look like bunches of figs. This explains the second part of the scientific name of the plant, ficaria, which is Latin for fig.

THE CELANDINE IN POETRY

The flower folds its petals on dull and wet days

A number of poems have been written about the celandine. The poet William Wordsworth was very fond of the flower and it inspired him to write three poems including the following, which are the first two verses from his ode to the celandine:

The Lesser Celandine 

There is a Flower, the Lesser Celandine,
That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;
And, the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, ’tis out again!

When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm,
Or blasts the green field and the trees distressed,
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,
In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest.

William Wordsworth

Upon Wordsworth’s death it was proposed that a celandine be carved on his memorial plaque inside the church of Saint Oswald at Grasmere, but unfortunately the Greater Celandine Chelidonium majus,  was mistakenly used.

THE CELANDINE IN TRADITIONAL HERBAL MEDICINE

The plant used to be known as Pilewort because it was used to treat haemorrhoids. Supposedly, the knobbly tubers of the plant resemble piles, and according to the doctrine of signatures, this resemblance suggests that pilewort could be used to cure piles.

The German vernacular Scharbockskraut (“Scurvyherb”) derives   from the use of the early leaves, which are high in vitamin C, to prevent scurvy. The plant is widely used in Russia and is sold in most pharmacies as a dried herb.

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