We’ve seen the rare Taraxacum wallonicum on most sites visited on #DandiFest’26 in Essex. This impressive specimen a street weed seen nr the pub in Maldon. Erythrosperma with pollen, white petioles recurved bracts & neat clear mid-green leaves. A ‘Channel endemic’ in SE England & the Low Countries
Day 2 of @bsbibotany.bsky.social #DandiFest’26 Taraxacum chloroticum, found at Tiptree Heath. Section Taraxacum, Group Stenacra. It is characteristically green and colourless with trilobate end lobes and narrow twisted bracts #DandelionOfTheDay
Quality over quantity on Day 2 of @bsbibotany.bsky.social #DandiFest’26 The rare Taraxacum retzii was seen several times on coastal banks, a new habitat for it. A larger Erythrosperma with pinkish petioles, grey reflexed bracts and long buds #DandelionOfTheDay
Non-Dandelion highlights of #DandiFest’26 Day 2 in Essex: A wonky (indetermined) elm with ripe fruit, Pink Shepherds Purse Capsella rubella as a street weed in Tollesbury and 60-70K Green-winged Orchids Anacamptis morio in a nearby meadow
#DandiFest’26 begins today!!! A full house of 20 @bsbibotany.bsky.social Taraxacologists of all levels meeting in Essex for a long weekend of dandelion recording.. stay tuned to see what we find..
Some lovely mature Wild Service Trees Sorbus torminalis seen on day 3 of #DandiFest’26 at Pound Wood, Essex
This one, apart from the meta scene, was **almost** perfection for me.
It's sad that so much just didn't work for whatever various reasons.
Spent a nice Sunday morning at Warren Hills in #Leicestershire . Lots of Bilberry and green hairstreak #butterflies.
Spotting a few Cuckoo flowers is easy; finding a sea of them feels like magic—just right for this week’s #CabbageFamily challenge #WildflowerHour
The Red List (Vulnerable) scavenger water beetle Hydrochus brevis still present at this heathland pond in the Vale of York, where it's been known since 1949. This species occurs widely as a subfossil in late-glacial to early medieval deposits but is now confined to a small number of ancient fens.
Meadow Saxifrage, a five-petalled white flower on a long stem.
Underside of a Meadow Saxifrage leaf showing small brown powdery areas on reddish spots, which are the rust Puccinia saxifragae.
Underside of a Meadow Saxifrage leaf held between finger and thumb, showing a large area of small brown powdery rust spots, which are the rust Puccinia saxifragae.
Before heading home I went to Earlham Cemetery to see a species of rust fungus that I'd not seen before. This is Puccinia saxifragae on Meadow Saxifrage, seen there previously by @vannabartlett.bsky.social & @jeremybartlett.bsky.social .
1st butterfly of the day today was this unmissable male Orange Tip in the garden. And breakfast entertainment as pair of Mallard dropped in. #Ducks #butterfly #VitaminN
My least favorite Thursday activity is repeatedly realizing it's only Tuesday which is Thursday’s evil twin no I won’t elaborate
Good to see one political party make the case for this and not patronizingly tell people that gambling is part of their lifestyle. The gambling companies and their shareholders are raking it in while people struggling with addiction cannot help but ruin their own lives and those of their loved ones.
Utterly devastated by this. Such a lovely woman.
Best heard loud. Best felt on speakers - no headphones.
Goodbye Moya.
youtu.be/Xq-uu62EY5A?...
Lots of Orange Tip on the wing today at Bough Beech. This female kindly posed for a while, as she checked out some roadside Garlic Mustard (one of its larval foodplants). 🧡
OMG. Huge fan of both Moya's work and Doctor Who. Just shared this with a friend who is another fan of both - neither of us had any idea about this.
Moya Brennan, best known as the lead singer of Grammy and BAFTA-winning group Clannad, has died aged 73
Ah, this is very sad news. A sublime soundtrack that never fails to transport me.
2 new for year butterfly species in the garden today. Great fun chasing a Holly Blue round the shrubbery. Speckled Wood just basking most of the time. @bcwarwickshire.bsky.social . Thanks @keithwarmie.bsky.social for confirmng i-record was offline for maintenance. It's back "up"now...
This Cuckoopint aka Lords-and-Ladies, Arum maculatum, caught my eye from some distance in the woods today. #WildflowerHour #WoodlandPlants
Carex digitata, Gait Barrows NNR
Fingered Sedge, Carex digitata. A plant of limestone woodlands and other limestone habitats. Already in profusion at Gait Barrows NNR, Lancashire.
#WildflowerHour
#WoodlandPlants
Interested to find one of the Cornsalads (Valerianella spp.) growing on the landside of an old sand-dune where it had not been recorded before at Hartlepool - they are scarce in the Tees Valley and last recorded in Hartlepool at least 40 years ago #WildflowerHour
with @wonkyeggs.bsky.social
Just going into seed but honestly such a bonkers looking photo, like it's some Himalayan valley rather than the side of a railway in Hartlepool and a female clone of Butterbur albeit one that spreads for hundreds of metres #WildflowerHour
@wonkyeggs.bsky.social
Pretty sure it was actually this purple. We did comment on how it reminded us of winter cabbages.
Love these posters - look at the height of the wheat in the first one! - so much higher than Common Poppy in the 1920s, and they used Chicory rather than Cornflower for the blue flower. I think the white flower on the left is Field Bindweed, on the right probably a mayweed.
As I said in my Guardian interview.
'Starmer is basically a red Tory. He has totally abandoned the people who voted for him'
We’re going to change this country for the better.
join.greenparty.org.uk
If you’ll excuse a little self-indulgence, I must admit I did a little dance when I spotted copies of #UrbanFlora on display in Newcastle Waterstones today. Huge thanks to everyone who’s picked up a copy 🙏🌿
It looked more purple in real-life. Or perhaps that was my cold wind induced tears distorting the palette