A plant with green shiny leaves and pom-poms of lime green flowers.

Lime green flowers on stalks spreading like umbrella spokes. Two bright red ladybirds are exploring the flowers.

Smyrnium olusatrum, Alexanders, a member of the carrot family. Introduced by the Romans as a vegetable - they ate most of it, even pickling the flower heads. Later it was grown in monastery gardens. It also has general medicinal properties.
#WildflowerHour #StoryPlants

Tiny green flowers, composed of five flowers arranged in a cube, rise out of a sea of green leaves.

Three lime green flowers made of multiple florets arranged in a cube shape.

A bright lime green flower with a tiny fly riding on the top.

I was delighted to find my favourite flower yesterday. Adoxa moschatellina - Moschatel. 'Adoxa' means 'without glory' as it is so tiny and green! Its other common name, Town-hall Clock, refers to its arrangement of four flowers in a cube - like clock faces - with an extra one on top.
#WildflowerHour

Purple flowers amongst green leaves on a very hairy stem

Glechoma hederacea, Ground-ivy. Bitter-tasting, it was sometimes used instead of hops to flavour ale, hence another common name, 'ale-hoof'. Gerard's Herbal says it can also treat ‘the humming noyse and ringing sound of the eares’ (tinnitus) but I'm not sure how...
#WildflowerHour #StoryPlants

What a clean finger you have, Martin!

A cluster of white flowers held amidst heart-shaped green leaves.

This plant popped up in my garden. I didn't know it and have found it's Fagopyrum esculentum - Common buckwheat, presumably dropped from the bird feeder. In my ignorance, I had assumed 'buckwheat' was a cereal crop in the grasses family, like ordinary wheat... now I know! #WildflowerHour

Pale brown daisy-like flowers above brown spiky leaves growing in parched brown grass. It looks like a sepia toned image but that's the real colour I promise!

Carlina vulgaris - Carline thistle, on a parched hillside. Is it alive? Is it dead? With Carline thistle, who knows? Looks the same either way. #WildflowerHour

Two Autumn lady's-tresses orchids, tiny plants a finger high, green spirals dangling tiny white bells, push up through the parched grass on a hillside. In the background is a flat green saltmarsh and beyond that the sea.

Two Autumn lady's-tresses orchids, green stalks bearing segmented green spirals dangling tiny white bells.

A tiny Autumn lady's-tresses orchids, the twisting flowers covered in a down of tiny white hairs.

Out at Avon Wildlife Trust's wonderful reserve at Walborough this week to count Autumn Lady's-tresses, Spiranthes spiralis, on a very windy hillside above the saltmarsh. Despite how dry it's been I think we got nearly 300. #WildflowerHour

Honewort (Trinia glauca) - pink stems, needle-like leaves, heads rather like a cauliflower.

More frothy white and frondy green Honewort

Yes, that looks like it to me - I have compared to some of my photos from Purn Hill, North Somerset, which were all taken in April and May.

Large-flowered Evening Primrose (Oenothera glazioviana) with, well, large, blowsy, yellow flowers! Growing on a dry grassy bank with reservoir in the background.

Common Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) - slender white fronds of flowers showing up against dark water behind.

A fine Pyramidal Orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis) - looking more cylindrical than pyramidal, rather like a raspberry ice cream lolly.

My mum, an old lady in a wheelchair, wearing a sunhat, contemplating the Pyramidal Orchid with the reservoir in the background.

Alas, no aquatic plants at Farmoor reservoir (too many birds, fish and boats!) but lots of terrestrial ones for me and mum to see round the (nice, flat, wheelchair-friendly) path including Large-flowered Evening Primrose, Mugwort and a fine Pyramidal Orchid.
#WildflowerHour

How lovely, when I was a York student I lived in a flat off the car park just behind the Bile Beans sign. They've given it a refresh since!

A tiny bright blue and white flower striped with darker blue pokes through green wire netting

Big frilly pink flowers and leaves like delicate green lace grow out of dead leaves and litter next to a concrete barrier and metal railings

Common Field-speedwell (Veronica persica) poking through a school fence, and Musk Mallow (Malva moschata) growing alongside litter smack in the middle of a road, on the crossing island

#WildflowerHour #UrbanPlants

Giant Hogweed, Heracleum mantegazzianum. Massive white umbrella-like flowers and huge spiky leaves growing next to a grey wall. Couldn't possibly look like anything else as nothing else looks this much like a Triffid that is considering eating you.

A lot of green plants growing near a riverbank, including the white frothy flowers of Hogweed, Hemlock Water-dropwort and Giant Hogweed towering over them all.

look at this absolute unit

Giant Hogweed next to the River Frome as it comes into the centre of Bristol

For carrot family comparison, next to it is an ordinary Hogweed trying to look big and realising its mistake, plus Hemlock Water Dropwort trying to hide
#WildflowerHour #UrbanPlants

Meadow vetchling, Lathyrus pratensis, a bouquet of yellow flowers held delicately at the end of a long stem.

Spotted Medick, Medicago arabica, a little yellow flower surrounded by wide green leaves each with a heart-shaped brown spot in the centre.

White Clover, Trifolium repens, being unnecessarily dramatic, rising out of the grass stems like the White Queen from a stage trapdoor.

Lesser trefoil, Trifolium dubium, tiny bunches of yellow flowers amongst equally tiny leaves.

Meadow vetchling (Lathyrus pratensis), Spotted Medick (Medicago arabica), White Clover (Trifolium repens) and Lesser Trefoil (Trifolium dubium) found on a rather damp #PeaFamily hunt.

#WildflowerHour

Pic 3 is violets, a kind of dog violet I think

Never heard that common name before but I love it!

An old stone wall out of which is growing the most extraordinary plant consisting of beaded spiky cones and round fleshy leaves. If you've seen Dr Who monsters from the 1970s, it looks like that.

I always think that navelwort or wall pennywort (Umbilicus rupestris) looks as if it has come in costume straight off a Dr Who set.

#WildFlowerHour

Purple, pink and yellow flowers grow next to an old farm gate. The concrete drive on the other side is getting overgrown by pink and white flowers.

Purple Toadflax (Linaria purpurea), Red Valerian (Cetranthus ruber) and Beaked Hawk’s-beard (Crepis vesicaria) peek cautiously through a gate to see their friends on the other side.
#WildFlowerHour #WildFlowerShow

A once very ordinary buff coloured garage door is now beautifully framed by green ivy curtains and in front of the door is a riot of pink, white and yellow flowers. Clearly no one has opened this garage for a very long time!

Long abandoned garage door at Avon Wildlife Trust’s new purchase, Ebdon Farm. Now ivy curtains frame a #WildFlowerShow of Oxeye and Common daisies, Mexican fleabane, Red Valerian and Beaked Hawk’s-beard. #WildFlowerHour

A tiny five-petalled pink flower of Herb Robert, with frilly leaves.

The even tinier yellow flowers of lesser trefoil, dwarfed by grass blades.

The emerging flowers of Yellow Rattle looking like little cheeping budgies.

Also peeping through the #NoMowMay grass:

Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum)
Lesser Trefoil (Trifolium dubium)
And the first flowers of Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor)

(2/2)
@plantlifeuk.bsky.social
#WildflowerHour

Bright yellow buttercup with a shining green beetle sitting in the flower.

A spray of cheerful yellow flowers, Beaked Hawksbeard.

Lemon yellow flower with red striping on back, and hairy stem; Mouse-ear Hawkweed.

Update from my mini meadow during #NoMowMay.

Meadow Buttercup (Ranunculus acris) with friend, a Thick-legged Flower Beetle (Oedemera nobilis)
Beaked Hawksbeard (Crepis vesicaria)
Mouse-ear Hawkweed (Pilosella officinarum)

@plantlifeuk.bsky.social
#WildflowerHour

(1/2)

Common Mouse-ear - one tiny white flower and several buds amongst blades of grass.

Red Campion, intensely pink flowers with an inflated dark pink calyx behind them.

Ragged Robin, pale pink flowers looking very straggly and upset and worse for wear - but they're supposed to look like that!

#PinkFamily flowers seen this week - Common Mouse-ear (Cerastium fontanum), Red Campion (Silene dioica) and Ragged Robin (Silene flos-cuculi). #WildflowerHour

A grass-level view across a cheerfully messy lawn topped with lots of round fuzzy dandelion seed heads

Lots of tiny leaves coming up amongst the soon-to-be-parasitised grass blades

A shoot coming up with ridged leaves - a St John's Wort

White flowers striped with indigo, this is Veronica serpyllifolia, Thyme-leaved Speedwell, dwarfed by the grass blades and clover leaves surrounding it.

I have been doing #NoMowMay (and June, July, August... and actually up to April if I miss the late autumn cut) since 2019 on my front 'lawn'. I sowed a handful of yellow rattle seeds... 5 plants came up in 2020... now they are everywhere! Look forward to seeing them!
@plantlifeuk.bsky.social

White flower with heart shaped seed pods

Capsella bursa-pastoris, Shepherd's Purse, in the evening sun
#WildflowerHour #CabbageFamily

Bittercress, but I don't know if it's wavy or hairy... seems a bit personal to ask

#WildflowerHour #CabbageFamily

Barbarea vulgaris (Common wintercress) cheering up a car park.

#Wildflowerhour #CabbageFamily

White wiggly-hairy inflorescence of Wood Sedge

Quietly green leaves of Dog's Mercury

Green and overlooked but still important #WoodlandPlants - Wood sedge (Carex sylvatica) and Dog's-mercury (Mercurialis perennis).

#WildflowerHour

Beautiful and so tricky to photograph!

Love Moschatel so much - not found any yet this year!

The big buttery yellow flowers of Marsh Marigold against a surface of brown water.

A cascade of bright yellow stars of Lesser Celandine flowers growing on a steep bank above a brook.

Compare and contrast the Ranunculaceae - glorious Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) in a local pond and, trying to emulate its bigger cousin, Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna) are #WoodlandPlants but are nearly tumbling into the brook

#WildflowerHour

The many blue and purple hues of bluebell flowers dangling off their stem which is bent over. Close up, there is a tiny fly on one bluebell and a tiny spider dangling between another two.

Of course, #WoodlandPlants would not be complete without bluebells! This one has a couple of tiny friends aboard.

#WildflowerHour #WoodlandPlants