Honesty, a purple flower with four petals, next to two yellow dandelions.
Spring has properly arrived so time for #morethanweeds.
This is Honesty, commonly cultivated in gardens for its flowers and distinctive seed pods.
Spergularia marina on a sidewalk.
@concretebotany.bsky.social #lifeinthecracks #morethanweeds #botany #wildflowers
Small purple flowers, in circular clumps of a dozen or so blooms, amid a variety of fallen autumn leaves.
Usually with white flowers, this lovely purple Alyssum (or Seaside Lobularia, though a long way from the coast) was an unexpected discovery this lunchtime. I like the pleasing effect of the fallen autumn leaves around the flowers.
#morethanweeds
A group of sunflowers, a dozen or more, brightening a passage-way in Bath
I found these sunflowers apparently growing wild in a back alley (though I wonder if they could have been planted to bring some joy to passers by). Magnificent. #morethanweeds
The Live and Let Live pub with an evening sky to the west
A back street in Cambridge, one building bears an old painted advert for Colman's Starch
A black and white cat
The plant Bladder Senna, with pretty yellow flowers
A gentle evening stroll round the pleasant back streets of east Cambridge #UnconfinedWalks
A fine cat, the photo doesn't do her/him justice, and some rogue Bladder Senna probably escaped from someone's garden #morethanweeds.
Feet in brown sandals on pavement
Pale pink roses shading into light green, in a front garden
Michaelmas daisies in a street flowerbed around a tree trunk
#UnconfinedWalks today of considerable productivity. To solicitor (who is helpful and can recommend local essential firms for valuation and DECLUTTERING praise be), and then for first ever blood donation (v easy, I shall return). It's Michaelmas daisy season already #MoreThanWeeds
Feet in brown sandals on pavement
Buoyant pavement plants/weeds that I cannot name. Small white flowers and very leafy, nettle shape/size
Postbox topper knitted, comprising a pigeon sitting on a huge strawberry, surrounded by tennis balls and strawberries and Wimbledon colours
Small cottage garden full of herbs
Anyway. Meditative #UnconfinedWalks with plentiful #MoreThanWeeds after all the rain
Not many new #morethanweeds on recent walks so pleased to see some Great Willowherb this morning, seemingly strung from nothing.
Spitalfields Life @thegentleauthor.bsky.social Nicholas Culpeper’s Spitalfields #morethanweeds spitalfieldslife.com/2025/07/17/n...
Feet in yellow sandals on pavement
Purple, white and green flower display, some in pots, discreetly for Wimbledon tennis colours
Tiny orange poppies growing in a crevice by the side of the road
Huge hollyhocks, pink and definitely taller than me
It was a nice breezy #UnconfinedWalks earlier, before things got more blasted. More tennis signs are here. And some emphatic #MoreThanWeeds
A field on the far side of a canal. There is a Grey Heron front left and some cows in the distance. You can see the ridge and furrow pattern in the field
Red weed in the quarry pool
#UnconfinedWalks is already far too hot but I saw a Scarlet Tigermoth, Red Admiral, Comma, Grey Heron some form of Skimmer dragonfly and a mysterious red weed in the quarry for #MoreThanWeeds. I'm now back inside with my new, game changing neck fan. Highly recommended if you don't like the heat.
Feet in black sandals on lino
Institutional day room showing the assisted dying bill debate
Poppies in a small flowerbed but with my shadow over them
Pale green vine rambling all over a railway side
Hospital #UnconfinedWalks where the day room is a very relevant telly viewing today. Poppies for #MoreThanWeeds and as promised the vine next to the fig tree in Mediterranean Epsom.
FOREWORD: GREAT VARIETY ON A SMALL SCALE Biodiversity is an almost infinitely broad field. Most people instinctively think of distant rainforests or coral reefs, African savannas or lush mangrove swamps. Yet relatively few appreciate the diversity and exquisite beauty of our natural world here at home, indeed right outside our front door - in the cracks between paving stones and the joins among the kerb-stones of our inner-city areas. A mapping of town habitats carried out by a Master's student on behalf of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research in 2014 recorded over 300 species. In Germany as a whole, the total would number over 500. This flora, so often ignored or simply regarded as a mass of weeds, is most certainly worth a second look. One can only wonder at the incredible tenacity and adaptability of such species, and at the same time their often delicate beauty. They provide a habitat for many small creatures and have any number of positive side-effects for infrastructure, climate and human society. To get to know and enjoy this diversity is to appreciate its value to our fellow citizens. It can and should be a first step on the way to a deeper interaction with our flora and fauna, so urgently needed today, literally right outside our front door and accessible to one and all. The charming accessibility of awareness campaign such as #morethanweeds is a wonderful way of bringing this variety to a wider audience in a playful and creative style. I am therefore delighted by the publication of this book, an attractive introduction to this topic with the one hundred most important species to be found on our pavements and in our squares. I am confident it will find a wide and appreciative readership. Professor Katrin Böhning-Gaese Scientific Director, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH - UFZ, Leipzig
Front cover of A Field Guide to Urban Plants: Common Species of Pavements, Walls & Waste Ground by Alexandra-Maria Klein & Julia Krohmer. Pelagic Publishing, 2025. A yellow-flowered Oxford Ragwort (Senecio squalidus) growsing in a fissure between a pavement and a brick wall. Photo copyright James Common.
I like this Foreword by Professor Katrin Böhning-Gaese (www.ufz.de/index.php?en...) @ufz.de to A Field Guide to Urban Plants by @naturealexk.bsky.social & @juliakrohmer.bsky.social as it expresses my own attitude towards urban nature. Nice to see the #MoreThanWeeds campaign getting a mention, too.
Picture of Ragwort's bright yellow flower
Ragwort isn't much liked but this is why it is such a valuable plant #morethanweeds
knepp.co.uk/2025/06/a-bi...
Water weeds floating on water in a disused quarry
#MoreThanWeeds had unintended consequences today when I dropped my phone over the fence onto the water's edge at the quarry while taking a photo of these water weeds. Had to lie on the path and squeeze my hand under the fence. Happy ending.
A garden lawn that has not been mowed for 6 weeks. It's full of long grass and clover
A house in the distance and an un-mown lawn in front, looking like a proper meadow
A view down a long lawn that has not been mowed for 6 weeks. There is a lavender hedge on the left and a church in the distance
A wild orchid that has self set in a garden lawn
Huge excitement here for #MoreThanWeeds! We did No Mow May and then went on holiday for two weeks so the lawn is absolutely meadow-like. Moths and butterflies everywhere. The big surprise though was a wild orchid! How the hell did that get there?
Creeping Woodsorrel, the yellow flowers of this plant have five small petals.
This pretty plant is Creeping Woodsorrel. It is said to have a wide range of medical uses, from treating sprains to use as an antidote to poisoning. It is also claimed to be edible, in moderate quantities and used to make dyes. Certainly, #morethanweeds !
Alongside an uphill pavement, a thick bank of French Crane's-Bill, small purple-pink flowers.
Close-up of a French Crane's-Bill flower.
Out for a gentle #UnconfinedWalk in the early evening sunshine. Some fine #morethanweeds including a bank of French Crane's-Bill.
Feet in yellow sandals on pavement
Red poppy beside a fence
Deep frilly pink rose
Plateful of pink, green and white salad, perceptible watermelon and herbs.
#UnconfinedWalks #FullFaceRose and #MoreThanWeeds on a proper summer day. Dinner is watermelon with allll the greens, and some feta. Take that, various plagues.
#UnconfinedWalks on the last day of the holiday. Down to Pen Bron where we saw a Bluethroat singing its heart out and flashing its 'miroir' without a care in the world. Low tide so the locals were hunter gathering, including the #MoreThanWeeds on the shoreline. 30 degrees!
I've been bitten again but the cool French drugs I was prescribed have kept things under control. Guided tour of the salt marshes (would have killed for that when I did my dissertation!) for #UnconfinedWalks. Fascinating vocabulary. Loved it. #JacobinDay #MoreThanWeeds mash up with salicornes
Feet in navy sandals on manhole cover in tarmac
Scatter of flaunting scarlet poppies in a tiny verge against a fence
Flat white plates of elderflower blossom among rich greenery
#UnconfinedWalks with improbably glorious poppies and elderflower. ( #MoreThanWeeds)
Dozens of snails clinging to the stem of a tall umbellifer plant
A neat mound of bright yellow, star-shaped flowers
Spoilt for choice for #MoreThanWeeds but today's contribution is this tall umbellifer providing hotel facilities for unbelievable numbers of snails for a good couple of miles along the coast path! Guess appearance also from Biting Stonecrop
Valerian stepping up to the plate for #MoreThanWeeds by assisting with military defences at Porchester Castle. #UnconfinedWalks is off to Saint Malo tonight.
Feet in navy sandals on pavement
Ruffled peach-coloured rose in a garden (you can blurring see the brick house behind)
Scruffy cornflowers in a street tree border, lots of blue flowers but also dry greenery now turning yellow around
Gorgeous #FullFaceRose on my #UnconfinedWalks today. And love wild cornflowers always. #MoreThanWeeds
#UnconfinedWalks where #MoreThanWeeds triggered lots of memories of childhood Sunday days out and picnics in the sunshine. Fields absolutely carpeted with buttercups, plantain that we used to use as rockets, ox-eyed daisies and red clover.
Dusty mauve-pink blowsy rose
Feet in black sandals on pavement
Clumps of wall-clinging tiny yellow flowers with fluffy green leaves, against a weathered brick wall
Single foxglove growing from tarmac against a garden wall
Excellent #MoreThanWeeds work with foxglove and that yellow clinger thing which you have patiently told me the name of before. Highlights of a slightly gritty windy #UnconfinedWalks. This rose just about stayed still enough for its #FullFaceRose, which is more than you can say for my feet.
