Flowers

Pink Candy Orchid

2009-03-06T11:45:00.000+02:00

This genus (Caladenia) is named after the word calos (beautiful) and aden (glands). Glands are present on most species but in addition to the usual single hairy leaf which is typical of this terrestial genus of orchid, the stem and even part of the flower is quite hairy. These orchids can grow in clumps possibly because that's where the seeds fall and the ground nearby has the right kind of microrhizal fungus usually needed for germination.

There are two sub species of Caladenia rosea and ssp hirta is a paler pink or whitish in colour.

Barren Brome

2009-01-14T21:38:00.000+02:00

Anisantha sterilis -

This is a very common grass of the verges and wayside. It used to be classified as a Bromus hence the Brome in the English name. Not very long ago the taxonomists decided it was really an Anisantha. The long drooping awned flowering head gives this grass a distinctive look which allows easy identification usually. There are usually one or two sterile apical florets and all the seeds have a great affinity with piercing the wool of your socks from which they must be extracted by hand.

It is extremely common throughout England and Wales but the population density is not so great in Ireland or mid to northern Scotland.

Wild Cabbage

2009-01-11T18:41:00.000+02:00

This woody perennial looks just like cabbage with small greyish, glaucous leaves and can be found on the grassy slopes and rocks of the Great Orme. If you take the outer road around the great limestone rock, you can see the plant growing out of cracks and on ledges above your head but it also grows on the west sandy foreshore. It is possibly a native according to Stace.

It grows around much of the coast in England but there is not much to be found in Scotland or Ireland. Altogether there is enough of this plant recorded to make its rarity status a bit doubtful but the records most probably include escaped crop plants which are var. capitata etc. while the true wild cabbage var oleracea is uncommon.

Mounatin Male-fern

2009-01-11T18:20:00.000+02:00

Dryopteris oreades is an uncommon fern is restricted to Wales, Western Scotland and Northern England and looks at first sight just like an ordinary male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas). The smaller pinules are entire which means they have no or very few toothed edges and underneath there are only two or three sori (the bodies containing sporangia or spore capsule) where in D. filix-mas (Male fern) there are usually at least six.

Wild Flowers

2009-01-11T18:08:00.000+02:00

A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted. Yet "wildflower" meadows of a few mixed species are sold in seed packets. The term "wildflower" has been made vague by commercial seedsmen who are interested in selling more flowers or seeds more expensively than when labeled with only its name and/or origin. The term implies that the plant probably is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is in any way different from the way it appears in the wild as a native plant, even if it is growing where it would not naturally.