Here and There and Learning

On Tuesday Steph Coates and I met up with Selwyn Eagle to have a look at the Llynfi flowing out of Llangors Lake. There is plenty of interest (and more to come hopefully) there for our planned meeting in August.

One elusive plant for me has been Creeping Jenny, the big sister of  Yellow Pimpernel that adorns so many of our woodland rides in spring. I must have overlooked it before now but there was an unmistakeable patch flowering well for my first properly recognised sighting.

Creeping-jenny, Lysimachia nummularia

There was Oenanthe fistulosa or Tubular Water-dropwort in the not-very-wet-at-this-time meadow as well - a good reminder for us of the look and feel of this one.

Then I took a catch up trip to Vicarage Meadows to just get the Small-white orchid before its flowers had completely disappeared:

Good to see that but also to have the opportunity to take a leisurely lunch in a meadow with abundant other orchids as well as Wood Bitter-vetch and Dyer's Greenweed.

Here is an example of a Greater Butterfly orchid "among" some Wood Bitter-vetch.

Then on Thursday four of us set out to explore the limestone above Ystradfellte. We all agreed it was an ideal place for the weather and we saw great views and recorded many species. Maybe nothing very spectacular (and the grazing is heavy on this common) but plenty of conundrums to take home and work out. It's all about learning and there is always more to discover - like the fact that Fairy Flax can grow low down in the grass under grazing pressure in a way that looks for all the world like a particularly pretty Sagina. (Pearlworts / Sagina are not renowned for this!) Then there were the mystery leaves in the turf we couldn't identify at first that turned out the be Harebell. We did see one flower of this in the whole expedition.

I took pictures only of the landscape:

 An erratic amongst limestone

 Limestone pavement

Looking towards Corn Du