Gems close to home

We have walked parts of the "Strawberry Line" disused railway path from Yatton to Cheddar several times in the past but somehow never the section between Winscombe and Cheddar - which includes Shute Shelve tunnel. I always know it was there - was even conscious of it driving very near on the nearby A road. My explorations of the Mendips have come near from both directions several times.

This is a very worthwhile walk from all sorts of points of view and it was good to see so many locals making use of it on an ordinary October day last week. Botanically it is clearly very rich - with a few gems for me to pick up this late and clear signs of many others for the main summer months.

The tunnel is surprisingly eerie on the first walk through alone - for one thing it is deceptively long - you enter thinking you will be out in a trice but actually it gets quite spooky half way with a lot more steps to go...

There was a lovely Liverwort (?) at the north portal - just oozing moisture. I must learn more about them.

Little change

The garden needs attention. The cat died (RIP Panda - a life of luxury repaid with affection, aged 15 and half). So no searches for wild flowers for a while.

Which leaves some Pellitory-of-the-wall I uprooted from a gravel area but then thought "what's this" and Bilbao Fleabane (of all things) noticed on the walk for the paper one morning. I will get out into the countryside soon but there won't be a lot to photograph anyway in this season...

A beach in Ireland

No updates on the site for a while - in Ireland - and I spent a windy, wet morning on a beach near Roscarbery looking for Sea Pea - reported there in 1999. No sign - but Atriplex on the shoreline and Sea Holly past its best further up (will appear on the site when I get the pictures done).

Clearly a site to revisit next June / July if possible.

Autumn Squill

Some of the most rewarding flowers are to be found in spring or (early) autumn (IMHO). Scilla autumnalis made the 70 mile trip to Brixham quite worthwhile (and I got Goldilocks Aster as well - very local near here I am told but I've never found it).

The Scilla is a beautiful little gem that grows abundantly on the cliff tops of the area - and apparently its spring flowering cousin should be there next spring.

Changes afoot

As the busy season of flower finding / identification / photographing comes to an end it's time to review the site - it's a lot larger now than a year ago and some changes are needed.

The Indexes need some thought and it probably doesn't make sense any more that non-vascular famnilies are mixed in with the "main ones of interest" in the family index for instance.

On that subject i have reached 96 of 126 vascular plant familes (native to UK) represented on the site. Must review the chances of getting a representative of the remaining 30 !

It's great to get help from the experts

And this is happening increasingly with FloralImages. Inevitably I make mistakes in identifying flowers - despite my best efforts to educate myself in this area. The comments I get from real experts could not be more courteous and helpful. It all contributes, I hope, to making FloralImages even more useful !

Recently my Burren pictures have been rendered much more accurate thanks to Dr C Nelson.

An English Country Garden

I'm always happy when other sites link - and Jenny Bailey has brought her excellent site to my notice in this way. As she says it's amazing what you find when you start looking at what is growing wild on your patch.

Another Blog

Michael Peverett spends much more time putting his thoughts into his blog than I do - many of them botanical based on walking and observing at the other end of the Mendips from me. It's well worth a visit for images of primrose variants and musings on why some Dwarf Thistles have stemmed flowers (something I discovered this year as well).

My only update this week was from Uphill - nothing new but some improved pictures including Felwort (Autumn Gentian) in sun - better rendition of the actual colour of the flowers which is interesting - I worked hard to get the cloudy white balance right for the previous set of pictures taken a fortnight before. Also interesting that the plants were hardly flowering any more than previously - despite two weeks of sun with some rain.

Autumn again

Autumn Lady's-tresses is another plant that gets a bit ahead of its name. But it was only just out at Uphill today and there were more plants not yet ready to flower.

It would be easy to miss and there were not a huge number in only one small corner of the reserve (that I found).

Then walking back over the hill past Uphill old church (a very frequented recreational area) I bumped into another spike.

Autumn Gentian

Common names of plants seem to move the seasons forward. I found "Autumn Gentian" yesterday - the height of UK summer. Similarly "Summer Snowflake" flowers long before you could possibly call it summer...

But the Autumn Gentian is a classy plant - well worth the search. It seems to be an aristocratic plant family.

Dodder

This plant has always fascinated me since learning about it for biology "o-level". I've hardly ever seen it though.

Certainly the Common Dodder of the UK is easily missed. At first I had stopped to investigate a Dwarf Thistle with a stemmed flower (some do have this) but realised after a while there were reddish threads growing around it. The flowers need full magnification on my macro lens and the pictures reveal the special feature of this relative of bindweed - no chlorophyll. It's a simple adaption really - if you are going to hold yourself up by winding around other plants why not tap into them for nourishment !

Guest images

It is nice to get offers of pictures to include on the site, although I didn't set out thinking it would develop this way.

Particularly if it opens up a part of the world few of us know botanically. So the latest new pictures from Rimantas Pankevičius in Lithuania are very welcome. All but one of the images he has sent me can be found growing in the UK.

Braunton Burrows

What an amazing habitat. I was there for the BSBI meeting on Saturday. A bit of a distance from here which is why I hadn't been before but I will be going again.

The Warden, John Breeds, emphasised the problems they face preventing invasion by scrub but actually the message of one's eyes was "keep up the good work".

Twenty new native species for the website and my first BSBI meeting. A very impressive organisation I feel I hardly merit association with yet.

Getting the picture

Now the site is up to date it is time to reflect on what is now there.

The Kerry Lily had always intrigued me - only lives in one part of Kerry and reportedly a really worthwhile member of a very beautiful family (the Liliaceae).

I realised we would be in the Ireland at about the right time this year and, what is more, on the way to the Burren, making the location a minor detour.

So we found our way to the end of Lamb's Head (tricky when the road seems to take you other ways - the routes to houses along the way being more used) and I climbed up onto the headland.

Not much sign of the Lily at first. Then I spotted a flowering spike - no flowers open. Soon found that the plants were everywhere around me (about 30m up) but not much sign of the actual flower yet. Too early ?

Eventually after several passes along the linear rock formations I saw a flower and spent the next few minutes photographing it.

No more flowers were apparent on the head so we set off for Derrynane nearby where more were found. But even if the solitary flower on Lamb's Head had been the sum total it would have been worth it.

Seven days later we heard that the Ring of Kerry roadworks nearby had been stopped because the flower had been found near to the road.

Getting there

Nearly done getting the Burren pictures post-processed and on the site.

We had only one really sunny day (the last) and a great bit of luck the day before to have the sun come out briefly just when some flowering Spring Gentian had been found. I saw one unfurl its petals through my viewfinder - awesome.

So the pictures so far posted are the soggy ones (eg Healianthemum closed in the rain). The best very definitly to come.

Log Jam

Going away for nearly three weeks - to hunt flowers at least partly - inevitably leads to a log jam. The site will be updated soon with Kerry Lily and much more !

Star-of-Bethlehem

It's always nice to stumble on something when least expecting it. Reports of this on a roadside have had be driving slowly along said stretch at intervals all this spring but not a sign. In fact all the indications that someone has replaced them with 'lovely' daffodil mutants...

But a walk in Berrow dunes (quite a short one and far too much golf being played to really explore...) yielded this among six other true native not yet captured for FloralImages.

And not forgetting Cheddar Wood

I had to get a permit for this. Not great numbers of rare plants but one absolute gem that is a speciality of Mendip woodland (Purple Gromwell) and just a great place to spend a day looking and enjoying the fantastic atmosphere and swaths of Wild Garlic, Euphorbia and much more.

It's one of our best preserved "ancient woodlands" - not untouched by man at all - but not interfered with since the modern mechanised era dawned. In fact it was regularly coppiced up until 1017 it is thought.

Permit required - it's a Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve.

The busy time is here, Honewort

Had to find this - I've read so much about it and it's local to here and South Devon (only) in the UK.

Amazing little plant - quite the most interesting Umbellifer I have found so far !

Turns out it must almost certainly have grown where my house is - before the Victorian tennis court that pre-dated development.

Brean

It's just nice to be out somewhere like this at this time of year. Nothing spectacular found by me but a very varied flora already - but mostly vegetative as yet, of course.