Owner: flower hunt URL:http://www.flowerhunt.blogspot.com Join Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:14:44 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: my challenge is to photograph as many of the 2000+ Sussex flowers and post their photographs on this blog. One photo a day Site statistics:Click here
Reed 2007-05-18 11:50:00 Small reed found growing at Castle Hill
Milkwort 2007-05-17 06:42:00 milkwort at Castle Hill
Dogwood 2007-05-15 08:47:00 Dog's mercury at Stanmer Park
Sun spurge 2007-05-14 08:50:00 Sun Spurge, stanmer park
Dog's mercury 2007-05-13 08:23:00 This plant has tiny little yellow flowers
Hornbeam 2007-05-11 07:13:00 Picture of hornbeam seeds
Hedge Garlic 2007-05-09 08:44:00 Not a very good photo i'm afraid, the flower is out of focus. Read more:Hedge
, Garlic
Native bluebell 2007-05-07 08:37:00 Note the curled out tips of the petals and the yellow stamens Read more:Native
Black Bryony 2007-05-04 08:26:00 Only British member of the yam family Read more:Black
Honeysuckle - Lonicera periclymenum 2007-06-21 05:48:00 I really wanted to take a picture of this flower but the light levels were so low where i found it it was proving impossible (i never bother taking a tripod with me and have to rely on my steady hands instead). This was the best out of a bad bunch of pictures but i'm still not really satisfied with it. I learnt the other day that you can suck out the nectar in honeysuckle just like in Nasturtiums. I wonder if you could eat the whole honeysuckle flower?I'm off to Yorkshire for a week so there'll be a break from posting for a week or so I'm afraid.
Ragged Robin - Lychnis flos-cuculi 2007-06-21 04:25:00 This plant can also be found growing in damp meadows and fens. I found it along a woodland ride where there were large clumps of it growing. The small pearl bordered fritillary is said to be fond of this plant but sadly i didn't see any of them flying around. I did see a massive dragonfly hunting along the ride but it was too quick to identify. Read more:Robin
Foxglove 2007-06-19 03:29:00 These appear soon after a woodland has been cleared when light floods down to the ground layer. There were hundreds of these flowers in a recent clearing when I went to visit Abbott's wood.
Bee Orchid - Ophrys apifera 2007-06-11 09:49:00 I couldn't believe it when i came across this flower. There i was happily walking along admiring all the other orchids growing at Anchor Bottom when suddenly i spied this beauty in the long grass. I've never seen one of these growing in the wild before. I think they're just incredible. I posted this picture of the bee orchid because it's an angle you don't usually see in photos. For example, I'd never noticed the small spur at the lip of the flower before because it can't be seen very easily from straight on. You might also be able to make out the flower bud ready to break open slightly higher up the stem. Apparantly the flowers open from the bottom of the stalk upwards so the flowers at the top are the last to open.
Restharrow - Ononis repens 2007-07-05 04:36:00 This plant used to annoy farmers by tangling up their harrows whilst they were ploughing. Hence its common name 'restharrow.' This flower is a member of the pea family and has distinctive leaves that appear to have a neat crease down their centre, almost if the leaf has been folded in half and then opened up again. The leaves have little teeth round their edge and can sometimes be covered in sticky hairs or glands. I found this flower growing in damp grassland by the side of a ditch
Yorkshire fog - Holcus lanatus 2007-07-04 14:12:00 I'm back from Yorkshire
! Thank goodness, it was quite chilly up there indeed! I thought i'd start with a photo of a grass for my first post back.I never really took the time to stop and look at grasses. I certainly never considered that they have flowers. Being wind pollinated they don't need to be showy with big petals but their flowers can still be quite beautiful when examined close up. Yorkshire fog is one of my favourite grasses. It's quite easy to spot because its leaves are really soft and hairy and if you look at the base of the stem it usually has purple stripes or veins running vertically. They remind me of stripy pajama bottoms. The flower head also has a rather pleasant purplish tinge. It's definately going on the list of my top ten grasses of all time!
Round headed rampion - Phyteuma orbiculare 2007-07-11 11:43:00 This is flower is known as the pride of Sussex. The flower is deep blue, almost purple. Each flower head is actually made up of a cluster of smaller flowers.
Yarrow - Achillea millefolium 2007-07-10 03:48:00 Yarrow is a really common plant of grasslands. The leaves look almost like green feathers. It is thought to be good at healing wounds and Achilles is said to have taken the plant with him into battle. The younger leaves are supposed to be edible when boiled. Infusions of the flower are said to help with respitory problems such as colds or allergies. Wikipedia has a great article about its various uses
Flower dictionary 2007-07-09 04:05:00 I came across something so useful the other day that i thought i should add a link to it from my blog. It's a word dictionary that someone has compiled that adds latin flower names into your spell checker. Thanks to this dictionary I no longer have loads of red lines running through everything i write, hurrah! Get it here: http://crescentbloom.com/III/D/17.htm if you're interested in moss as well there's a moss dictionary available from the British Bryological Society: http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/bbs/Resources/Downloads.htm#spellchk which is also very handy.
Squinancywort - Asperula cynanchica 2007-07-09 03:48:00 This flower has got to have one of the best common names. I love the way the name is so interesting and yet the flower itself is small and tiny and the plant is almost invisible when it isn't flowering. I've never seen the plant in flower before so it was a nice surprise to see it blooming all over the place, the tiny pale pink flowers are very beautiful close up. The plant itself is a bedstraw, which means that it has little spindly leaves arranged in whorls around the stem and four petals to the flower.
Stemless thistle - Cirsium acaule 2007-07-08 04:36:00 God how i hate thistles! Especially when you're trying to do a vegetation survey on a bit of steep grassland. Oh, if only i had a pound for every thistle i sat on yesterday. Stemless thistles are the ones whose flowers have no stem to them - or only a very short stem. They look like little purple pom poms on the ground.
Vipers bugloss - Echium vulgare 2007-07-07 04:16:00 This picture doesn't really do justice to the amazing shades of blues and pinks that this flower displays. I've not seen one quite so pink before as this, they're usually just a purplish blue, but this flower has streaks of almost neon colour in it. It was quite amazing. The flower stems grow quite tall. Apparantly it was once thought to cure the bites of vipers. If you want to know more about its medicinal uses check out this website: think natural Read more:Vipers
Enchanter's Nightshade - Circaea lutetiana 2007-07-14 05:38:00 Yet again I couldn't get a very good snap of this, the flowers are tiny and tricky to photograph without shaking all over the place and i was in a bit of a rush as i was meant to be carrying out a plant survey. It's a really pretty little plant though. The colour is a little hard to define, it's such a pale purple that it's almost white. It has those little fruits with hooked bristles that always end up getting stuck on your clothes, hair and down your boots.
Common figwort - Schrophularia nodosa 2007-07-13 05:03:00 I love the flowers on this plant, they look like really tiny little foxgloves. It was a bit tricky to take a photo of this plant because the flowers are so small and it was quite gloomy in the wood, i kept shaking the camera about. There are a few different types of figworts and they tend to vary on their leaf, stem and sepal shape. For example, the aquatic figwort has more rounded leaves. Read more:Common
Meadow Clary - Salvia pratensis 2007-07-12 04:53:00 This plant grows in tall spikes up to a metre and a half. It grows from a basal rosette of leaves. It has a hood like upper lip to the flower. It's quite rare now in England and is a protected species but fairly common in the rest of Europe. It is mainly to be found on good quality chalk grassland. It needs some patches of bare ground to allow seed germination so it might typically be found growing near rabbit warrens. If you want any more information about this plant check out Plantlife's article about the species Read more:Meadow
Branched Bur-Reed - Sparganium erectum 2007-07-17 13:03:00 The flowers of this plant are awesome! Look how strange and sculpted they look. I love the way they almost look like hairy maltesers (it's dinner time - bear with me). The flowers turn green eventually. The leaves of this plant look like a large juicy grass, they are arranged in two ranks up the stem. However, the leaves are very large and fleshy and traingular in section. Also, the base of the leaves are a dull pinkish colour. This plant is usually found growing in wetlands, places like ditches are good for spotting it.
Common toadflax - Linaria vulgaris 2007-07-16 08:54:00 The leaves of this plant are arranged in whorls round the stem which you might be able to make out in the background of this photo, slightly out of focus. This plant can often be found in quite rough, disturbed grassland. This plant was growing alongside a path. Read more:Common
Tutsan - Hypericum androsaemum 2007-07-15 03:01:00 Ok, so officially this picture doesn't count because it's not a picture of a flower but of the fruit. But i won't tell anyone if you don't. It belongs in the same family as all the st John's Wort plants so it has opposite leaves and pretty yellow flowers. The berries eventually go red as they ripen. I'll look out for a plant in flower and post it here when i find it.
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