Wild Flower Identification Requests

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Cheeky sod! Only today I was walking up my track thinking, " Devils Bit Scabious. Bistort. Water Mint. Hullo, wonder what that is? Wait till it's fully open and get a better picture then. " And what's wrong with that? I happen to be in much the same position now as the old time country Parsons often were; I'm smack bang in the middle of all this glorious countryside and have precious little else to do but familiarise myself with it. Can't a 'Hunter' be a Naturalist, like they used to be?

 

No. I now know where the hares pass. Where the badgers get to. Where the martens run and where the mink will be. I also know I have three hooded crows treating my patch as theirs. I've discovered where several birds are nesting. I'm trying to suss out the moths and, yes, the plant life too.

 

When I was a youth, I came to know an old bloke, born in the countryside. He just seemed to know so much about the stuff around us and introduced me to some fasinating knowledge. I found that most admirable. He broadened my horizons, that bloke.

 

 

Then they found out. Took him away and I've never clapped eyes on him since!

[Squirrel_Basher 17,100]

Only joking mate .You keep at it .

[martin 332]

Stewards Enquirie!

 

I spotted This one in a hedge today. I was convinced it was White Bryony. But, having shot it and brought the shots home for closer examination and verification, I realised my mistake: The leaves, of course, are all wrong for Bryony and it lacks those characteristic tendrills.

 

All I can come up with then is Bittersweet (Solanum Dulcemara). Yet this just seems like about the biggest, thickest Bittersweet I've ever seen. And just take a look at the Very Bryony like Wrap around that branch!

 

I'm figuring it must be SD, simply because nothing else in my experiance fits the bill. Care to confer? What's the concensus here, please?

 

 

 

Bittersweet (Solanum Dulemara) ?

 

 

 

Wrap

 

 

 

It's a bit of a beauty, what ever it is, eh?

 

 

 

I think the creeper is a 'cowberry'

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Martin; I've just got back to this thread and have finally looked up 'Cowberry'. Seems though that it's related to the (maybe better known?) Bilberry and is a small shrub, rather than a binder / creeper type plant? The leaves also don't seem quite right to me.

 

In fact, having just reopened that shot; I took one look at my own photo's and thought, " Well, That's bloody 'Bittersweet ~ Like I grew up around on the waste grounds. " It is Solanum. Just that I've always associated it with the half starved, out of the gravel and up the chain link fence, specimens I saw as a youngster. That's my first example from a proper hedgerow in what is, perhaps, far closer to ideal conditions for it?

 

Cracking plant, anyway

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Dog Violet (Viola riviniana Fanaigse)

 

 

Found these out on the 12th April. May or may not have been out by then. They're along part of my track and I don't go up there every day, even to check my post box! But I became aware of them and took a shot that day anyway. Had it stored till I got round to showing ye.

 

Might have been a " Bog Violet ", apparrently. Only they appear paler and lack the two fluffy bits inside, it seems. That's what gave me the Dog.

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

I had a friend over at the weekend and took her on a wander about some of the ground here abouts. This being ground I'd been all over, last summer, and have traversed enough since; Though that being more at night. And so I wouldn't possibly have noticed the emergence of This:

 

 

New One On Me

 

 

 

My sharp eyed accomplice however soon noted that they also come in pink!

 

 

 

 

 

Buggered if I have a clue! Found on typical Bogland; Acidic. Damp. Juncus infested ..... These pretty little things are making their way up through the patches of grassland in between. Untill Pat's cattle get released onto them at least ...

 

Anyone got a clue what they might be, please?

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Here's another one appearing this weekend. We found examples of this, in a bogside hedgebank, in various stages of growth. Most of them evidently younger. But here's how it looks prety well fully in bloom and colour. Some sort of Orchid?

 

 

 

 

 

And, yes; Those liver spotted leaves belong to it.

[Ossie 11]

i do believe that's an Early Purple Orchid

[mole catcher 1]

i do believe that's an Early Purple Orchid

 

Ossie scores one point for her correct id of Orchis mascula

[mole catcher 1]

I had a friend over at the weekend and took her on a wander about some of the ground here abouts. This being ground I'd been all over, last summer, and have traversed enough since; Though that being more at night. And so I wouldn't possibly have noticed the emergence of This:

 

 

New One On Me

 

 

 

My sharp eyed accomplice however soon noted that they also come in pink!

 

 

 

 

 

look very much like early flowering wild radish (raphanus raphanistrum) normally start to flower end april early may. can be yellow, white and pale lilac aswell

[J Darcy 5,871]

bog bean??????? look it up. i cant see the leaves so cannot say...but it could well be....

[Ossie 11]

i don't think it's bog bean, they have kinda fuzzy flowers. i reckon they're this -

Ladys Smock / Cuckoo Flower

Cardamine pratensis

 

do i get another point?

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Radish, Bean or Smock, eh? Well; The IrishWildFlowers site does say the pink grow in the dry. It also says some plants have runners. My pink one appears to have runners - they'd make more sense in a dry patch .....

 

My fault entirely, of course. I've got rusty on plant shooting, over the winter. I'll find another one and get a better shot of the foliage. That should sort us

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

And here it is, folks. That .....

 

 

Foliage Shot

 

 

 

So; Now what does the panal think?

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

To quote Lord Dunsanny, in his delightful book, " The King of Elflands Daughter " .....

 

 

 

 

" ... Or A Bank, Where Cowslips Grow ..... "

 

 

 

I've always had a soft spot for Cowslips

 

 

And what about that Mary Hopkins, eh? ..... (For those of ye who have the feintest clue what I'm on about here ) ..... What a set of f*cking lungs She had on her, eh?! 'Oppertunity Knockers' I'd call it! Phew! Sod the twee songs; We know why she kept reappearing, don't we, Hughie?!

 

 

 

Yes! Hand Cart! Totally!