Thursday, August 14, 2014

Thursday...flower naming

On Tuesday, during our hedgerow car meanderings, I also collected a selection of wild flowers...

When I was about 10 years old there was a summer holiday project to collect, label and stick into a book a selection of wild flowers. 
I looked forward to getting on with the project all Summer and then, rather typically, I suddenly realised that I only had about 4 days to get it done before going back to school!
I went round to a friend’s house and we collected flowers together...( she told me there were loads down a little path called ‘The Tinker Tank’...I don’t know why I’ve always remembered that ).
I loved it, and then felt rather foolish that I hadn’t worked on the project over the whole Summer, as I could have collected LOADS...and maybe even ones that no-one else had collected (...that’s always important to a 10 year old girl).
...but some of those flowers which I collected and named really stuck in my memory...wild campion, vetch, scarlet pimpernel...
I think I’ve always wanted to catch up on, or rather extend that school project, and now with various books of late grandparents and an iphone handy, I seem to be getting on with it...and I find photos of the plants a much more satisfying record, than pressed flowers ever were to me...

So here are some of my Summer wild flowers so far:
Himalayan Balsam...





( this was really tricky to find on the web, although it seems to be a relation of Lapsana... )


I’m always cautious of this plant, as one year our whole family had to pull up an entire field of the stuff ( from the roots ) as it’s poisonous to horses and cattle...


( ...and the photographer’s companion! )

5 comments:

  1. Wow, It's amazing. Yesterday I took a photo of this pink-red balsamina, here in polish mountains, where we are on holidays. And I talked to my husband, who is not a biologist, as I am, about intrusive species...
    I really love your stories...
    Magda

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    1. How amazing!! I’ve never picked them before and didn’t know what they were until the day before yesterday!
      :D

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    2. Coming back to your blog after coming back from holidays. What a wonderful cat, your friend. Its, funny to take pictures with cat head in focus, trying not to have it... We have 7 cats, so it's always the same: you can have good macro without cat, but in wide plane you alwas have black cat's ears...

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  2. I'm still avidly reading your posts, I so enjoy them! My daughter was talking about pressing flowers today in her flower squasher as she called it, I will definitely encourage it. The last photo is brilliant.

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    1. Hi Emma! So glad you’re still enjoying them...and that it’s sort of inspiring the flower squasher in your daughter!
      Cheeks was getting really left out yesterday, so thought I better include him!
      BTW I have just sorted out a date for the workshop...Sat Nov 8th at Knoyle Hall ( it is such a brilliant, old fashioned place to have it..it’s got old tables and everything! ). I’ll be sorting out an on-line flyer but just giving you the heads up as I know you were interested in coming. x

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