Tag: wildflowers

#365daysofbiking Feet first

August 5th – Birdsfoot Trefoil is a staple throughout summer from the earliest of the season until autumn. It dapples lawns, verges and meadows with yellow and red patches, and is one of my favourite flowers.

Not many folk though realise how this plant got it\’s unusual name – it’s because the seed pods look like a bird’s feet.

This gorgeous flower is so very ubiquitous that it’s one of the few wildflowers I love that I’ve never bothered to collect the seed of and spread.

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#365daysofbiking Dark centre

July 18th – Yesterday, I found a plant that I considered may be wild carrot due to the presence of a tiny, dark flower in the centre of it’s otherwise creamy white umbrel. I wrote:

The reason I think this is wild carrot is the presence of a tiny dark flower in the centre of the head to attract insects – I’ll have another look tomorrow to verify this.

That is definitely a tiny, dark purple flower, so this plant is indeed wild carrot. Another baffling, wondrous feature you have to wonder the path towards.

This lovely wildflower was certainly keeping the overflies busy too.

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#365daysofbiking There’s always carrots

July 17th – Looking back over previous years, this prolific plant in various places has been puzzling me for ages – but I think I’ve sussed it: It’s possibly Queen Anne’s lace, or wild carrot.

This example was growing on the industrial estate where I work near Darlaston.

It looks a lot like the familiar cow parsley, but isn’t: The shape is all wrong.

The reason I think this is wild carrot is the presence of a tiny dark flower in the centre of the head to attract insects – I’ll have another look tomorrow to verify this. The plant itself is edible like normal carrots, but only when young. It has a variety of folkloric uses, including as a contraceptive, apparently.

I think I’m closer to solving this one.

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#365daysofbiking Herbivore

July 15th – The flowers continue to appear daily. Rosebay willowherb is the latest – a beautiful, tall weed, it paints wasteland, hedgerows, scrubs and derelict land with a beautiful hade of purple, complimenting the buddleia which it competes against for light and space.

In a few weeks it will seed with fluffy, wind-born seeds that float on the breeze and were locally known as ‘fairies’ when I was a kid, hence it’s colloquial name ‘Old man’s beard’.

We really should look more closely at the plants we dismiss as weeds.

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#365daysofbiking Route canal

July 12th – Wanting to ride the city canals the day before but unable to, I broke out of work, collected a mate and went for a spin down the Plants Brook/Newhall Valley and into Brum, returning via the Tame Valley.

The canals were as wonderful and peaceful as ever, and the wildflowers – those that have escaped the fanatical dedication to mowing the Canal and River Trust seems to have – are looking fabulous.

As was the Gas Street black cat, disturbed from it’s slumbers by our happy chatter.

Summer is all about rides like this.

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#365daysofbiking Thistle do

July 10th – Also wind seeding, but yet to go over are the many variety of thistle scattered about the verges, edgelands and hedgerows of the area at the moment.

One day I must look up what all these splendid and distinct variants of this beautiful plant are.

These ones found near the canal at Pier Street in Brownhills have tiny, light purple almost lavender blue flowers, whereas other type have larger, more purple blooms.

I get the feeling that thistles are far more complex than I imagine. Must look them up.

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#365daysofbiking The cycle


July 9th – I’m always interested in insect galls as regular readers will know and one of the most interesting in the UK is the robins pincushion gall, which affects wild and dog roses.

Forming the same way as oak galls – from a wasp injecting eggs into a plant bud which are coated in a plant DNA corrupting substance – pincushion galls are brightly coloured and made up of a solid nodule up to a inch or so diameter, covered in hairy spines, which if you look closely are miniature facsimiles of rose stalks, thorns and all.

Numerous larvae hatch in chambers within the gall, eating their way out as they mature.

This year on a rose where last year’s dead remains of a pincushion gall can be seen complete with cavities where the wasps emerged, there are two new ones growing about 12 inches further up the branch.

And so the lifecycle of a tiny but fascinating insect continues.

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#365daysofbiking Mallow moments

July 5th – Spotted just in the shadow of Spaghetti Junction on the canal, a glorious lavatera or mallow. This shrub grows here every year completely untended by humans and is always absolutely gorgeous.

I still find it stunning that such beauty can be found in such urban spaces.

A true wonder of nature, and good to see it’s still in rude health!

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#365daysofbiking A taste of honey

July 3rd – As expected, someone has flailed the beautiful, tumbling honeysucklle on the southern flank of the Black Cock Bridge, as they do every year when it’s in bloom. it’s ad, but it’s their hedge, I guess. But I’ll never understand it.

Now, i’ll have to make do with the other honeysuckle growing hereabouts – and there’s a lot of it, to be fair: Another think now profuse that wasn’t really about much when I was a kid.

This example, mingling beautifully in a tangled, glorious mess of brambles, lupins, cow parsley and bindweed, is growing on the embankment above the big house at Clayhanger, just on the edge of the canal towpath.

And thankfully, I’ve never seen anyone trim this one…

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#365daysofbiking How sweet thou art

June 28th – Riding out in the morning for a long ride with an old friend, we passed through Anglesey Wharf where coal from the Chasetown, Norton and Burntwood mines used to be loaded on narrowboats for transport south.

The wharf long ago fell silent, although the remains of the coal chutes and conveyors remain witness to a dark industrial past – but today, the spot is peaceful and teaming with wildlife.

Growing around a coal loading chute that used to be polished to a shine by the black gold are now the most delicate, beautifully scented wild sweetpeas, unthinkable in the wharf’s heyday.

It’s lovely to see and a great memorial to a lost industry, and a nod to a much cleaner future.

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