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Senecio vulgaris
Groundsel is a common annual weed of rough and cultivated ground. You can find its clusters of small yellow flowers appearing on road verges, in gardens and on waste ground all throughout the year.
The leaves of Groundsel are bright shiny green, long and raggedly lobed. The small yellow flower heads are in cluster at the ends of the stems appearing to emerge from little tubes.
You can find Groundsel in flower throughout the year.
Groundsel is an annual weed of cultivated or disturbed ground, cropping up along field edges, roadside verges and on waste grounds.
Groundsel continues to be widespread throughout the British Isles, although there appears to have been a decline in the Scottish Highlands, possibly due to abandoning of marginal cultivations.
Cypripedium calceolus
The best time to see Lady’s-slipper in bloom is the springtime, between May and June. However, they are not a flower that you‘re likely to come across on your morning walk. Once widespread across Cumbria, Durham, Lancashire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire, Lady’s-slipper suffered severe losses as a result of over-collecting and habitat loss. By 1917 it was thought to be extinct in the wild.
Over the last few years, we’ve been working with partners Natural England, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the National Trust and the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) on a project led by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, to bring the plant back from the brink.
Read the full story here.
For years there was just one single Lady’s-slipper in the wild in the UK, and it‘s location remains a closely guarded secret.
Today, a number of the plants are flourishing in the wild and there is once again the chance for the public to witness these wonderful wildflowers in their natural habitat.
For a chance to see the orchid, you can visit Kilnsey Park near Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales in late May and early June. You can find more information here.
Photo shows Lady’s-slipper seed pod – all photos taken by Kevin Walker
Fulgensia fulgens
This rare lichen is not just striking, but also a crucial part of the biological soil crust community which stabilises soils and facilitates the growth of other plants. It also hosts a globally rare fungus Lichenochora epifulgens which is even rarer than the Scrambled Egg lichen itself.
It grows on open short calcareous grasslands and dunes. It needs an open, well-lit, free draining substrate such as limestone, chalk or sand made from shells, with a high pH. Most often it grows over mosses or sometime directly on rock, at coastal sites in the south and west of Britain.
As the name suggests, it really does look like a scrambled egg. It has a crust-like yellow body which is often paler in the middle with scattered orange fruits of 1.5mm.
It is historically rare in Britain and had gone extinct in the east of England due to habitat loss as a result of changes in farming practices, an increase in tree cover and a loss of rabbits.
We are working to bring it back to the Breckland through a process known as translocation. Read how expert Dave Lamacraft translocated the Scrambled Egg Lichen, taking it 350 miles, and transplanted it using bookbinding glue!
Eranthis hyemalis
Winter Aconite is an easy one to keep an eye out for, as it has beautiful bright yellow flowers that help it stand out. Keep your eyes on the ground as it’s a small plant, that grows up to 15cm.
Underneath its pretty flower, it has a whorl of leaf-like bracts that a form a ruffly collar.
This pretty plant is especially common in the east of England, and can be found in parks and woodlands.
Winter Aconite however is not a native wildflower. It was introduced in the 16th century as a garden plant. Now centuries later, it is considered naturalised.
Winter Aconite has a number of different nicknames. In some regions, the pretty yellow flowers have been nicknamed ‘choirboys’. It’s said that the name came from the ruffle of leaves that surround the flower head. In other regions, they have been known as ‘Christmas-rose’ or ‘New Year’s Gift’, owing to their mid-winter appearance.
Laetiporus sulphureus
This fungus is a common find in woodlands across the UK. They are found mainly on deciduous trees, for example oak, sweet chestnut and beech. Often they are quite high up on the tree trunk, so its worth casting your eyes upwards!
The flesh of this bracket fungus has a texture similar to cooked chicken, hence the common name!
The Giant polypore (Meripilus gigantus) can form similar bracket structures. However, the underside of Giant polypore turns black when damaged, which cannot be seen in Chicken of the Woods.
Chicken of the Woods, photo taken by John Bury
This autumn, help Plantlife find Britain’s most colourful and important fungi – waxcaps.
Hypholoma fasciculare
This fungus grows in dense clusters on dead or dying wood, and can be found on deciduous or conifer trees.
The Brick Tuft (Hypholoma lateritium) is very similar, but typically has a darker reddish cap, and its gills are more yellow rather than the green-ish tinge of Sulphur tuft gills.
Sulphur tufts are bioluminescent, that is they glow in the dark! They don’t glow strongly, so the effect is best seen using a long camera exposure, or by shining the fruit bodies with a UV light.
Sulphur tuft pictured at our Ryewater Farm Nature Reserve
Anthoxanthum oderatum
Thin, wiry grass with short leaves and a spike of flowers at the top of the stem. Where the leaf meets the stem, there is a fringe of hairs which look like eyelashes.
On old meadows and grasslands that are often rich in wild flowers. Here, it’s one of the first meadow grasses to come into flower in the spring.
Red Fescue – another grass with a narrow stem and pointy flower spikes, but which is bigger and lacks the scent.
It gives out a scent that is THE distinctive smell of a hay meadow – somewhere between vanilla and almond. Some people like to chew the grass to get the taste of the scent.
Viola arvensis
Field Pansy is a delicate flower from the Violet family, and is the wild relative of the Garden Pansy. It’s a small low-growing perennial which can be easily confused with the Wild Pansy, however it has much smaller flowers. It is self-fertile and attracts butterflies such as the Queen of Spain Fritillary which will lay its eggs on the plant.
The flowers of Field Pansy are solitary and 15mm across. They have creamy yellow petals which are sometimes bluish-violet. Its sepals are pointed, and often longer than or the same length as the petals. Its stipules look like lobed leaves, and the leaves are oblong in shape. The plant grows up to 20cm tall.
While Field Pansy can be found throughout the UK, it is more common in the East half of the UK and SE Ireland. It’s most commonly found in dry arable field margins and waste spaces.
Rubus fruticosus
Bramble is a rambling plant with delicate white or pink flowers which are followed later in the year by juicy blackberries. The stems have prickles and the leaves are hairy. Come autumn, its fruit is a widely recognised sight, turning from red to the near-black that gives them their name. Going ‘blackberrying’ is still a common practice today and one of the few acts of foraging to survive into the modern age. Bramble usually flowers in July and August, although its blossom has been known to appear in June. If it’s blackberries you’re after, they are usually adorning the branches in early autumn.
Throughout Britain, Bramble can be found in multiple habitats, including hedge banks, scrubland, woodland and waste ground.
As gardeners and walkers can testify, Bramble is doing well!
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