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Sparganium erectum
Branched Bur-reed is a quirky looking waterside plant with spherical flowers. It might occasionally be mistaken for its unbranched relative (appropriately named ‘Unbranched Bur-reed’) but little else. Branched Bur-reed is a tall plant with linear leaves that lie broadside on to stem. The smaller male flowers sit above the female flowers on the stem.
This wild plant is widespread around the UK, growing by waters edge, ponds, slow rivers, marshy ground and ditches. Branched Bur-reed is an easily uprooted plant and so prefers slower waters.
Branched Bur-reed is commonly found in its preferred habitats.
Eriophorum angustifolium
Cottongrass (Common) is the county flower of Manchester. Its white plumes are a familiar sight in wet hollows on the moors above the city. They are an emblem both of their boggy habitat and of the wide open spaces.
Cottongrass (Common) has a fluffy, cotton-like flower and seed heads which give this distinctive plant its name. Cottongrass is a member of the sedge family and so not technically a grass at all. It thrives in the harshest of environments where it can take advantage of the lack of competition. After fertilisation in early summer, the small, unremarkable green and brown flowers develop distinctive white seed-heads that resemble tufts of cotton. Combined with its ecological suitability to bogs, these characteristics give rise to the plant’s alternative name, Bog Cotton.
It is common in bogs throughout the UK and Ireland. Cottongrass (Common) likes open, wet, peaty ground and so is likely to indicate areas best avoided when out for a walk.
Anthriscus sylvestris
Frothy and lacy, Cow Parsley is a wildflower which grows in abundance along country lanes in summer. It is the earliest flowering member of the carrot family. Its tripinnate leaves are fern-like with pointed leaflets and seeds are oblong, beaked and smooth. Its stems are hollow and without spots – a good way to distinguish this plant from the similar, but very poisonous Hemlock.
Cow Parsley is widespread and common throughout the UK. It is often seen on roadsides and near hedgerows and can also be found in woodland edges.
Cow Parsley is one of the few flowers that benefits from current road verge management since it likes high levels of nutrients (much like nettles). Sadly, this is at the expense of other more delicate species.
Smyrnium olusatrum
Alexanders is a large, early emerging hedgerow plant that grows up to 1.5 metres tall and has a thick main stem that can become hollow. This plant has many clusters of little yellow-green umbel flowers appearing towards the top suspended by offshoots from the main stem. The shiny green leaves smell of celery. Alexanders cbe confused with cow parsley but is generally larger and thicker stemmed.
Alexanders is found mainly towards the coast, probably due to its sensitivity to frosts, which are less common in coastal areas. It is more common in the south and rare in most of Scotland. It can be found on cliffs, hedge banks, road sides and other waste land areas.
Lamium purpureum
Red Dead-nettle is traditionally known as the ‘bumblebee flower’ in some British counties as bumblebees love it! Other names include ‘sweet archangel’ and ‘bad man’s posies’. Red Dead-nettle is related to the stinging nettle but has no sting – hence the ‘dead’ in ‘dead-nettle’.
Red Dead-nettle has whorls of pink-purple flowers clustered amongst leaves towards the top of the plant. The aromatic leaves are hairy, heart-shaped and have toothed edges. Some leaves near the top of the plant take on a purple tint. This plant can be mistaken for henbit dead-nettle which has similar flowers. They can be differentiated because Red Dead-nettle leaves have short petioles (leaf stalks).
Found throughout the UK, Red Dead-nettle likes arable and waste land and can also be found in gardens, hedgerows and on roadsides.
Red Dead-nettle has a long flowering season that can begin in February and last until November.
Orchis purpurea
The Lady Orchid is a tall, elegant herbaceous plant belonging to the Orchidaceae plant family.
Lady Orchid can reach 30–100 centimetres with the fleshy, bright green leaves being up to 15 cm long. The leaves are broad and oblong, forming a rosette about the base of the plant and surrounding the flower spike. These flower spikes can contain up to 200 individual flowers to which the stem upwardly points. Some of the flowers have the look of women in crinoline ball gowns. In terms of colour they are usually pale pink or rose, with a deeper purple ‘head’.
The Lady Orchid can be found in most parts of Europe (specifically Kent, England), Northern Africa, Turkey and the Caucasus.
Lady orchids usually grow in woodlands, oak forests, slopes and meadows, and can occasionally occur on savanna. They prefer to grow in limestone or chalk soil, in shady or sunny places. The Lady Orchid occurs in short grassland, on woodland edges and sometimes in open woodland. However, it is now very rarely found in the UK.
Lady Orchid’s flowering occurs in late April to June.
The sepals and upper petals are known to be purple, hence the Lady Orchid adopting the latin name purpurea.
Primula scotica
The ultimate northerner in our flora, Scottish Primrose grows on coastal promontories on the north coast of Scotland, including Dunnet Head, the northernmost tip of mainland Britain.
Scottish Primrose is low-growing and easily overlooked. It typically grows in heaths and coastal grasslands. As well as growing in the north coast of Scotland, this attractive flower also grows in Orkney, across the Pentland Firth, but nowhere else in the world. It is easily distinguished from the common primrose by its blueish-purple petals.
Scottish Primrose flowers from May to June.
Scottish Primrose is the county flower of Caithness.
Linnaea borealis
The beautiful Twinflower has two pink bell-like flowers on a slender stem, and a thicker stem below which creeps along the ground, forming small mats of the plant. It is one of our smallest and most delicate native flowers.
Twinflower is confined to Scotland. It grows mainly in the native, open, pine woods, particularly in the Cairngorms, and is an Arctic-Alpine plant that is a relic of the Ice Age.
The clearance of native woodlands before the 1930s resulted in severe losses of this little flower. Continued habitat destruction and changes in woodland management have also lead to declines in populations.
Twinflower is the County Flower of Inverness-shire.
The isolation of the remaining sites of Twinflower leads to poor seed production and thus contributes to its continued decline. Other threats include; mechanical harvesting of timber, the deliberate thickening of forests leading to excess shade and poor management of pine plantations leading to single age structure woodland without a niche for seedlings to develop.
One of Plantlife’s most exciting projects has been research into how the historical management of ancient pine plantation may have benefited Twinflower. A study of how timber was grown and extracted in the 18th and 19th centuries has led to a proposal to test whether these methods could boost Twinflower populations today. Read more about our work with Twinflower here.
We’re continuing our work with Twinflower through the Resilience and Recovery, Helping Rare Species Adapt to a Changing World project. Read more about our work here.
Without intervention, the delicate pink blooms of the rare Twinflower could disappear from Scotland.
Glechoma hederacea
Ground Ivy is an aromatic creeping herb with funnel-shaped violet flowers.
This small, common evergreen perennial belongs to the mint family and spreads rapidly in a carpet-like form due to its creeping stems. Despite its name, it is not closely related to common ivy.
Ground Ivy has upright flowering stems bearing between two and four violet two-lipped flowers in a whorl. The lower lip has purple spots. Its leaves are scalloped in shape, which may explain why catsfoot is one of its many nicknames.
It is commonly found in woodlands, meadows, hedgerows, and wasteland throughout the British Isles, although it is rarer in Scotland. It also thrives in lawns as it survives mowing.
Usnea articulata
It is most common in the south west’s temperate rainforest zone.
Favouring well-lit conditions and dry, open situations, it is most often found in tree canopies or on lower branches where trees are well-lit, in woodland or on scattered trees in open moorland. You can also find it on the ground after stormy weather.
Other large, bearded lichens include Usnea ceratina, Usnea dasopoga and Usnea hirta but these lack the sausage-like lobes.
Largely restricted to south-western parts of the UK with most records in south-west England.
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