February was a very wet month and there wasn’t much to see, after all the early bloomers in JanuaryAMP, so I’ve lumped it together with March. It has been very mild though and I don’t think there has been any frost round here for a few weeks.
Because I repeat the same walk at least once a week, I see the different stages of a plants life. I think this is useful for identification, because it means I’m more likely to be able to identify a species when it’s not in flower. If you look back through my blog, you will see I’ve visited some of these plants repeatedly.
There are always interesting insects on the alexanders, be they bees, hoverflies, flies or ladybirds:
There are a lot of celandines around my way – not every patch looks good every year, but there’s always a gorgeous little patch somewhere:
I pass this ivy leaved toadflax every time I use the twitten next to the allotments. Last time it was wet with rain and only just coming into flower – this time it’s in full flower and has a herb robert seedling in its midst:
After the first feeble flowers of cow parsleyAMP in January, it’s now springing up all along the roadside:
This bulbous buttercup plant is one I identified with the help of my twitter friends in May 2018:
This patch of speedwell was just coming into flower when I passed it in January:
I always have my eye open for alkanet, the blue is so clear:
There are still plenty of the plain purple sweet violet about, although they are starting to disappear into the grass and foliage in some of the verges. But this white one by the side of the road was rather nice:
There were a few clumps of these paler violets too. They tended towards the pinker shades rather than the bluer ones spotted a few weeks back. Probably another sweet violet:
I photographed red dead-nettle and shepherds purse, but couldn’t bring myself to stop for sow thistle, dog mercury, dandelions, groundsel, or pellitory of the wall. Maybe one day when I’m out and about with a bigger lens.
The physic garden at Michelham Priory (a few miles down the road) is a good example of how native plants might have been curated in times past for their medicinal effects. I have never spotted coltsfoot in the wild, so it was good to see it there. And it was good to see bees on the daisy.
The weather warmed up towards the end of the month and I spotted these on my way to work:
I’ve just realised this Danish scurvygrass was spotted in Dane Rd!
I was interested to read about this new project which highlights the ecological value of pavement plants:
More than Weeds
Jump forward a year to see what was in flower locally in March 2021AMP