Ivydene Gardens Figwort Mulleins to Fumitory Wild Flower Families Gallery:
Flax Family

Click on Underlined Text in:-

Common Name to view that Plant Description Page
Botanical Name to link to Plant or Seed Supplier
Flowering Months to view photos
Habitat to view further Natural Habitat details and Botanical Society of the British Isles Distribution Map

Flax Family:-

Flax Family plant table with its Common Name - Botanical Name. Flowering Months Range. Habitat with link to that Wild Flower Gallery:-

Common Name

Botanical Name

Flowering Months

Habitat

Cultivated Flax

Linum usitatissimum

June-July

A robust annual found on road verges, rubbish tips and waste ground and locally, rather surprisingly, on stone reservoir banks. It is also a moderately frequent bird-seed alien. Lowland.

fcultivatedfloflax

fcultivatedflosflax

fcultivatedfolflax

fcultivatedforflax

Flower in August

Flowers in August

Foliage in August

Form in August

Fairy Flax

Linum catharticum

May onwards

An annual or bennial herb of dry, infertile calcareous or base-rich substrates, but also found in flushed sites on neutral or mildly acidic soils. It occurs in a wide range of calcareous grasslands, mires and flushes, in short-sedge fen-meadows, on outcrops and ledges of basic rock, road cuttings, quarry spoil and lead-mine debris, and very locally on dry heaths. 0-840 m (Breadalbanes, Mid Perth).

ffairyfloflax

ffairyflosflax

ffairyfolflax

item4a1

Flower from Queendown Warren in Kent on 6 June

Flowers in June

Foliage from Dorset on 18 May

Form

Flax-Seed

Radiola linoides

(Linum radiola, Radiola millegrana)

July-August

A small annual of damp, bare, infertile, peaty or sandy ground in acid grasslands and heaths, by ponds, on tracks and in woodland rides. Near the coast it occurs in dune-slacks, sandy grassland, on machair, and in soil-filled rock cracks. Lowland. It is often with Chaffweed of the Primrose Family.

Pale Flax

Linum bienne

May-September

An annual, biennial or short-lived perennial herb of dry grassy places and grassland-scrub mosaics, chiefly near the sea; its habitats include cliff-slopes and coombes, path and field margins, roadsides, railway banks and old quarries. It appears to favour warm, sheltered, S.-facing slopes and relatively infertile, drought-prone soils. Lowland.

fpalefloflax

fpaleflobudsflax

item3a3

fpaleforflax

Flower from Berry Head in Devon in May

Flower Buds from Berry Head in Devon in May

Foliage

Form from Berry Head in Devon in May

Perennial Flax

Linum anglicum

(Linum perenne subsp. anglicum)

June-July

Grassland (in chalk and limestone turf in Eastern England and Northern England)

fperennialfloflax

fperennialflosflax

fperennialfolflax

fperennialforflax

Flower in July

Flowers in July

Foliage in July

Form in July

 

Topic
Plants detailed in this website by
Botanical Name
A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
H, I, J, K, L, M, N,
O, P, Q, R, S, T, U,
V, W, X, Y, Z ,
Bulb
A1, 2, 3, B, C1, 2,
 D, E, F, G, Glad,
H, I, J, K, L1, 2,
 M, N, O, P, Q, R,
 S, T, U, V, W, XYZ ,
Evergreen Perennial
A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
H, I, J, K, L, M, N,
O, P, Q, R, S, T, U,
V, W, X, Y, Z ,
Herbaceous Perennial
A1, 2, B, C, D, E, F,
G, H, I, J, K, L, M,
N, O, P1, 2, Q, R,
S, T, U, V, W, XYZ,
Diascia Photo Album,
UK Peony Index
Wildflower
Botanical Names,
Common Names ,
will be compared in:- Flower colour/month
Evergreen Perennial,
Flower shape Wildflower Flower Shape and
Plant use
Evergreen Perennial Flower Shape,
Bee plants for hay-fever sufferers
Bee-Pollinated Index
Butterfly
Egg, Caterpillar, Chrysalis, Butterfly Usage of Plants.
Chalk
A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
H, I, J, K, L, M, N,
O, P, QR, S, T, UV,
WXYZ
Companion Planting
A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
H, I, J, K, L, M, N,
O, P, Q, R , S, T,
U ,V, W, X, Y, Z,
Pest Control using Plants
Fern Fern
1000 Ground Cover A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
H, I, J, K, L, M, N,
O, P, Q, R, S, T, U,
V, W, XYZ ,
Rock Garden and Alpine Flowers
A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
H, I, J, K, L, M,
NO, PQ, R, S, T,
UVWXYZ
Rose Rose Use
These 5 have Page links in rows below
Bulbs from the Infill Galleries (next row), Camera Photos,
Plant Colour Wheel Uses,
Sense of Fragrance, Wild Flower

Case Studies
...Drive Foundations
Ryegrass and turf kills plants within Roadstone and in Topsoil due to it starving and dehydrating them.
CEDAdrive creates stable drive surface and drains rain into your ground, rather than onto the public road.
8 problems caused by building house on clay or with house-wall attached to clay.
Pre-building work on polluted soil.

Companion Planting
to provide a Companion Plant to aid your selected plant or deter its pests

Garden
Construction
with ground drains

Garden Design
...How to Use the Colour Wheel Concepts for Selection of Flowers, Foliage and Flower Shape
...RHS Mixed
Borders
......Bedding Plants
......Her Perennials
......Other Plants
......Camera photos of Plant supports
Garden
Maintenance
Glossary with a tomato teaching cauliflowers
Home
Library of over 1000 books
Offbeat Glossary with DuLally Bird in its flower clock.

Plants
...in Chalk
(Alkaline) Soil
......A-F1, A-F2,
......A-F3, G-L, M-R,
......M-R Roses, S-Z
...in Heavy
Clay Soil
......A-F, G-L, M-R,
......S-Z
...in Lime-Free
(Acid) Soil
......A-F, G-L, M-R,
......S-Z
...in Light
Sand Soil
......A-F, G-L, M-R,
......S-Z.
...Poisonous Plants.
...Extra Plant Pages
with its 6 Plant Selection Levels

Soil
...Interaction between 2 Quartz Sand Grains to make soil
...How roots of plants are in control in the soil
...Without replacing Soil Nutrients, the soil will break up to only clay, sand or silt
...Subsidence caused by water in Clay
...Use water ring for trees/shrubs for first 2 years.

Tool Shed with 3 kneeling pads
Useful Data with benefits of Seaweed

Topic -
Plant Photo Galleries
If the plant type below has flowers, then the first gallery will include the flower thumbnail in each month of 1 of 6 colour comparison pages of each plant in its subsidiary galleries, as a low-level Plant Selection Process
Aquatic
Bamboo
Bedding
...by Flower Shape

Bulb
...Allium/ Anemone
...Autumn
...Colchicum/ Crocus
...Dahlia
...Gladiolus with its 40 Flower Colours
......European A-E
......European F-M
......European N-Z
......European Non-classified
......American A,
B, C, D, E, F, G,
 H, I, J, K, L, M,
 N, O, P, Q, R, S,
 T, U, V, W, XYZ
......American Non-classified
......Australia - empty
......India
......Lithuania
...Hippeastrum/ Lily
...Late Summer
...Narcissus
...Spring
...Tulip
...Winter
...Each of the above ...Bulb Galleries has its own set of Flower Colour Pages
...Flower Shape
...Bulb Form
...Bulb Use
...Bulb in Soil

Further details on bulbs from the Infill Galleries:-
Hardy Bulbs
...Aconitum
...Allium
...Alstroemeria
...Anemone
...Amaryllis
...Anthericum
...Antholyzas
...Apios
...Arisaema
...Arum
...Asphodeline
...Asphodelus
...Belamcanda
...Bloomeria
...Brodiaea
...Bulbocodium
...Calochorti
...Cyclobothrias
...Camassia
...Colchicum
...Convallaria 
...Forcing Lily of the Valley
...Corydalis
...Crinum
...Crosmia
...Montbretia
...Crocus
...Cyclamen
...Dicentra
...Dierama
...Eranthis
...Eremurus
...Erythrnium
...Eucomis
...Fritillaria
...Funkia
...Galanthus
...Galtonia
...Gladiolus
...Hemerocallis
...Hyacinth
...Hyacinths in Pots
...Scilla
...Puschkinia
...Chionodoxa
...Chionoscilla
...Muscari
...Iris
...Kniphofia
...Lapeyrousia
...Leucojum
...Lilium
...Lilium in Pots
...Malvastrum
...Merendera
...Milla
...Narcissus
...Narcissi in Pots
...Ornithogalum
...Oxalis
...Paeonia
...Ranunculus
...Romulea
...Sanguinaria
...Sternbergia
...Schizostylis
...Tecophilaea
...Trillium
...Tulip
...Zephyranthus
Half-Hardy Bulbs
...Acidanthera
...Albuca
...Alstroemeri
...Andro-stephium
...Bassers
...Boussing-aultias
...Bravoas
...Cypellas
...Dahlias
...Galaxis,
...Geissorhizas
...Hesperanthas
...Gladioli
...Ixias
...Sparaxises
...Babianas
...Morphixias
...Tritonias
...Ixiolirions
...Moraeas
...Ornithogalums
...Oxalises
...Phaedra-nassas
...Pancratiums
...Tigridias
...Zephyranthes
...Cooperias
Uses of Bulbs:-
...for Bedding
...in Windowboxes
...in Border
...naturalized in Grass
...in Bulb Frame
...in Woodland Garden
...in Rock Garden
...in Bowls
...in Alpine House
...Bulbs in Green-house or Stove:-
...Achimenes
...Alocasias
...Amorpho-phalluses
...Arisaemas
...Arums
...Begonias
...Bomareas
...Caladiums
...Clivias
...Colocasias
...Crinums
...Cyclamens
...Cyrtanthuses
...Eucharises
...Urceocharis
...Eurycles
...Freesias
...Gloxinias
...Haemanthus
...Hippeastrums
...Lachenalias
...Nerines
...Lycorises
...Pencratiums
...Hymenocallises
...Richardias
...Sprekelias
...Tuberoses
...Vallotas
...Watsonias
...Zephyranthes
...Plant Bedding in
......Spring
......Summer
...Bulb houseplants flowering during:-
......January
......February
......March
......April
......May
......June
......July
......August
......September
......October
......November
......December
...Bulbs and other types of plant flowering during:-
......Dec-Jan
......Feb-Mar
......Apr-May
......Jun-Aug
......Sep-Oct
......Nov-Dec
...Selection of the smaller and choicer plants for the Smallest of Gardens with plant flowering during the same 6 periods as in the previous selection

Climber in
3 Sector Vertical Plant System
...Clematis
...Climbers
Conifer
Deciduous Shrub
...Shrubs - Decid
Deciduous Tree
...Trees - Decid
Evergreen Perennial
...P-Evergreen A-L
...P-Evergreen M-Z
...Flower Shape
Evergreen Shrub
...Shrubs - Evergreen
...Heather Shrub
...Heather Index
......Andromeda
......Bruckenthalia
......Calluna
......Daboecia
......Erica: Carnea
......Erica: Cinerea
......Erica: Others
Evergreen Tree
...Trees - Evergreen
Fern
Grass
Hedging
Herbaceous
Perennial
...P -Herbaceous
...Peony
...Flower Shape
...RHS Wisley
......Mixed Border
......Other Borders
Herb
Odds and Sods
Rhododendron

Rose
...RHS Wisley A-F
...RHS Wisley G-R
...RHS Wisley S-Z
...Rose Use - page links in row 6. Rose, RHS Wisley and Other Roses rose indices on each Rose Use page
...Other Roses A-F
...Other Roses G-R
...Other Roses S-Z
Pruning Methods
Photo Index R 1, 2, 3
Peter Beales Roses
RV Roger Roses

Soft Fruit
Top Fruit
...Apple
...Cherry
...Pear
Vegetable
Wild Flower and
Butterfly page links are in next row

Topic -
UK Butterfly:-
...Egg, Caterpillar, Chrysalis and Butterfly Usage
of Plants.
...Plant Usage by
Egg, Caterpillar, Chrysalis and Butterfly.

Both native wildflowers and cultivated plants, with these
...Flower Shape,
...Uses in USA,
...Uses in UK and
...Flo Cols / month are used by Butter-flies native in UK


Wild Flower with its wildflower flower colour page, space,
data page(s).
...Blue Site Map.
Scented Flower, Foliage, Root.
Story of their Common Names.
Use of Plant with Flowers.
Use for Non-Flowering Plants.
Edible Plant Parts.
Flower Legend.
Flowering plants of Chalk and
Limestone 1, 2.
Flowering plants of Acid Soil 1.
...Brown Botanical Names.
Food for
Butterfly/Moth.
...Cream Common Names.
Coastal and Dunes.
Sandy Shores and Dunes.
...Green Broad-leaved Woods.
...Mauve Grassland - Acid, Neutral, Chalk.
...Multi-Cols Heaths and Moors.
...Orange Hedge-rows and Verges.
...Pink A-G Lakes, Canals and Rivers.
...Pink H-Z Marshes, Fens, Bogs.
...Purple Old Buildings and Walls.
...Red Pinewoods.
...White A-D
Saltmarshes.
Shingle Beaches, Rocks and Cliff Tops.
...White E-P Other.
...White Q-Z Number of Petals.
...Yellow A-G
Pollinator.
...Yellow H-Z
Poisonous Parts.
...Shrub/Tree River Banks and other Freshwater Margins. and together with cultivated plants in
Colour Wheel.

You know its
name:-
a-h, i-p, q-z,
Botanical Names, or Common Names,
habitat:-
on Acid Soil,
on Calcareous
(Chalk) Soil,
on Marine Soil,
on Neutral Soil,
is a Fern,
is a Grass,
is a Rush,
is a Sedge, or
is Poisonous.

Each plant in each WILD FLOWER FAMILY PAGE will have a link to:-
1) its created Plant Description Page in its Common Name column, then external sites:-
2) to purchase the plant or seed in its Botanical Name column,
3) to see photos in its Flowering Months column and
4) to read habitat details in its Habitat Column.
Adder's Tongue
Amaranth
Arrow-Grass
Arum
Balsam
Bamboo
Barberry
Bedstraw
Beech
Bellflower
Bindweed
Birch
Birds-Nest
Birthwort
Bogbean
Bog Myrtle
Borage
Box
Broomrape
Buckthorn
Buddleia
Bur-reed
Buttercup
Butterwort
Cornel (Dogwood)
Crowberry
Crucifer (Cabbage/Mustard) 1
Crucifer (Cabbage/Mustard) 2
Cypress
Daffodil
Daisy
Daisy Cudweeds
Daisy Chamomiles
Daisy Thistle
Daisy Catsears Daisy Hawkweeds
Daisy Hawksbeards
Daphne
Diapensia
Dock Bistorts
Dock Sorrels
Clubmoss
Duckweed
Eel-Grass
Elm
Filmy Fern
Horsetail
Polypody
Quillwort
Royal Fern
Figwort - Mulleins
Figwort - Speedwells
Flax
Flowering-Rush
Frog-bit
Fumitory
Gentian
Geranium
Glassworts
Gooseberry
Goosefoot
Grass 1
Grass 2
Grass 3
Grass Soft
Bromes 1
Grass Soft
Bromes 2
Grass Soft
Bromes 3
Hazel
Heath
Hemp
Herb-Paris
Holly
Honeysuckle
Horned-Pondweed
Hornwort
Iris
Ivy
Jacobs Ladder
Lily
Lily Garlic
Lime
Lobelia
Loosestrife
Mallow
Maple
Mares-tail
Marsh Pennywort
Melon (Gourd/Cucumber)
Mesem-bryanthemum
Mignonette
Milkwort
Mistletoe
Moschatel
Naiad
Nettle
Nightshade
Oleaster
Olive
Orchid 1
Orchid 2
Orchid 3
Orchid 4
Parnassus-Grass
Peaflower
Peaflower
Clover 1
Peaflower
Clover 2
Peaflower
Clover 3
Peaflower Vetches/Peas
Peony
Periwinkle
Pillwort
Pine
Pink 1
Pink 2
Pipewort
Pitcher-Plant
Plantain
Pondweed
Poppy
Primrose
Purslane
Rannock Rush
Reedmace
Rockrose
Rose 1
Rose 2
Rose 3
Rose 4
Rush
Rush Woodrushes
Saint Johns Wort
Saltmarsh Grasses
Sandalwood
Saxifrage
Seaheath
Sea Lavender
Sedge Rush-like
Sedges Carex 1
Sedges Carex 2
Sedges Carex 3
Sedges Carex 4
Spindle-Tree
Spurge
Stonecrop
Sundew
Tamarisk
Tassel Pondweed
Teasel
Thyme 1
Thyme 2
Umbellifer 1
Umbellifer 2
Valerian
Verbena
Violet
Water Fern
Waterlily
Water Milfoil
Water Plantain
Water Starwort
Waterwort
Willow
Willow-Herb
Wintergreen
Wood-Sorrel
Yam
Yew


Topic -
The following is a complete hierarchical Plant Selection Process
dependent on the Garden Style chosen
Garden Style
...Infill Plants
...12 Bloom Colours per Month Index
...12 Foliage Colours per Month Index
...All Plants Index
...Cultivation, Position, Use Index
...Shape, Form
Index


Topic -
Flower/Foliage Colour Wheel Galleries with number of colours as a high-level Plant Selection Process

All Flowers 53 with
...Use of Plant and
Flower Shape - page links in bottom row

All Foliage 53
instead of redundant
...(All Foliage 212)

All Flowers
per Month 12

Bee instead of wind pollinated plants for hay-fever sufferers
All Bee-Pollinated Flowers
per Month 12
...Index

Rock Garden and Alpine Flowers
Rock Plant Flowers 53 INDEX
A, B, C, D, E, F,
G, H, I, J, K, L,
M, NO, PQ, R, S,
T, UVWXYZ
...Rock Plant Photos

Flower Colour Wheel without photos, but with links to photos
12 Bloom Colours
per Month Index
...All Plants Index


Topic -
Use of Plant in your Plant Selection Process

Plant Colour Wheel Uses
with
1. Perfect general use soil is composed of 8.3% lime, 16.6% humus, 25% clay and 50% sand, and
2. Why you are continually losing the SOIL STRUCTURE so your soil - will revert to clay, chalk, sand or silt.
Uses of Plant and Flower Shape:-
...Foliage Only
...Other than Green Foliage
...Trees in Lawn
...Trees in Small Gardens
...Wildflower Garden
...Attract Bird
...Attract Butterfly
1, 2
...Climber on House Wall
...Climber not on House Wall
...Climber in Tree
...Rabbit-Resistant
...Woodland
...Pollution Barrier
...Part Shade
...Full Shade
...Single Flower provides Pollen for Bees
1, 2, 3
...Ground-Cover
<60cm
60-180cm
>180cm
...Hedge
...Wind-swept
...Covering Banks
...Patio Pot
...Edging Borders
...Back of Border
...Poisonous
...Adjacent to Water
...Bog Garden
...Tolerant of Poor Soil
...Winter-Flowering
...Fragrant
...Not Fragrant
...Exhibition
...Standard Plant is 'Ball on Stick'
...Upright Branches or Sword-shaped leaves
...Plant to Prevent Entry to Human or Animal
...Coastal Conditions
...Tolerant on North-facing Wall
...Cut Flower
...Potted Veg Outdoors
...Potted Veg Indoors
...Thornless
...Raised Bed Outdoors Veg
...Grow in Alkaline Soil A-F, G-L, M-R,
S-Z
...Grow in Acidic Soil
...Grow in Any Soil
...Grow in Rock Garden
...Grow Bulbs Indoors

Uses of Bedding
...Bedding Out
...Filling In
...Screen-ing
...Pots and Troughs
...Window Boxes
...Hanging Baskets
...Spring Bedding
...Summer Bedding
...Winter Bedding
...Foliage instead of Flower
...Coleus Bedding Photos for use in Public Domain 1

Uses of Bulb
...Other than Only Green Foliage
...Bedding or Mass Planting
...Ground-Cover
...Cut-Flower
...Tolerant of Shade
...In Woodland Areas
...Under-plant
...Tolerant of Poor Soil
...Covering Banks
...In Water
...Beside Stream or Water Garden
...Coastal Conditions
...Edging Borders
...Back of Border or Back-ground Plant
...Fragrant Flowers
...Not Fragrant Flowers
...Indoor
House-plant
...Grow in a Patio Pot
...Grow in an Alpine Trough
...Grow in an Alpine House
...Grow in Rock Garden
...Speciman Plant
...Into Native Plant Garden
...Naturalize in Grass
...Grow in Hanging Basket
...Grow in Window-box
...Grow in Green-house
...Grow in Scree
...Naturalized Plant Area
...Grow in Cottage Garden
...Attracts Butterflies
...Attracts Bees
...Resistant to Wildlife
...Bulb in Soil:-
......Chalk
......Clay
......Sand
......Lime-Free (Acid)
......Peat

Uses of Rose
Rose Index
...Bedding 1, 2
...Climber /Pillar
...Cut-Flower 1, 2
...Exhibition, Speciman
...Ground-Cover
...Grow In A Container 1, 2
...Hedge 1, 2
...Climber in Tree
...Woodland
...Edging Borders
...Tolerant of Poor Soil 1, 2
...Tolerant of Shade
...Back of Border
...Adjacent to Water
...Page for rose use as ARCH ROSE, PERGOLA ROSE, COASTAL CONDITIONS ROSE, WALL ROSE, STANDARD ROSE, COVERING BANKS or THORNLESS ROSES.
...FRAGRANT ROSES
...NOT FRAGRANT ROSES


Topic -
Camera Photo Galleries showing all 4000 x 3000 pixels of each photo on your screen that you can then click and drag it to your desktop as part of a Plant Selection Process:-

RHS Garden at Wisley
Plant Supports -
When supporting plants in a bed, it is found that not only do those plants grow upwards, but also they expand their roots and footpad sideways each year. Pages
1, 2, 3, 8, 11,
12, 13,
Plants 4, 7, 10,
Bedding Plants 5,
Plant Supports for Unknown Plants 5,
Clematis Climbers 6,
the RHS does not appear to either follow it's own pruning advice or advice from The Pruning of Trees, Shrubs and Conifers by George E. Brown.
ISBN 0-571-11084-3 with the plants in Pages 1-7 of this folder. You can see from looking at both these resources as to whether the pruning carried out on the remainder of the plants in Pages 7-15 was correct.
Narcissus (Daffodil) 9,
Phlox Plant Supports 14, 15

Coleus Bedding Foliage Trial - Pages
1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
31, 32, Index

National Trust Garden at Sissinghurst Castle
Plant Supports -
Pages for Gallery 1
with Plant Supports
1, 5, 10
Plants
 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9,
11, 12
Recommended Rose Pruning Methods 13
Pages for Gallery 2
with Plant Supports
2,
Plants 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Dry Garden of
RHS Garden at
Hyde Hall
Plants - Pages
without Plant Supports
Plants 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Nursery of
Peter Beales Roses
Display Garden
Roses Pages
1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 13

Nursery of
RV Roger
Roses - Pages
A1,A2,A3,A4,A5,
A6,A7,A8,A9,A10,
A11,A12,A13,A14,
B15,
B16,B17,B18,B19,
B20,
B21,B22,B23,B24,
B25,
B26,B27,B28,B29,
B30,
C31,C32,C33,C34,
C35,
C36,C37,C38,C39,
C40,
C41,CD2,D43,D44,
D45,
D46,D47,D48,D49,
E50,
E51,E52,F53,F54,
F55,
F56,F57,G58,G59,
H60,
H61,I62,K63,L64,
M65,
M66,N67,P68,P69,
P70,
R71,R72,S73,S74,
T75,
V76,Z77, 78,

Damage by Plants in Chilham Village - Pages
1, 2, 3, 4

Pavements of Funchal, Madeira
Damage to Trees - Pages
1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 13
for trees 1-54,
14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
for trees 55-95,
26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
31, 32, 33, 34, 35,
36, 37,
for trees 95-133,
38, 39, 40,
41, 42, 43, 44, 45,
for trees 133-166

Chris Garnons-Williams
Work Done - Pages
1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 13

Identity of Plants
Label Problems - Pages
1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11

Ron and Christine Foord - 1036 photos only inserted so far - Garden Flowers - Start Page of each Gallery
AB1 ,AN14,BA27,
CH40,CR52,DR63,
FR74,GE85,HE96,

Plant with Photo Index of Ivydene Gardens - 1187
A 1, 2, Photos - 43
B 1, Photos - 13
C 1, Photos - 35
D 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
Photos - 411
with Plants causing damage to buildings in Chilham Village and Damage to Trees in Pavements of Funchal
E 1, Photos - 21
F 1, Photos - 1
G 1, Photos - 5
H 1, Photos - 21
I 1, Photos - 8
J 1, Photos - 1
K 1, Photos - 1
L 1, Photos - 85
with Label Problems
M 1, Photos - 9
N 1, Photos - 12
O 1, Photos - 5
P 1, Photos - 54
Q 1, Photos -
R 1, 2, 3,
Photos - 229
S 1, Photos - 111
T 1, Photos - 13
U 1, Photos - 5
V 1, Photos - 4
W 1, Photos - 100
with Work Done by Chris Garnons-Williams
X 1 Photos -
Y 1, Photos -
Z 1 Photos -
Articles/Items in Ivydene Gardens - 88
Flower Colour, Num of Petals, Shape and
Plant Use of:-
Rock Garden
within linked page


Topic -
Fragrant Plants as a Plant Selection Process for your sense of smell:-
Sense of Fragrance from Roy Genders

Fragrant Plants:-
Trees and Shrubs with Scented Flowers
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Shrubs bearing Scented Flowers for an Acid Soil
1, 2, 3, 4
Shrubs bearing Scented Flowers for a
Chalky or Limestone Soil
1, 2, 3, 4
Shrubs bearing Scented leaves for a
Sandy Soil
1, 2, 3
Herbaceous Plants with Scented Flowers
1, 2, 3
Annual and Biennial Plants with Scented Flowers or Leaves
1, 2
Bulbs and Corms with Scented Flowers
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Scented Plants of Climbing and Trailing Habit
1, 2, 3
Winter-flowering Plants with Scented Flowers
1, 2
Night-scented Flowering Plants
1, 2


Topic -
Website User Guidelines

My Gas Service Engineer found Flow and Return pipes incorrectly positioned on gas boilers and customers had refused to have positioning corrected in 2020.

UKButterflies Larval Foodplants website page lists the larval foodplants used by British butterflies. The name of each foodplant links to a Google search. An indication of whether the foodplant is a primary or secondary food source is also given.

Please note that the Butterfly you see for only a short time has grown up on plants as an egg, caterpillar and chrysalis for up to 11 months, before becoming a butterfly. If the plants that they live on during that time are removed, or sprayed with herbicide, then you will not see the butterfly.
 

 

Sewage Pollution in the UK rivers and its surrounding Seas:-

This is being ignored by the UK Government, Local UK Government and Commerce, so again they will do nothing about this, and continue to ignore the death of the wildlife, marine life, the dairy, farming and fishing industries, together with the onland and ocean producers of oxygen during 2024.

Why not visit the UK and add your excrement to the increase of 102% of raw sewage spills into rivers and the seas in 2023 from 2022, while 240,000 new homes will be built each year without the future Labour or Conservative government stopping their excrement being offloaded into the sea to affect all the other countries surrounding us. If 92% of the seagrass has been smothered that means nowhere round the UK is either safe to swim in or for its fish and other marine life. The same could be said about the farmed salmon in the seas round Scotland and any fish caught in the rivers of the UK.

Ocean Pollution as reported by the Marine Conservation Society
Pollution has been reported to be one of the five main drivers of the current biodiversity crisis, threatening 37% of marine mammals with extinction:-

Marine pollution is diverse, from tiny fibres which shed from clothes, to chemicals washed down the sink. Pollutants, including plastic, chemicals and bacteria travel from our towns and cities to our seas, as well as from activities directly in our ocean.

If we don’t tackle pollution at source, these highly persistent chemicals and plastics will continue to increase in our ocean causing untold damage. That's where we come in.

 

------

 

Marine Conservation Society - Seagrass: The ocean superhero at risk from sewage:-Seagrass meadows are a key player in helping to combat climate change – but untreated sewage pollution in our seas is threatening their future.

Seagrass meadows are the Swiss army knife of marine habitats. They create hotspots for biodiversity and provide vital nursery habitats for various fish species.

Long seagrass blades buffer wave energy, protecting our shores against coastal erosion and storms. Their canopies slow the flow of water, drawing down suspended matter like pollutants and excess nutrients from the water column and burying it in the sediment below.

This also makes them one of the oldest and most effective carbon storage technologies, accounting for an estimated 10-18% of ocean carbon storage while occupying only 0.1% of the seafloor.

Unlike terrestrial habitats like forests, seagrass doesn't release the carbon it has captured back into the atmosphere when it decomposes. If undisturbed, seagrass can store carbon for thousands of years.

Seagrasses do a lot of heavy lifting in mitigating the stress that we inflict on the ocean. As ecosystem engineers, they’re skilled at adapting their environment to suit their needs. However, the flow of untreated sewage discharges into UK seas is posing a problem for seagrass.

Untreated sewage discharges contain excess nutrients and pathogens, which  encourage faster-growing macroalgae which reduce light availability and epiphytic algae which smother the seagrass leaves.

Research by Cardiff University and Swansea University indicates that insufficient monitoring and management of sewage and wastewater treatment threatens seagrass meadows around the UK.

Each of the 11 sites sampled in the study, ten of which were within marine protected areas, contained seagrass that was contaminated by nutrients “of a human and livestock waste origin”.

The findings show that sewage pollution is a stressor to seagrass – one whose effects are far-reaching and continues to have an impact far from its source.

The only effective way to protect seagrass and the whole marine environment from this stress is to tackle the issue at source.

We have already lost 92% of seagrass meadows in the UK, and their survival and recovery is further undermined by poor water quality. However, we can reverse this trend.

Removing stressors, such as untreated sewage pollution, is the most important factor in allowing seagrass to recover and we have seen seagrass successfully recolonise areas which were previously wiped out by sewage outfall.

Our seagrass meadows are an essential ally against global warming, a biodiversity crisis, and pervasive pollution. These superhero habitats need our help and a first major step towards this is to stop releasing untreated sewage into our seas.

 

---------

 

 

The sewage system is overflowing so that not only will your excrement go into the river and then the sea, but you will drink from that same river. Water for drinking purposes is processed from 10 places in the River Thames within London area, while 38,000,000 tons of waste is poured into that same River Thames from London annually, as well as the other 1000s of tons from the other polluters along the remainder of 215 miles.
The River Thames is 215 miles long (346 kilometres). It is split into 2 sections, tidal and non-tidal. The tidal part, which is affected by the North Sea's tides, runs for 68 miles (109 kilometres) from the mouth of the river to Teddington Lock in west London. Thus that 38,000,000 tons of waste can flow up and down 68 miles of the River Thames, so you could end up drinking your own p.

We must be grateful to the pensioners in America and Canada whose pension companies have shares in these bankrupt water companies for allowing those water companies to dump raw sewage into the rivers and thence the sea (Water companies in England have faced a barrage of criticism as data revealed raw sewage was discharged for more than 3.6m hours into rivers and seas last year in a 105% increase on the previous 12 months.).

 

-----------

 

 

When you wish to buy British grown vegetables and fruit, you will have a problem with many farms being forced to close within 12 months from November 2023.
The goverment is not following it's own laws or laws accepted from the European Union and put into British Law; to stop the supermarkets from closing down British Agriculture.
The Organic Milk Suppliers Cooperative is a cooperative of 500 British farmers who supply organically produced milk and dairy products to Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose, Safeway and Asda. This milk may be higher in Omega 3 and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) than non-organic milk. Omega 3 is essential for maintaining a healthy heart, supple and flexible joints, healthy growth and strong bones and teeth. CLA boosts immune function and reduces the growth of tumours. Non-organic milk may have pesticide residues which affects child health.
The National Farmers' Union claim that supermarkets have increased their share of the retail price of milk.

In 1995 a litre of milk cost 42.1p, of which 24.5p went to the farmer.

In 2005 a litre cost 50.9p, of which the farmers got only 18.5p.

 

------

Farmers fear food shortages caused by green schemes - they are warning that vegetables and grains could be next to the egg shortages as environmental schemes take large areas of land out of use for food production. Stephen Holt's main crop is winter wheat, but to ensure its success he grows a "break crop" of oil seed rape and beans between wheat harvests to break the cycle of weeds, diseases and pests and to improve soil health. He sells the break crops as a commercial product to make money on top of his wheat harvest.
Holt has now signed up for a new government subsidy to plant a legume cover crop instead of his break crops, which will help pollinators and soil health but will not be harvested for food production. "Instead of 1,300 tonnes of product, we will produce 900 tonnes of product from our farm" Holt said. "All our input prices are approximately 50% higher than before Putin invaded Ukraine but our arable crop prices are below where they were.

So, the government is getting the land for housebuilding by the backdoor, since the farmers will not be able to make a living.
It does not matter who wins the next election, they will build more houses with less water for each of them and all their sewage going out to sea. The phosphorus in human excrement kills algae producing oxygen in the sea and so we are slowly but surely rducing the oxygen we need to breathe to below safe levels and Thames Water investors are witholding £500,000,000 to get the sewage problem starting to be sorted until Thames Water forces its customers to pay more instead of currently in 2024 in dumping its sewage into the river Thames - See Table Waste of Time on Welcome Page

Topic - Wildlife on Plant Photo Gallery.

Some UK native butterflies eat material from UK Native Wildflowers and live on them as eggs, caterpillars (Large Skipper eats False Brome grass - Brachypodium sylvaticum - for 11 months from July to May as a Caterpillar before becoming a Chrysalis within 3 weeks in May) chrysalis or butterflies ALL YEAR ROUND.
Please leave a small area in your garden for wildflowers to grow without disturbance throughout the year for the benefit of butterflies, moths and other wildlife who are dependant on them.
Butterfly
Usage of Plants
by Egg, Caterpillar, Chrysalis and Butterfly

 

Topic -
Plant Photo Galleries for Wildflowers

There are 180 families in the Wildflowers of the UK and they have been split up into 22 Galleries to allow space for up to 100 plants per gallery.

Each plant named in each of the Wildflower Family Pages may have a link to:-

its Plant Description Page in its Common Name in one of those Wildflower Plant Galleries and will have links

to external sites to purchase the plant or seed in its Botanical Name,

to see photos in its Flowering Months and

to read habitat details in its Habitat Column.

 

Wild Flower Gallery
with its
flower colour comparison page,
space,
Site Map page in its flower colour
NOTE Gallery:-
...Blue Note
...Brown Note
...Cream Note
...Green Note
...Mauve Note
...Multi-Cols Note
...Orange Note
...Pink A-G Note
...Pink H-Z Note
...Purple Note
...Red Note
...White A-D Note
...White E-P Note
...White Q-Z Note
...Yellow A-G Note
...Yellow H-Z Note
...Shrub/Tree Note

Each of the above 17 Flower Colour Comparison Pages compares the wildflowers with that flower colour in the top section using the thumbnails of the ones that I have. This is followed by a list of all the Wildflowers of the UK that have that same flower colour.

Wild Flower Family Page

(the families within "The Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers" by David McClintock & R.S.R. Fitter, Published in 1956 are not in Common Name alphabetical order and neither are the common names of the plants detailed within each family.

The information in the above book is back-referenced to the respective page in "Flora of the British Isles" by A.R. Clapham of University of Sheffield,
T.G. Tutin of University College, Leicester and
E.F. Warburg of University of Oxford printed by Cambridge at the University Press in 1952 for each plant in all the families).

Plants used by the Butterflies follow the Plants used by the Egg, Caterpillar and Chrysalis as stated in
A Butterfly Book for the Pocket by Edmund Sandars.
Published by Oxford University Press London: Humphrey Milford in 1939.
 

Plant Name

Butterfly Name

Egg/ Caterpillar/ Chrysalis/ Butterfly

Plant Usage

Plant Usage Months

Alder Buckthorn

Brimstone

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg under leaf.

Eats leaves.
---

10 days in May-June
28 days.
12 days.

Aspen

Large Tortoiseshell

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches encircling the branch of the food plant.
Feeds on leaves.
Hangs suspended from stem.

Hatches after 18-22 days in April.
30 days in May
9 days in June.

Black Medic

Common Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

Groups of eggs on upper side of leaf.
Eats buds and flowers.


Base of food plant.

-
-
Spend winter at the base of the food plant. They resume feeding in March.
2 weeks

Common Birdsfoot Trefoil

Chalk-Hill Blue

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg at base of plant.
Eats leaves.
---

Late August-April
April-June
1 Month

Common Birdsfoot Trefoil

Common Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

Groups of eggs on upper side of leaf.
Eats buds and flowers.


Base of food plant.

-
-
Spend winter at the base of the food plant. They resume feeding in March.
2 weeks

Common Birdsfoot Trefoil

Wood White

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg laid on underside of leaflets or bracts.
Eats leaves.
---

7 days in June.

32 days in June-July.
July-May.

Bitter Vetch

Wood White

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg laid on underside of leaflets or bracts.
Eats leaves.
---

7 days in June.

32 days in June-July.
July-May.

Borage

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

1 egg laid under the leaf or on top of the flower.
Eats leaves, then before pupating it eats the bloom and leaves of the pansies.
---

7 days in August.

23 days in August-September.

3 weeks in September

Bramble

Holly Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

 

1 egg on underside of a flower bud on its stalk.
Eats flower bud.
---

 

7 days.

28-42 days.
18 days. Early September to Late April for second generation.

Buckthorn

Holly Blue

Egg,


Caterpillar
Chrysalis

 

1 egg on underside of a flower bud on its stalk.
Eats flower bud.
---


 

7 days.


28-42 days.
18 days. Early September to Late April for second generation.

Buckthorn -
Alder Buckthorn and Common Buckthorn

Brimstone

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg under leaf.

Eats leaves.
---

10 days in May-June.

28 days.
12 days.

Burdocks

Painted Lady

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

2 weeks
7-11days
7-11 days

Cabbages - Large White eats all cruciferous plants, such as cabbages, mustard, turnips, radishes, cresses, nasturtiums, wild mignonette and dyer's weed

Large White
 

Egg,


Caterpillar
Chrysalis

40-100 eggs on both surfaces of leaf.

Eats leaves.
---
 

May-June and August-Early September. 4.5-17 days.
30-32 days
14 days for May-June eggs, or overwinter till April

Cabbages

Small White

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on underside of leaf.

Eats leaves.
---
 

May-June and August. 7 days.
28 days
21 days for May-June eggs, or overwinter till March

Cabbages:-
Charlock,
Cuckoo Flower (Lady's Smock),
Hedge-Mustard,
Garlic-Mustard,
Yellow Rocket (Common Winter-Cress),
Watercress

Green-veined White

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis


 

1 egg on underside of leaf.

Eats leaves.
---


 

July or August; hatches in 3 days.
16 days.
14 days in July or for caterpillars of August, they overwinter till May.

Cabbages:-
Charlock,
Creeping Yellow-cress,
Cuckoo Flower (Lady's Smock),
Dame's Violet,
Hedge-Mustard,
Horseradish,
Garlic-Mustard,
Lady's Smock,
Large Bittercress,
Rock-cress (Common Winter-Cress),
Yellow Rocket (Common Winter-Cress),
Watercress,
Wild Turnip

Orange Tip

Egg,

Caterpillar

Chrysalis

1 egg laid in the tight buds and flowers.
Eats leaves, buds, flowers and especially the seed pods.
---

May-June 7 days.

June-July 24 days.

August-May

Cherry with
Wild Cherry,
Morello Cherry and
Bird Cherry

Large Tortoiseshell

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches encircling the branch of the food plant.
Feeds on leaves.
Hangs suspended from stem.

Hatches after 18-22 days in April.
30 days in May.
9 days in June.

Clovers 1, 2, 3

Common Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

Groups of eggs on upper side of leaf.
Eats buds and flowers.


Base of food plant.

-
-
Spend winter at the base of the food plant. They resume feeding in March.
2 weeks.

Clovers 1, 2, 3

Pale Clouded Yellow

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.

 

10 days in May-June.
July-August.
17 days in August-September.

Clovers 1, 2, 3

Clouded Yellow

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.
 

6 days in May-June.
30 days.
18 days in July-August.

Cocksfoot is a grass

Large Skipper

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg under leaf.
Eats leaves.
---


11 Months
3 weeks from May

Cow-wheat

(Common CowWheat, Field CowWheat)

Heath Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches on the under side of the leaves.
Feeds on leaves until end of August. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats young leaves until June.
---

Hatches after 16 days in June.
June-April



25 days in June.

Currants
(Red Currant,
Black Currant and Gooseberry)

Comma

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Groups of eggs on upper side of leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

 

Devilsbit Scabious

Marsh Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches on the under side of the leaves.
Feeds on leaves until late August. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats leaves until May.
---

Hatches after 20 days in July.
July-May.



15 days in May.

Dog Violet with
Common Dog Violet,
Heath Dog Violet and
Wood Dog Violet

Silver-washed Fritillary

Egg,
Caterpillar



Chrysalis

1 egg on oak or pine tree trunk
Hibernates in a crevice in the bark of the tree trunk.
Moves out of tree to eat Dog Violet leaves.
On rock or twig.

15 days in July.
August-March.

March-May.

Late June-July

Dog Violet with
Common Dog Violet,
Heath Dog Violet and
Wood Dog Violet

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf or stem.

Feeds on leaves until July. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats young leaves until May.
---

Hatches after 15 days in May-June.
July-May.



9 days in June.

Dog Violet with
Common Dog Violet,
Heath Dog Violet and
Wood Dog Violet

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf or stem.

Feeds on leaves until July. Hibernates in dead leaves until March. Eats young leaves until April.
---

Hatches after 10 days in May-June.
June-April



April-June.

Dogwood

Holly Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

 

1 egg on underside of a flower bud on its stalk.
Eats flower bud.
---

 

7 days.

28-42 days.
18 days. Early September to Late April for second generation.

Elm and Wych Elm

Large Tortoiseshell

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches encircling the branch of the food plant.
Feeds on leaves.
Hangs suspended from stem.

Hatches after 18-22 days in April.
30 days in May.
9 days in June.

False Brome is a grass (Wood Brome, Wood False-brome and Slender False-brome)

Large Skipper

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg under leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

...
11 Months
3 weeks from May

Foxglove

Marsh Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches on the under side of the leaves.
Feeds on leaves until late August. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats leaves until May.
---

Hatches after 20 days in July.
July-May



15 days in May.

Fyfield Pea

Wood White

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg laid on underside of leaflets or bracts.
Eats leaves.
---

7 days in June.

32 days in June-July.
July-May.

Garden Pansy

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf or stem.
Feeds on leaves until July. Hibernates in dead leaves until March. Eats young leaves until April.
---

Hatches after 10 days in May-June.
June-April


April-June.

Gorse

Holly Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

 

1 egg on underside of a flower bud on its stalk.
Eats flower bud.
---

 

7 days.

28-42 days.
18 days. Early September to Late April for second generation.

Heartsease

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

1 egg laid under the leaf or on top of the flower.
Eats leaves, then before pupating it eats the bloom and leaves of the pansies.
---

7 days in August.

23 days in August-September.

3 weeks in September

Hogs's Fennel

Swallowtail

Egg,


Caterpillar


Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf. 5 or 6 eggs may be deposited by separate females on one leaf.
Eats leaves, and moves to stems of sedges or other fen plants before pupating.
---

14 days in July-August.


August-September.


September-May.

Holly

Holly Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

 

1 egg on underside of a flower bud on its stalk.
Eats flower bud.
---

 

7 days.

28-42 days.
18 days. Early September to Late April for second generation.

Honesty
(Lunaria biennis)

Orange Tip

Egg,

Caterpillar

Chrysalis

1 egg laid in the tight buds and flowers.
Eats leaves, buds, flowers and especially the seed pods.
---

May-June 7 days.

June-July 24 days.

August-May

Honeysuckle

Marsh Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches on the under side of the leaves.
Feeds on leaves until late August. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats leaves until May.
---

Hatches after 20 days in July.
July-May.



15 days in May.

Hop

Comma

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Groups of eggs on upper side of leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

 

Horseshoe vetch

Adonis Blue




Chalk-Hill Blue


Berger's Clouded Yellow

Egg,
Caterpillar

Chrysalis

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Egg,


Caterpillar

Chrysalis

1 egg under leaf.
Eats leaves.

---

1 egg at base of plant.
Eats leaves.
---

1 egg on leaf.


Eats leaves.

---

1 then
June-March or September to July
3 weeks.

Late August-April.
April-June
1 Month

8-10 days in Late May-June or Middle August-September
June-July or September to October
8-15 days

Ivy

Holly Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

 

1 egg on underside of a flower bud on its stalk.
Eats flower bud.
---

 

7 days.

28-42 days.
18 days. Early September to Late April for second generation.

Kidney Vetch

Chalk-Hill Blue

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis
Butterfly

1 egg at base of plant.
Eats leaves.
---
Eats nectar.

Late August-April.
April-June
1 Month
20 days

Lucerne

Pale Clouded Yellow



Clouded Yellow

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis


Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.



1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

10 days in May-June.
July-August.
17 days in August-September.

6 days in May-June.
30 days.
18 days in July-August.

Mallows

Painted Lady

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

2 weeks
7-11days
7-11 days

Melilot

Clouded Yellow

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.
 

6 days in May-June.
30 days.
18 days in July-August.

Mignonettes

Small White

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on underside of leaf.

Eats leaves.
---
 

May-June and August. 7 days.
28 days
21 days for May-June eggs, or overwinter till March

Milk Parsley

Swallowtail

Egg,


Caterpillar


Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf. 5 or 6 eggs may be deposited by separate females on one leaf.
Eats leaves, and moves to stems of sedges or other fen plants before pupating.
---

14 days in July-August.


August-September


September-May

Narrow-leaved Plantain (Ribwort Plantain)

Heath Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches on the under side of the leaves.
Feeds on leaves until end of August. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats young leaves until June.
---

Hatches after 16 days in June.
June-April.



25 days in June.

Narrow-leaved Plantain (Ribwort Plantain)

Glanville Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches on the under side of the leaves.
Feeds on leaves until middle of August. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats leaves until April-May.
---

Hatches after 16 days in June.
June-April.



25 days in April-May.

Nasturtium from Gardens

Small White

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on underside of leaf.

Eats leaves.
---
 

May-June and August. 7 days.
28 days.
21 days for May-June eggs, or overwinter till March

Oak Tree

Silver-washed Fritillary

Egg,
Caterpillar



Chrysalis

1 egg on tree trunk
Hibernates in a crevice in the bark of the tree trunk.
Moves out of tree to eat Dog Violet leaves.
On rock or twig.

15 days in July.
August-March.

March-May.

Late June-July

Mountain pansy,
Seaside Pansy,
Field Pansy and Cultivated Pansy.
 

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar

 

Chrysalis

1 egg laid under the leaf or on top of the flower.
Eats leaves of borage, sainfoin and heartsease, then before pupating it eats the bloom and leaves of the pansies.
---

7 days in August.

23 days in August-September
 

3 weeks in September

Pine Tree

Silver-washed Fritillary

Egg,
Caterpillar



Chrysalis

1 egg on tree trunk.
Hibernates in a crevice in the bark of the tree trunk.
Moves out of tree to eat Dog Violet leaves.
On rock or twig.

15 days in July.
August-March.

March-May.

Late June-July

Plantains

Marsh Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches on the under side of the leaves.
Feeds on leaves until late August. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats leaves until May.
---

Hatches after 20 days in July.
July-May



15 days in May.

Poplar

Large Tortoiseshell

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches encircling the branch of the food plant.
Feeds on leaves.
Hangs suspended from stem.

Hatches after 18-22 days in April.
30 days in May.
9 days in June.

Restharrow

Common Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

Groups of eggs on upper side of leaf.
Eats buds and flowers.


Base of food plant.

-
-
Spend winter at the base of the food plant. They resume feeding in March.
2 weeks

Rock-rose

Brown Argus

Egg,
Caterpillar

1 egg under leaf.
Eats leaves.

 

Sainfoin

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

1 egg laid under the leaf or on top of the flower.
Eats leaves, then before pupating it eats the bloom and leaves of the pansies.
---

7 days in August.

23 days in August-September

3 weeks in September

Common Sallow (Willows, Osiers)

Large Tortoiseshell

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches encircling the branch of the food plant.
Feeds on leaves.
Hangs suspended from stem

Hatches after 18-22 days in April.
30 days in May.
9 days in June.

Sea Plantain

Glanville Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches on the under side of the leaves.
Feeds on leaves until middle of August. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats leaves until April-May.
---

Hatches after 16 days in June.
June-April



25 days in April-May.

Snowberry

Holly Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

 

1 egg on underside of a flower bud on its stalk.
Eats flower bud.
---
 

7 days.

28-42 days.
18 days. Early September to Late April for second generation.

Spindle-tree

Holly Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

 

1 egg on underside of a flower bud on its stalk.
Eats flower bud.
---

 

7 days.

28-42 days.
18 days. Early September to Late April for second generation.

Stinging Nettle

Comma




Painted Lady



Peacock

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Egg
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Egg,


Caterpillar

Chrysalis

Groups of eggs on upper side of leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

Dense mass of 450-500 eggs on the under side of leaves over a 2 hour period.
Eats leaves, and moves to another plant before pupating.
---






2 weeks in June.
7-11 days.
7-11 days.

14 days in April-May.


28 days.

13days.

Storksbill

Brown Argus

Egg,
Caterpillar

1 egg under leaf.
Eats leaves.

 

Thistles

Painted Lady

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

2 weeks
7-11days
7-11 days

Trefoils 1, 2, 3

Clouded Yellow

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.
 

6 days in May-June.
30 days.
18 days in July-August.

Vetches

Common Blue

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

Groups of eggs on upper side of leaf.
Eats buds and flowers.


Base of food plant.

-
-
Spend winter at the base of the food plant. They resume feeding in March.
2 weeks

Vetches

Wood White

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg laid on underside of leaflets or bracts.
Eats leaves.
---

7 days in June.

32 days in June-July.
July-May.

Violets:-
Common Dog Violet,
Hairy Violet,
Heath Dog-violet
Pale Dog violet
Sweet Violet

Dark Green Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar


Chrysalis

1 egg on underside of leaf or on stalk.
Hibernates where it hatches.
Eats leaves.

Base of food plant.

July-August for 17 days.

Spends winter on plant until end of March. Eats leaves until end of May.
4 weeks.

Violets:-
Common Dog Violet,
Hairy Violet,
Heath Dog-violet
Pale Dog violet
Sweet Violet

High Brown Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar

Chrysalis

1 egg on stem or stalk near plant base.
Feed on young leaves, stalks and stems
---

July to hatch in 8 months in March.
9 weeks ending in May.

4 weeks

Vipers Bugloss

Painted Lady

Egg,
Caterpillar
Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf.
Eats leaves.
---

2 weeks.
7-11days.
7-11 days

Whitebeam
(White Beam)

Large Tortoiseshell

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches encircling the branch of the food plant.
Feeds on leaves.
Hangs suspended from stem.

Hatches after 18-22 days in April.
30 days in May.
9 days in June.

Wild Angelica

Swallowtail

Egg,


Caterpillar


Chrysalis

1 egg on leaf. 5 or 6 eggs may be deposited by separate females on one leaf.
Eats leaves, and moves to stems of sedges or other fen plants before pupating.
---

14 days in July-August.


August-September.


September-May

Willow
(Bay Willow)

Large Tortoiseshell

Egg,

Caterpillar
Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches encircling the branch of the food plant.
Feeds on leaves.
Hangs suspended from stem.

Hatches after 18-22 days in April.
30 days in May.
9 days in June.

Wood-Sage

Marsh Fritillary

Egg,

Caterpillar



Chrysalis

Eggs laid in batches on the under side of the leaves.
Feeds on leaves until late August. Hibernates on dead leaves until March. Eats leaves until May.
---

Hatches after 20 days in July.
July-May.



15 days in May.

 

Plants used by the Butterflies

Plant Name

Butterfly Name

Egg/ Caterpillar/ Chrysalis/ Butterfly

Plant Usage

Plant Usage Months

Asters
in gardens

Comma

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

 

Runner and Broad Beans in fields and gardens

Large White


Small White

Butterfly

Eats nectar

April-June or July-September.

March-May or June-September

Aubretia in gardens

Clouded Yellow

Butterfly

Eats nectar

May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November

Birch

Holly Blue

Butterfly

Eats sap exuding from trunk.

April-Mid June and Mid July-Early September for second generation.

Common Birdsfoot Trefoil

Chalk-Hill Blue

Wood White

Marsh Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

20 days.


May-June.

30 days in May-June.

Bitter Vetch

Wood White

Butterfly

Eats nectar

May-June

Bluebell

Holly Blue




Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

April-Mid June and Mid July-Early September for second generation.


June.



June-August.

Bramble

Comma

Silver-washed Fritillary

High Brown Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

July-October.

7 weeks in July-August.



June-August

Buddleias
in gardens

Comma

Peacock

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

July-October.

July-May

Bugle

Wood White

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Heath Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

May-June.

June.



June-August.



June-July.

Cabbage and cabbages in fields

Large White


Small White


Green-veined White

Orange Tip

Butterfly

Eats nectar

April-June or July-September.

March-May or June-September.

A Month during May-June or second flight in late July-August.

May-June for 18 days.

Charlock

Painted Lady

Butterfly

Eats nectar

July-October

Clovers 1, 2, 3

Adonis Blue



Chalk-Hill Blue

Painted Lady

Peacock

Large White


Small White

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

1 Month during Mid-May to Mid-June or during August-September

20 days in August.


July-October.

July-May.

April-June or July-September.

March-May or June-September

Clovers 1, 2, 3

Pale Clouded Yellow


Clouded Yellow


Berger's Clouded Yellow


Queen of Spain Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November

May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November.

1 Month in May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November.

May-September.

Cow-wheat
(Common CowWheat, Field CowWheat)

Heath Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

June-July

Cuckoo Flower (Lady's Smock)

Wood White

Butterfly

Eats nectar

May-June

Dandelion

Holly Blue



Marsh Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

April-Mid June and Mid July-Early September for second generation.

30 days in May-June.

Fleabanes

Common Blue

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

3 weeks between May and September

Germander Speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys - Birdseye Speedwell)

Heath Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

June-July

Greater Knapweed

Comma

Peacock

Clouded Yellow


Brimstone

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

July-October.

July-May.

May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November.

12 months

Hawkbit

Marsh Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

30 days in May-June.

Heartsease

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

May-September

Hedge Parsley

Orange Tip

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

May-June for 18 days.

Hemp agrimony

Comma

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

July-October

Horseshoe vetch

Adonis Blue

Chalk-Hill Blue

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

1 Month.

20 days

Ivy

Painted Lady

Brimstone

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

Hibernates during winter months in its foliage.

July-October.

October-July

Lucerne

Painted Lady

Large White


Small White


Pale Clouded Yellow


Clouded Yellow


Berger's Clouded Yellow

Butterfly

Eats nectar

July-October.

April-June or July-September.

March-May or June-September

May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November.

May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November.

1 Month in May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November

Marigolds in gardens

Clouded Yellow

Butterfly

Eats nectar

May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November

Marjoram

Adonis Blue



Chalk-Hill Blue

Common Blue

Clouded Yellow

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

1 Month during Mid-May to Mid-June or during August-September.

20 days in August.


3 weeks in May-September.

May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November

Michaelmas Daisies
in gardens

Comma

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

July-October

Mignonettes

Large White


Small White

Butterfly

Eats nectar

April-June or July-September.

March-May or June-September

Narrow-leaved Plantain (Ribwort Plantain)

Heath Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

June-July

Nasturtiums in gardens

Large White


Small White

Butterfly

Eats nectar

April-June or July-September

March-May or June-September

Oak Tree

Holly Blue

Butterfly

Eats sap exuding from trunk.

April-Mid June and Mid July-Early September for second generation.

Primroses

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

June.



June-August.

Ragged Robin

Wood White

Heath Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

May-June.

June-July.

Scabious

Painted Lady

Peacock

Butterfly

Eats nectar

July-October.

July-May

Sedum

Peacock

Butterfly

Eats nectar

July-May

Teasels

Silver-washed Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

7 weeks in July-August.

Thistles -
Creeping Thistle, Dwarf Thistle, Marsh Thistle, Meadow Thistle, Melancholy Thistle, Milk Thistle,
Musk Thistle, Seaside Thistle, Scotch Thistle, Spear Thistle, Tuberous Thistle, Welted Thistle, Woolly Thistle

Comma

Painted Lady

Peacock

Swallowtail

Clouded Yellow


Brimstone

Silver-washed Fritillary

High Brown Fritillary

Dark Green Fritillary

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

July-October.

July-October.

July-May.

May-July.

May-June or August till killed by frost and damp in September-November.

12 months.

7 weeks in July-August



June-August.


July-August for 6 weeks.


May-September.



June-August.

Thymes

Common Blue

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

3 weeks between May and September

Trefoils 1, 2, 3

Adonis Blue



Chalk-Hill Blue

Glanville Fritillary

Butterfly

 

Eats nectar.
 

1 Month during Mid-May to Mid-June or during August-September

20 days in August.


June-July

Vetches

Chalk-Hill Blue

Glanville Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar.

20 days in August.


June-July.

Violets

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

June.



June-August.

Wood-Sage

Heath Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats nectar

June-July

Apple/Pear/Cherry/Plum Fruit Tree Blossom in Spring

Peacock

Butterfly

Eats Nectar

April-May

Rotten Fruit

Peacock

Butterfly

Drinks juice

July-September

Tree sap and damaged ripe fruit, which are high in sugar

Large Tortoiseshell

Butterfly

Hibernates inside hollow trees or outhouses until March. Eats sap or fruit juice until April.

10 months in June-April

Wild Flowers

Large Skipper

Brimstone

Silver-washed Fritillary.

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Butterfly

Eats Nectar

June-August


12 months.

7 weeks in July-August.



May-September

Links to the other Butterflies:-

Black Hairstreak
Brown Hairstreak
Camberwell Beauty
Chequered Skipper
Dingy Skipper
Duke of Burgundy
Essex Skipper
Gatekeeper
Grayling
Green Hairstreak
Grizzled Skipper
Hedge Brown
Large Blue
Large Heath
Long-tailed Blue
Lulworth Skipper
Marbled White
Mazarine Blue
Meadow Brown
Monarch
Northern Brown Argus
Purple Emperor
Purple Hairstreak
Red Admiral
Ringlet
Scotch Argus
Short-tailed Blue
Silver-spotted Skipper
Silver-studded Blue
Small Copper
Small Heath
Small Mountain Ringlet
Small Skipper
Small Tortoiseshell
Speckled Wood
Wall Brown
White Admiral
White-letter Hairstreak

Topic - Wildlife on Plant Photo Gallery.

Some UK native butterflies eat material from UK Native Wildflowers and live on them as eggs, caterpillars (Large Skipper eats False Brome grass - Brachypodium sylvaticum - for 11 months from July to May as a Caterpillar before becoming a Chrysalis within 3 weeks in May) chrysalis or butterflies ALL YEAR ROUND.
Please leave a small area in your garden for wildflowers to grow without disturbance throughout the year for the benefit of butterflies, moths and other wildlife who are dependant on them.
Butterfly
Usage of Plants
by Egg, Caterpillar, Chrysalis and Butterfly

Wild Flower Family Page

(the families within "The Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers" by David McClintock & R.S.R. Fitter, Published in 1956

They are not in Common Name alphabetical order and neither are the common names of the plants detailed within each family.
These families within that book will have their details described in alphabetical order for both the family name and its plants.

The information in the above book is back-referenced to the respective page in "Flora of the British Isles" by A.R. Clapham of University of Sheffield,
T.G. Tutin of University College, Leicester and
E.F. Warburg of University of Oxford. Printed by Cambridge at the University Press in 1952 for each plant in all the families)

 

My Comments about the proposed
destruction of the wildlife habitats at Cobtree Manor Park in the summer of 2010

Cobtree Manor Park is where I and my friend used to take her dog for a 2 hour walk every week. See Map Cobtree Manor Park and Cobtree Manor 18 hole Public Golf Course (1golf.eu picture shows the golf course with its fairways to the left of the point 2/3rds across the picture from the left, with 2 grassed areas dotted with trees behind a hedge of trees above that golf course - that area is where people walk their dogs) occupy 50 acres of parkland displaying a diverse and maturing collection of trees and shrubs. I would be surprised if Cobtree Manor Park grassed area occupied more than 6 of those 50 acres. The Park Ranger and Maidstone Borough Council have decided that every dog will be put on a lead at this public place with no method of allowing that dog any exercise unless the owners can run with the dog under their byelaws of 1998.

Cobtree Manor Park
To reduce dating in the woods of Cobtree Manor Park (seen as the top right section of the 1golf.eu picture below the Industrial Estates) and to improve the amenities, The Cobtree Officer of Maidstone Borough Council, King Street, Maidstone, Kent. ME15 6JQ has produced a Draft Master Plan and is requesting comments to be forwarded to that Cobtree Officer by noon on Friday 16 April 2010. A copy of the plan is available at Cobtree Manor Cafe for inspection and from this link. As of 9 April the local dog walking area has been moved to the furthest point away from the car park at the end of the woods and notices have been put up showing dogs on leads instead of roaming free.
"The Master Plan sets out a number of improvements which should increase the number of visitors to the park whilst maintaining its heritage and many of its delightful rural features.
Cobtree Manor Park was bequeethed to the people of Maidstone by the late Sir Garrard Tyrewhitt-Drake. Maidstone Borough Council maintains the park as public open space and may, with the consent of the Cobtree Charity and Kent County Council, provide additional facilities for the benefit of the people of Maidstone and other members of the general public.
The master plan proposes a number of new facilities and the council would like to hear your views on each, as well as your views on the overall scheme. Please complete the table overleaf and return it as indicated by noon on Friday 16 April 2010.
Your comments and contributions will be considered carefully by the council, and will help us develop the park in a way which reflects your wishes." from the Cobtree Manor Park - Questionnaire. Written comments on paper should be sent to the Cobtree Officer Brian Latimer or emailed to him at brianlatimer@maidstone.gov.uk and must be in by Friday 16th April 2010.

 

My Comments
It is noted that notices in the park have been requesting members of the untrained public to assist in pruning and clearing in the park. This they have done under the supervision of the staff; to the extent that most of the undergrowth under the trees has been cleared allowing the wind to blow straight through and the loud noise of the motorway to reach the other end of the park. We can now see the Industrial Estate of Aylesford, which we could not before.
In doing this clearing, we did point out to the staff a large area of Tuberous Comfrey which was in a thicket by the Old Iron Gates leading to the hill with the Elephant House on it. The thicket has now been pruned, the Tuberous Comfrey been trampled on and is no longer visible. From Derby City Council Flora of Derbyshire "Tuberous Comfrey is a very rare casual perennial of waysides and rough ground. In recent times, only four locations have been reported, all in lowland, southern and eastern parts of the county (Allen Wood SK3175; Scarcliffe SK4968; Brook Farm SK3027, near Caldwell SK2618). While certainly indigenous to northern Britain, an older record from Crich (SK35) for 1913 has been taken to suggest the plant was once also native to Derbyshire (Clapham 1969)." The proposed rerouting of the Bridle Path to behind the existing pond at the top of the hill with the Elephant House on it would destroy another area of Tuberous Comfrey and trample over a small cemetery of little animals. "It grows wild in European woodlands in damp, dappled shade, & along riverbanks. In the garden it requires persistent moisture & falls flat on a hot dry day, though it won't be as sickly as it momentarily appears & a good ground-soaking perks it right up. So long as it does not experience drought, it will adapt to a wide range of soil conditions from loamy to sandy to clayey, with pH ranging from a bit acidic to a bit alkaline." from paghat.com. Drought will now occur where it was by the Old Iron Gates since the thicket has been "pruned".
We would be sorry to lose the butterflies on the bluebells, bramble and ivy that would be restricted to only the very small area of proposed Wildlife Meadow by the Woods at the bottom of a hill with water springs on it. The wildlife is now being excluded from all the other areas by the "pruning", so that the nettles, brambles etc which had for instance the butterfly life cycle included; are now being ruthlessly removed to create a garden, not a park, with neat little areas. Hopefully the remaining rabbits might be housetrained to mow the grass in rows!

The proposed rerouting of the Bridle Path would also disturb the declining numbers of Great Crested Newts who use that pond.
The proposed Local Dog Walking Area has been placed furthest from the Park Car Park on a 45 degree sloped part of the wood where either badgers or foxes have had their set or lair, with a muddy horizontal path through it, and trampling on the orchids if one strays from that 30 yard length path to use the full area of slope. This Local Dog Walking Area is located in the 3rd Thick line of trees from the right hand side of the bottom of the 1golf.eu picture and you may have the added benefit of being hit by straying golf balls. Since 80% of the people who walk in the area from those Iron Gates up to the Pond and through the grassed areas are walking their dogs, it is assumed that implementing the proposed Master Plan will involve having to either carry their dogs to the Local Dog Walking Area or have them on short leads to that area. At 61 and my friend being 27 years older than me, we would not be strong enough to carry the dog, and we would be sorry to lose the facility to have the bitch unleashed as we can at the moment in all of the Cobtree Manor Park. As of April 9th this Local Dog walking Area has been moved to the furthest point away from the Golf Club house but still within range of stray golf balls.
Lizzie is a P.A.T. Dog (Pets as Therapy Dog), who looks forward to the exercise in the Park on the days either side of when she visits and comforts the sick in Rochester. "Pets As Therapy is a national charity founded in 1983. It is unique in that it provides therapeutic visits to hospitals, hospices, nursing and care homes, special needs schools and a variety of other venues by volunteers with their own friendly, temperament tested and vaccinated dogs and cats. Since its beginning over 23,000 P.A.T. dogs have been registered into the Pets As Therapy scheme. Every year some of these retire and new dogs, having first been examined and passed on health, temperament, suitability and stability grounds, join Pets As Therapy." It would be a shame to stop this beneficial exercise for a working 14 year old Border Collie.
It is interesting that a lake is proposed that close to the Cafe, with the likelihood of flies pestering the eaters. Presumably the water in it would come from the public mains supply. Why not have used the water from the springs on the hill with the Elephant House on it and the water draining past the old Iron Gates into the ditch beyond? Line the end of the ditch with a pond liner and have the water being used by the rapidly disappearing rabbits and squirrels. The Island beds of Trees and Shrubs with nettles and brambles used to provide shelter from the dogs and people, but these are now being "pruned" to leave no shelter, but it does make it easier to use a tractor mower near them. This lake would be the other side of the Car Park, thus distracting the flies from crossing to the Cafe or Exhibition Areas. The staff did point out to us on the 9th of April an improvement for the wildlife by weaving the cut down branches through the 2 rails and post fence between the park and the golf course with the intention of allowing the bramble to grow through it. I am grateful for the superior knowledge of these staff who consider that rotting timber will not rot the rails of a wooden fence and nor will the bramble - entwined in those rotting branches stopping the wind from going through the space between those rails - not cause those rails to be broken, but we must be grateful for the short time within the life cycle of the butterfly that they will be able to use this facility before the cycle is ended in the autumn/winter clearout and them being shredded.
The Raised Cycle Path in the bottom woods does not seem to have a large enough width to allow ambulances to come and take away the cyclists who have fallen off it. This Cycle Path is at the other end of the woods, so how are you going to stop the cyclists from cycling in the wood, round all the proposed new pathways or on the grass between the car park and the woods, which they have done during the week from the 9th to the 16th April? Shame about the wild flora that might be growing there with its wildlife isn't it? Is Mote Park in Maidstone not big enough for the cyclists?
The new paths up the hill to the rest of the grassed areas may exceed the maximum gradient required for wheelchairs, perhaps those people could be catered for?
One of the walkers we met did say that "Kent County Council now has a policy of banning dogs from public places" and that this might be the policy here?
Since a majority of Cobtree Manor Park has been allocated to the Golf Course in the 1960's, could we not still have a larger area than 30 yards of muddy track to walk the dog who is assisting us?
Leave the area beyond the old Iron Gates to the walkers and people in wheelchairs to have restful walks, and put the children in the remaining area with its woods below it instead of them being allowed to cycle round the entire park. Fence that area off to prevent 4x4s from driving in circles on the grass for their fun, which they did last year, from the Old Iron Gates to the Road by the Entrance, and up from the gates through the cleared woods to stop the access there with metal security fencing or concrete anti-tank bollards. Lock those gates, so that only the staff can get through in vehicles to mow the grass, collect the litter or maintain the trees/shrubbery. Kent Wildlife Trust is across the road from the Golf Course and could assist in plants/wildflower meadows/ponds to create a more friendly place for wildlife and for us to study it with their information about the flora and wildlife - badgers, squirrels, butterflies, great crested newt, tuberous comfrey in the Llama Barn. The current policy of "pruning" everything kills off any overwintering wildlife (caterpillars etc) when put through the shredder - if only 1/3 of the area was tackled each year by getting rid of dead, damaged or diseased material, and then the crossing branches, the wildlife like the badgers might survive by migrating to another part of the park every 2 years. The pruned branches could be put in heaps by the boundary shrubbery to provide material for wildlife like Staghorn beetles. This would also leave the undergowth alone for 2 years, which would reduce the noise from the motorway, the wind howling through and provide shelter for the wildlife from the humans passing by or through that area. The flora could be noted and notices put up to show it to the public, rather than them trampling all over it in the woods, boundary shrubbery or island beds for at least half of the remaining part of the Cobtree Manor Park, when you consider how much has been given of the estate to the few who play golf.

Since there have only been 2 visitors to this site who have emailed me in the last 2 years, the above comments may be a waste of time, since written comments on paper to the Cobtree Officer Brian Latimer or emailed to him at brianlatimer@maidstone.gov.uk must be in by Friday 16th April 2010 and not emailed to me.

 

 

---------

 

 

The following is an excerpt from my Comments about the proposed destruction of the wildlife habitats at Cobtree Manor Park in the summer of 2010 from the bottom part of my Mission Statement page
and repeated above:-

"We would be sorry to lose the butterflies on the bluebells, bramble and ivy that would be restricted to only the very small area of proposed Wildlife Meadow by the Woods at the bottom of a hill with water springs on it. The wildlife is now being excluded from all the other areas by the "pruning", so that the nettles, brambles etc which had for instance the butterfly life cycle included; are now being ruthlessly removed to create a garden, not a park, with neat little areas."

The life and death of a flailed cornish hedge was repeated at Cobtree Manor Park,

  • by removing all ground weed and scrub to make it look pretty, instead of using a flail to create the damage;
  • to deprive the wildlife of anywhere to live or to eat.
  • This process is being repeated in every public space in the UK, and
    people wonder why you do not see any birds or butterflies.

    It is because of ignorance and greed of the UK Government and UK Local Government,
    who are steadily killing all wildlife partly by depriving it of its habitat,
    or if that does work,
    then the UK pours
    • million of tons of chemical, raw sewage and other pollutants into its rivers to
      kill the river wildlife,
      infect the farmed animals who drink it and
    • thence to the sea surrounding it to
      kill the marine life there.
    • In the not distant future, they might wonder why they cannot breathe anymore.
      The       ocean provides roughly half of the oxygen production on Earth,
      that we breathe and
      burn up using cars, lorries, buses, ships and aeroplanes as well as by humans.
      If we continue to kill those organisms making that oxygen,
      then we will find it hard to breathe in non-existent oxygen.
      Visitors to the UK will add to this pollution and so the UK population will die in a reduced time period.

      Minor point -
      Since neither the UK government, UK Local government or the Commerce involved have actuall done anything but say and write words,
      then
      as long as they can con the UK population into continuing paying them,
      then they can continue this inaction and
      there is nothing that the UK population can do about it as shown in the       Welcome Page.

When you look at the life history graphs of each of the 68 butterflies of Britain, you will see that they use plants throughout all 12 months - the information of what plant is used by the egg, caterpillar, chrysalis or butterfly is also given in the above first column.
With this proposed removal of all plants required for butterflies etc to live in and pro-create; at least once a year by the autumn or spring clearing up, you destroy the wildlife in this park as is done in every managed park in the world.
Please leave something for the wildlife to live in without disturbance; rather than destroy everything so children can ride their bicycles anywhere they want when the park is open during the day and they are not at school.

 

 

---------

 

 

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A FLAILED CORNISH HEDGE - This details that life and death from July 1972 to 2019, with the following result:-
"Of the original 186 flowering species (including sub-species), the 5 colour forms and the 8 unconfirmed species, (193 flowering species in total) only 55 have persisted throughout the 35 years of flailing since 1972. Of these 55 species:-
3 species are unchanged.
11 species have disastrously increased.
41 species are seriously reduced in number, most by over 90%. Of these, 18 are now increasing under the somewhat lighter flailing regime. 13 are still decreasing, and 35 have only a few specimens (from 1-12 plants) left.
Of the rest of the original species:-
37 species and 3 colour forms have disappeared, then reappeared after varying lengths of time. Of these, 20 have fewer than 6 plants, most of them only 1 or 2, and are liable to disappear again. Only 6 of the recovered species look capable of surviving in the longer term.
23 species have reappeared, then disappeared again due to being flailed before they could set seed or to being overcome by rank weeds.
Only 3 species have reappeared for a second time, and one of these has since disappeared for the third time.
68 species and 2 colour forms disappeared and have never reappeared to date (2008).
Of the 83 flowering species (excluding 11 rampant species) and 3 colour forms now present in the survey mile, around 50 are unlikely to survive there in the long term, certainly not in viable numbers, if flailing continues.
Unless the degradation of habitat, high fertility and spread of ivy and other rampant weeds can be reversed, it appears highly unlikely that more than a dozen or so of the lost floral species can ever safely return or be re-introduced.
The only birds sighted more than once so far this year along the mile have been magpie, rook, crow and buzzard, and a swallow (probably the same one each time) hunting between the hedges now and then at the sheltered eastern end of the mile. One wren heard June 21st, one blackbird seen June 27th (these also at the eastern end) and one greenfinch today July 31st. On this hot sunny high-summer day counted only 7 hedge brown butterflies (6 of them males), one red admiral and one large white. Half a dozen small bumblebees, two carder bees, half a dozen hoverflies of two common Eristalis species, one flesh fly, one scorpion fly and one dragonfly, Cordulegaster boltonii, not hunting, zooming straight down the road and disappearing into the distance.
Only 8 butterfly species so far this year, and only one specimen each of five of them (red admiral, speckled wood, large white, ringlet and large skipper, the latter seen only once since 1976). Only small white, hedge brown and speckled wood have managed to appear every year since the flail arrived.
For some years I have been noticing very small specimens particularly of hedge brown and speckled wood. This year nearly all the hedge browns seen in the mile ('all' being a dozen or so in total) are of this stunted size, some of the males appearing really tiny. I am wondering if this might be a response to general environmental stress, or due to inbreeding as flail-reduced numbers are so low. The hedge brown does not fly far from its hatching place so mating opportunity is now extremely limited. With the few species of insects now seen in the hedges there seems to be a high proportion of males to females, at least five to one.
So far this year only a single moth has come to the house lights. It was a Drinker, and it killed itself against the bulb before it could be saved.
September 21st. Most of the survey mile closely flailed today along both sides of the road.

End note, June 2008. I hear spring vetch has been officially recorded somewhere in West Cornwall and confirmed as a presence in the county, so perhaps I can be permitted to have seen it pre-1972 in the survey mile. I wonder where they found it? It's gone from hedges where it used to be, along with other scarcities and so-called scarcities that used to flourish in so many hedges unrecorded, before the flail arrived. I have given careful thought to including mention of some of the plants and butterflies. So little seems to be known of the species resident in Cornish hedges pre-flail that I realise some references may invite scepticism. I am a sceptic myself, so sympathise with the reaction; but I have concluded that, with a view to re-establishing vulnerable species, it needs to be known that they can with the right management safely and perpetually thrive in ordinary Cornish hedges. In future this knowledge could solve the increasingly difficult question of sufficient and suitable sites for sustainable wild flower and butterfly conservation - as long as it is a future in which the hedge-flail does not figure.
Times and attitudes have changed since the days when the flail first appeared on the scene. The plight of our once-so-diverse wildlife is officially recognised as a priority; agricultural grants may embrace conservation measures, and perhaps economic strictures will tend more to a live-and-let-live policy in future with less of the expensive, pointless and desecrating "tidying-up". We now have an enthusiastic generation keen to help nature recover its diversity, but often unsure as to how this is best achieved. [Please see CHL "Restoring Biodiversity in Cornish Hedges"] 21st September 2007.
There is still widespread ignorance of the effects of such destructive machinery as the flail-mower and other rotary trimmers and strimmers. Few people but the elderly now remember or understand the life that ought to be abundant in the everyday hedges, verges, field margins and waste places. The simple remedy of returning to the clean-cutting finger-bar scythe used in late winter, trimming alternate sides of the hedge in different years, not trimming green herbaceous growth and leaving the cut material (mainly dead stems and twigs) on or near the hedge, is largely unrealised. This wildlife-friendly type of trimmer is still available from some suppliers.
Cornwall County Council has changed from being (in this instance) the chief offender to employing said-to-be environmentally-aware officers concerned with reconciling conservation and development. In recent years the council has issued instructional leaflets about hedges and their wildlife, including one entitled Cornish Roadside Hedge Management (since altered, perhaps not entirely for the better). This leaflet largely embodied the principles that our petition of 1985 asked for. Ironically, it is no longer the council's employees who are carrying out the work. Although this advice is now available, it does not necessarily reach the farmers and contractors out on the job. The flails are still in destructive action at any time from June onwards, though on the whole the work does seem to be being done later rather than sooner. Some farmers are now correctly leaving it until January and early February, a good time to allot to road work while other farm jobs may have to wait for drier weather. Most farmers, despite the bad publicity they tend to suffer, truly wish to do the best they can for their wildlife. Sadly for all, the flail is still the universally-available tool.
Those ignorant of the flail's real effects may imagine that 'sensitive' use of it is all right, as some common plant and insect species return temporarily and a few others increase when the work is switched to the less damaging time of year and done lightly. In the longer term, this is delusive; even in winter an unacceptable number of individuals are killed at every flailing and the habitat still inexorably degrades. No matter how or when or how seldom the flail is used, species continue to die out.
Until naturalists and environmentalists understand the catastrophic and cumulative effects of the flail they will continue to say they don't know why, despite all well-intentioned efforts, the numbers and diversity of wild flowers, songbirds, bats, butterflies, moths and bumblebees are still falling.
Nature lovers have to stop thinking mainly in terms of schemes to benefit a handful of charismatic species at special sites, and start looking at what the flail and other rotary mowers have done to thousands upon thousands of acres of the British countryside and billions upon billions of its most essential, ordinary inhabitants. It has struck at the major heart of the core existence of our native species, slaughtering them wholesale in that very sanctuary of the hedges and verges. These species had already mostly gone from the rest of the local area; the hedges where they had all taken refuge were their last resort. The remnants of species and their precarious survivors are still being wiped out, smashed to death every time the flail is used. It is the utterly wrong tool for the job and it has to be scrapped.
A brand-new flail-mower operating in February 2008. Right time of year for trimming, wrong kind of trimmer. As long as it is manufactured and turned out into the roads and fields the flail will decimate wild flowers, massacre the small creatures remaining in the hedges and verges, destroy their habitat and ruin the ancient structure of Cornwall's hedges.
Since the last yellowhammer flew across the road in 1980, I have never seen another while walking the survey mile. Since the last grasshopper in July 1981, I have never seen or heard another in these hedges. Since all the other species this diary recorded absent disappeared, they have not been seen again except in the few instances stated in the text. Most of the remaining species are declining. Fewer than half of them are likely to survive in the longer term if present trends continue. The long-vanished flowering species are likely never to return, as repeated flailing before seeding has exhausted their dormant seed stocks. The survey mile is typically representative of a majority of Cornish roadside hedges.
The photographs - in the pdf in their website - illustrating many of the flowering species lost were not taken in the survey hedge,for the obvious reason that they were no longer there. Most were taken in the house's wild garden adjoining, while those that did not grow there were obtained only with extreme difficulty, by searching all over West Penwith in a roughly thirty-mile radius for un-flailed pockets of survival. Along the roadside hedges, in this whole distance I found just one or two plants or patches of only a few of the species sought - common toadflax, field scabious, tufted vetch, scentless mayweed, red clover, self-heal - species that before the flail were so commonly seen along the whole length of hundreds of hedges in West Cornwall, now growing only where for some unusual reason of situation the flail had missed.
Some of the photographs of invertebrate species killed out by the flail in the survey mile were taken in the garden adjoining, where, despite nurturing since pre-flail days, the majority have now disappeared due to over-predation. In the survey mile this year, for the first time since 1992, the hedges remained un-flailed throughout the summer, giving a few common invertebrates the chance to reappear. No adult moth is illustrated because only half a dozen individuals were seen during the whole summer season of 2007, unfortunately at moments when the camera was not in my hand or they were fluttering out of reach. The drinker caterpillar alone was found posing beautifully and goes down to posterity as the only visible surviving moth larva noted in the survey mile this year, illustrating the millions of his kind killed by the flail.
Along this one typical mile of Cornish lane alone my records show that the flail has been the outright death or caused the persisting non-appearance of

  • 90 flowering herbaceous species,
  • 5 shrub species,
  • 20 grass species,
  • 60 moss species,
  • 40 bird species,
  • 23 butterfly species,
  • 250 larger moth species,
  • many scores of other invertebrate species, and untold thousands of individuals.
  • It has condemned the hedge itself to a long-term, silent, living death, wrecked its antique stone construction and destroyed its great beauty. Along the whole of the estimated 30,000 miles of Cornish hedges the deaths of individual plants and creatures from flail-battering and the loss of their generations represent truly astronomical figures. The degradation of habitat resulting from flailing prevents revival in most species even where a few individuals manage to escape the physical impact of the flails. Although the effect in Cornwall with its solid hedge-banks and their more complex ecology may be worse than with the English hedgerow, the flail-induced wildlife crisis is nation-wide - and still almost universally unrecognised or unacknowledged.
  • There is no hope of recovery for our countryside wildlife until the flail type of machine is consigned to the black museum of history. To achieve this it will probably have to be banned by law.
  • The finger-bar scythe has to be reinstated and any trimming (except where needed for road-junction or access visibility) must be carried out in winter, the later the better between November 1st and February 28th. Trimming must take away the woody scrub growth on the sides of the hedge, leaving the herbaceous growth on the sides and the bushes on the top untouched. Only then can the flail-ruined hedges and verges begin to see a real return to some kind of healthy and abundant life."

CHECK-LIST OF TYPES OF CORNISH HEDGE FLORA by Sarah Carter of Cornish Hedges Library:-
"This check-list is a simple guide to the herbaceous plants typically indicating different habitat types found in the Cornish hedge. The short lists are of typical plants, not complete species lists for the habitat. Many of the plants in the Typical Hedge list also appear in the other types of hedge. Areas of intermediate population where location or physical conditions begin to change and habitats overlap are not included.
Hedge Type:-

  • Typical Cornish Hedge (woodland-edge/ heathland mixture)
  • Coastal Hedge
  • Moorland/ Heathland Hedges
  • Woodland Hedge
  • Wet Hedge (marsh or ditch)
  • Stone Hedge (Earth capping but with stone core)
  • Typical garden escapes in Cornish Hedges
  • Typical species rampant in flail-damaged hedges

Titles of papers available on www.cornishhedges.co.uk:-

  • Advice for Working on Roadside Hedges
  • Building Hedges in Cornwall
  • Building Turf Hedges
  • Building and Repairing Cornish Stone Stiles
  • Butterflies, Moths and Other Insects in Cornish Hedges
  • Check-list for Inspecting New or Restored Hedges in Cornwall
  • Check-list of Types of Cornish Hedge Flora
  • Code of Good Practice for Cornish Hedges
  • Comments on the © Defra Hedgerow Survey Handbook (1st Edition)
  • Comments on the © Defra Hedgerow Survey Handbook (2nd Edition)
  • Cornish Hedges in Gardens
  • Cornish Hedges on Development and Housing Sites
  • Gates and Gateways in Cornish hedges
  • Geology and Hedges in Cornwall
  • Glossary of some Cornish Words used in the Countryside
  • Hedges in the Cornish Landscape
  • How to Look After a Cornish Hedge
  • How Old is That Cornish Hedge?
  • Literature Sources
  • Mediaeval Hedges in Cornwall (450AD - 1550)
  • Modern Hedges in Cornwall (1840 - present day)
  • Mosses, Lichens, Fungi and Ferns in Cornish Hedges
  • Pipe-laying and Other Cross-country Works Involving Hedges
  • Post-Mediaeval Hedges in Cornwall (1550 - 1840)
  • Prehistoric Hedges in Cornwall (5,000BC - 450AD)
  • Repairing Cornish Hedges and Stone Hedges
  • Repairing Turf Hedges
  • Risk Assessment Guidance for working on Cornish Hedges
  • Roadside Hedges and Verges in Cornwall
  • The Curse of Rabbits in Cornish Hedges
  • The Life and Death of a Flailed Cornish Hedge
  • Trees on Hedges in Cornwall
  • Unusual Old Features in Cornish Hedges
  • Who Owns that Cornish Hedge?
  • Wildlife and the Cornish Hedge

THE GUILD OF CORNISH HEDGERS is the non-profit-making organisation founded in 2002 to support the concern among traditional hedgers about poor standards of workmanship in Cornish hedging today. The Guild has raised public awareness of Cornwall's unique heritage of hedges and promoted free access to the Cornish Hedges Library, the only existing source of full and reliable written knowledge on Cornish hedges."
 

 

 

FIGWORT MULLEINS TO FUMITORY WILD FLOWER GALLERY
PAGE MENU


Site Map of pages with content (o)

Introduction

 


Global Biodiversity Information Facility Data Portal with access to 203,173,596 data records. GBIF is an international organisation that is working to make the world's biodiversity data accessible everywhere in the world. GBIF and its many partners work to mobilise the data, and to improve search mechanisms, data and metadata standards, web services, and the other components of an Internet-based information infrastructure for biodiversity.

GBIF makes available data that are shared by hundreds of data publishers from around the world. These data are shared according to the GBIF Data Use Agreement, which includes the provision that users of any data accessed through or retrieved via the GBIF Portal will always give credit to the original data publishers.

What is the Global Biodiversity Information Facility?

GBIF enables free and open access to biodiversity data online. We’re an international government-initiated and funded initiative focused on making biodiversity data available to all and anyone, for scientific research, conservation and sustainable development. 

GBIF provides three core services and products:

  • 1. An information infrastructure – an Internet-based index of a globally distributed network of interoperable databases that contain primary biodiversity data – information on museum specimens, field observations of plants and animals in nature, and results from experiments – so that data holders across the world can access and share them
  • 2. Community-developed tools, standards and protocols – the tools data providers need to format and share their data
  • 3. Capacity-building – the training, access to international experts and mentoring programs that national and regional institutions need to become part of a decentralised network of biodiversity information facilities.
     

WILD FLOWER GALLERY
PAGE MENU
Site Map of pages with content (o)
Introduction

INDEX LINK TO WILDFLOWER PLANT DESCRIPTION PAGE
a-h
i-p
q-z

Wildflower Poisonous Plants

Wildflower Garden Use page from Evergreen Perrennial Shape Gallery.

FLOWER COLOUR
(o)Blue
(o)Brown
(o)Cream
(o)Green
(o)Mauve
(o)Multi-Coloured
Orange
(o)Pink 1
(o)Pink 2
(o)Purple
(o)Red
(o)White1
(o)White2
(o)White3
(o)Yelow1
(o)Yelow2
(o)Shrub or Small Tree

SEED COLOUR
(o)Seed 1
(o)Seed 2

BED PICTURES
(o)Bed

HABITAT TABLES
Flowers in
Acid Soil
Flowers in
Chalk Soil
Flowers in
Marine Soil
Flowers in
Neutral Soil
Ferns
Grasses
Rushes
Sedges

See Explanation of Structure of this Website with User Guidelines to aid your use of this website.

WILD FLOWER FAMILY
PAGE MENU 1


(o)Adder's Tongue
Amaranth
(o)Arrow-Grass
(o)Arum
(o)Balsam
Bamboo
(o)Barberry
(o)Bedstraw
(o)Beech
(o)Bellflower
(o)Bindweed
(o)Birch
(o)Birds-Nest
(o)Birthwort
(o)Bogbean
(o)Bog Myrtle
(o)Borage
(o)Box
(o)Broomrape
(o)Buckthorn
(o)Buddleia
(o)Bur-reed
(o)Buttercup
(o)Butterwort
(o)Cornel (Dogwood)
(o)Crowberry
(o)Crucifer (Cabbage/Mustard) 1
(o)Crucifer (Cabbage/Mustard) 2
Cypress
(o)Daffodil
(o)Daisy
(o)Daisy Cudweeds
(o)Daisy Chamomiles
(o)Daisy Thistle
(o)Daisy Catsears (o)Daisy Hawkweeds
(o)Daisy Hawksbeards
(o)Daphne
(o)Diapensia
(o)Dock Bistorts
(o)Dock Sorrels

WILD FLOWER FAMILY
PAGE MENU 2


(o)Clubmoss
(o)Duckweed
(o)Eel-Grass
(o)Elm
(o)Filmy Fern
(o)Horsetail
(o)Polypody
Quillwort
(o)Royal Fern
(o)Figwort - Mulleins
(o)Figwort - Speedwells
Family
(o)Flax
(o)Flowering-Rush
(o)Frog-bit
(o)Fumitory
(o)Gentian
(o)Geranium
(o)Glassworts
(o)Gooseberry
(o)Goosefoot
(o)Grass 1
(o)Grass 2
(o)Grass 3
(o)Grass Soft Bromes 1
(o)Grass Soft Bromes 2
(o)Grass Soft Bromes 3
(o)Hazel
(o)Heath
(o)Hemp
(o)Herb-Paris
(o)Holly
(o)Honeysuckle
(o)Horned-Pondweed
(o)Hornwort
(o)Iris
(o)Ivy
(o)Jacobs Ladder
(o)Lily
(o)Lily Garlic
(o)Lime
(o)Lobelia
(o)Loosestrife
(o)Mallow
(o)Maple
(o)Mares-tail
(o)Marsh Pennywort
(o)Melon (Gourd/Cucumber)
 

WILD FLOWER FAMILY
PAGE MENU 3


(o)Mesem-
bryanthemum
(o)Mignonette
(o)Milkwort
(o)Mistletoe
(o)Moschatel
Naiad
(o)Nettle
(o)Nightshade
(o)Oleaster
(o)Olive
(o)Orchid 1
(o)Orchid 2
(o)Orchid 3
(o)Orchid 4
(o)Parnassus-
Grass
(o)Peaflower
(o)Peaflower
Clover 1
(o)Peaflower
Clover 2
(o)Peaflower
Clover 3
(o)Peaflower
Vetches/Peas
Peony
(o)Periwinkle
Pillwort
Pine
(o)Pink 1
(o)Pink 2
Pipewort
(o)Pitcher-Plant
(o)Plantain
(o)Pondweed
(o)Poppy
(o)Primrose
(o)Purslane
Rannock Rush
(o)Reedmace
(o)Rockrose
(o)Rose 1
(o)Rose 2
(o)Rose 3
(o)Rose 4
(o)Rush
(o)Rush Woodrushes
(o)Saint Johns Wort
Saltmarsh Grasses
(o)Sandalwood
(o)Saxifrage
 

WILD FLOWER FAMILY
PAGE MENU 4


Seaheath
(o)Sea Lavender
(o)Sedge Rush-like
(o)Sedges Carex 1
(o)Sedges Carex 2
(o)Sedges Carex 3
(o)Sedges Carex 4
(o)Spindle-Tree
(o)Spurge
(o)Stonecrop
(o)Sundew
(o)Tamarisk
Tassel Pondweed
(o)Teasel
(o)Thyme 1
(o)Thyme 2
(o)Umbellifer 1
(o)Umbellifer 2
(o)Valerian
(o)Verbena
(o)Violet
(o)Water Fern
(o)Waterlily
(o)Water Milfoil
(o)Water Plantain
(o)Water Starwort
Waterwort
(o)Willow
(o)Willow-Herb
(o)Wintergreen
(o)Wood-Sorrel
(o)Yam
(o)Yew


The North American Rock Garden Society
NARGS is for gardening enthusiasts interested in alpine, saxatile, and low-growing perennials. It encourages the study and cultivation of wildflowers that grow well among rocks, whether such plants originate above treeline or at lower elevations. Through its publications, meetings, and garden visits, NARGS provides extensive opportunities for both beginners and experts to expand their knowledge of plant cultivation and propagation, and of construction, maintenance, and design of special interest gardens. Woodland gardens, bog gardens, raised beds, planted walls, container gardens, and alpine berms are all addressed.
NARGS, organized in 1934, currently has approximately 2,650 members in the US, Canada, and thirty other nations.

 

 

Wild About Britain is home to hundreds of thousands of pages about British wildlife, the Environment and the Great Outdoors; from birds, butterflies, fungi and trees to climate change, marine life, astronomy and the weather. We're also a huge online community with 35,000 members and more than 3 million unique visitors a year.

 

 

World Atlas of Seagrasses by Edmund P. Green and Frederick T. Short - "a group of about sixty species of underwater marine flowering plants, grow in the shallow marine and estuary environments of all the world's continents except Antarctica. The primary food of animals such as manatees, dugongs, and green sea turtles, and critical habitat for thousands of other animal and plant species, seagrasses are also considered one of the most important shallow-marine ecosystems for humans, since they play an important role in fishery production. Though they are highly valuable ecologically and economically, many seagrass habitats around the world have been completely destroyed or are now in rapid decline. The World Atlas of Seagrasses is the first authoritative and comprehensive global synthesis of the distribution and status of this critical marine habitat. "

 

 

Over 300 accounts of the Flora of the British Isles have been published in
Journal of Ecology.

 

 

Bookreview of A.R. Clapham, T.G. Tutin et E.F. Warburg Flora of the British Isles. Second Edition. Cambridge University Press.
Collins Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers by David McClintock and R.S.R. Fitter assisted by Francis Rose - ISBN 0 00 219363 9 - Eleventh Impression 1978 refers to the above book for further details about each plant and I have used the plants in Collins Pocket Guide as the basis of all the native UK plants in these Wildflower Galleries. I have put the families and plants in alphabetical order by common name to make it easier to find the plant.

 

 

Ferns in Britain and Ireland - A guide to ferns, horsetails, clubmosses
and quillworts by Roger Golding:-
"Welcome to the Fern Site. This is a work in progress, so please be aware that I am continually adding to it and updating it. The current version contains images of most species of British and Irish ferns, including established alien species; also some subspecies and varieties. It does not yet cover hybrids - I hope to be able to include those soon."
The above online superb site shows a plant so that you can identify it using photos and text. Click on each of his thumbnails to have a larger image added to the screen.
Killarney Fern,
Scottish Filmy Fern,
(Wilson's Filmy Fern) and
Tunbridge Filmy Fern
are detailed in the
Filmy Fern Family, but not in the Common Name or Botanical Name Galleries

 

 

Selected References from KingdomPlantae.net

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Niering and Olmstead

Peterson Field Guides Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants, Steven Foster and James A. Duke

Peterson Field Guides Edible Wild Plants, Lee Allen Peterson

Stalking the Healthful Herbs, Euell Gibbons

Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants, Steve Brill

The Encyclopedia of Edible Plants of North America, Francois Couplan, Ph.D.

Tom Brown's Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants, Tom Brown, Jr.

A Modern Herbal, Volume II, Mrs. M. Grieve

Weeds, Alexander C Martin

 

 

Database of Insects and their Food Plants from the Biological Records Centre:-

This database is primarily a collation of published interactions between Great Britain 's invertebrate herbivores (insects and mites) and their host plants. There are also some interactions for the invertebrates closely associated with herbivores, such as predators, parasitoids, cleptoparasites and mutualists. DBIF contains about 47,000 interactions for roughly 9,300 invertebrate taxa (species, sub-species and forms) and 5,700 plant taxa (species, genera and broader groupings).

 

 

Helping Earth's Sustainable Management with a Plant
 "Alternatives to the burning of fossil fuels, nuclear waste, deforestation and nitrate chemical fertilizers need to be developed. Hemp could have a vital role to play in the development of friendly alternatives.
Energy production 
A report published by the FCDA of Europe outlines the Cannabis Biomass Energy Equation (CBEE), outlining a convincing case that hemp plants can be used to produce fuel energy CHEAPER per BtU than fossil fuels and uranium - WITHOUT PRODUCING GREENHOUSE GASES! Hemp plants have the highest known quantities of cellulose for annuals - with at least 4x (some suggest even 50-100x) the biomass potential of its closest rivals (cornstalks, sugarcane, kernaf and trees) (Omni, 1983). Biomass production still produces greenhouse gases, although the idea is that the excess of carbon dioxide will be used up by growing hemp plants - they are effective absorbers and thrive at high levels - Unlike fossil fuel energy which produces energy from plants which died millions of years ago.
On reading the report of the FCDA, Hon. Jonathon Porrit (ex-director of Friends of the Earth, currently on the Board of Forum for the Future) commented  'I DID enjoy reading it - the report should contribute much'. Three years later - authorities are still not taking the potential of this plant seriously. MAFF are currently engaging in supporting research into the biomass potential of poplar trees which they claim has the most scientific support for biomass energy production. H-E-M-P recommend use of the hemp plant if biomass energy production is to have any real impact in reducing carbon dioxide levels.

IT'S SO PRODUCTIVE!
1 acre of hemp = 1,000 gallons of methanol.

  In fact, Henry Ford's first car ran on hemp-methanol! - and at just a fraction of the cost of petroleum alternatives. Alternatives to coal, fuel oil, acetone, ethyl, tar pitch and creosote can be derived - from this one single plant!
  As regards depletion of the ozone layer - hemp actually withstands UV radiation. It absorbs UV light, whilst resisting damage to itself and providing protection for everything else.
  Risk-free, pollution-free energy. No acid rain, and a reduction in airborne pollution of up to 80% ... There's further potential for the same in industry. "

Superceeded Wildflower Indices
Botanical Name
Common Name
by
Botanical Names in BROWN WILD FLOWER GALLERY PAGE MENUS
and
Common Names in CREAM WILD FLOWER GALLERY PAGE MENUS
detailed above in this table.

Plant description, culture, propagation and photos/illustrations will be provided for every wildflower plant (February 2021) in the above 2 galleries.

After clicking on the WILD FLOWER Common Name INDEX link to Wildflower Family Page;

locate that Common name on that Wildflower Family Page,
then
Click on Underlined Text in:-

Common Name to view that Plant Description Page

Botanical Name to link to Plant or Seed Supplier

Flowering Months to view photos

Habitat to view further Natural Habitat details and Botanical Society of the British Isles Distribution Map

The process below provides a uniform method for
comparing every plant detailed in the following galleries with
the ones already compared in the relevant plant gallery
from the last list of plant galleries in this cell:-

  • These are the galleries that will provide the plants to be added to their own Extra Index Pages
  • Bee plants for hay-fever sufferers - Bee-Pollinated Index
  • Plants that grow in Chalk - A,
  • Rock Garden and Alpine Flowers - A,
  • Bulbs from the Infill Galleries see Hardy Bulbs, Half-hardy Bulbs, etc in the second row of Topic Table, usually positioned as the first table on the left.
  • The complete Camera Photo is displayed on the screen
  • Climber in 3 Sector Vertical Plant System
  • Plants with Sense of Fragrance

 

 

The following Extra Index of Wildflowers is created in the Borage Wildflower Gallery, to which the Wildflowers found in the above list will have that row entry copied to.
Its wildflower flower thumbnail - or foliage thumbnail if it does not have flowers - will be compared with the others in this gallery per month.
The Header Row for the Extra Indices pages is the same as used in the 1000 Ground Cover A of Plants Topic:-
 A, B, C, D, E,
 F, G, H, I, J,
 K, L, M, N, O,
 P, Q, R, S, T,
 U, V, W, XYZ

 

 

Having transferred the Extra Index row entry to the relevant Extra Index row for the same type of plant in a gallery below; then
its flower or foliage thumbnail will be compared per month in that relevant gallery:-

The English Flower Garden Design, Arrangement, and Plans
followed by
A description of all the best plants for it and their culture and the positions fitted for them by W. Robinson
(Author of the "Wild Garden").
Fourth Edition. Published by John Murray in London in 1895 is a useful source of culture and positions for them,

as is

The Gardener' Golden Treasury
incorporating
Sanders Encyclopedia of Gardening.
Revised by A.G.L. Hellyer
and published in 1960 by W.H. & L. Collingridge Limited.

 

KPR - Gardeners Club Slovakia:-

"KPR was officially established in 2000 in Slovakia in Europe; however, we supply seeds and plants from all over the world since 1998.

Our main object is focused on joining gardeners around the world from all fields of interests to create a big database of seeds and plants (Seeds and Plants Bank of KPR) from around the world.

At present, we have 6 main branches (Slovakia, Czechia, Australia, India, Thailand, South Africa and Tanzania) and over 200 co-operators and seeds collectors all over the world.

Nowadays we are able to collect and supply over 10 000 species of plants from all over the world.

If you are looking for anything, you are at the right place! Although we do not have every plant in our collection yet, but we are expanding daily, step-by-step, seed-by-seed, plant by plant. We believe that soon we will be able to supply (almost) anything!

For sale over 10 000 seeds and plants from all over the world - palms, cycads, exotic and frost tolerant shrubs and trees, succulents, carnivorous, annuals, perennials, ornamental grasses, vegetable, etc."

Flora of Europe:-

"At present, we can collect seeds and plants on request (as well as parts of plants - for example bulbs, cuttings, meristematic tissues, pollen, etc.) from more than 4000 species of plants from 19 European countries.

Now we collect in the following countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Germany, Spain, Finland, Great Britain, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia.

We prepare to collect in the following countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Estonia, France, Switzerland, Italy, Kosovo, Norway, Sweden, Ukraine.

We are able to collect all species in this area on your request. However, we do not collect protected species and species from the orchids (Orchidaceae).

Since 2002, we supply a wide range of European plants annually to both domestic and foreign small gardeners as well as big gardeners' societies, pharmaceutical companies and for scientific research.

The Vegetation season in Europe is from March to October. Seeds are usually harvested from August to September, and some species earlier. We provide a guarantee of 2 years for germination seeds. Seeds of some species are available throughout the year, but most of the species are collected on request. If you are searching for anything from Europe, you are at the right place! Contact us and inform yourself about stock availability, prices and terms of supplying.

We are able to supply all plant parts as well - seeds, bulbs, cuttings, meristematic issues, pollen etc. We also grow many species in cultivation and supply these as seedlings or young plants for wholesale. If you require seedlings, your order should be placed before April, seeing that the seeds are sown in April."

 

 

Colin's virtual Herbarium - "I am Colin Ladyka, and I live in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.  Native plants are my hobby.
This web site contains pictures I have taken of 280 species of flowering plants (excluding grasses) found on the Canadian Prairies, with particular emphasis on those found in Saskatchewan."

 

 

Toxicity of Common Comfrey :-
Another problem with comfrey is that it contains at least eight pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA). While the level of PAs in fresh plant may not be very high, ready-to-use preparation often have high levels (e.g., 270-2900 mg/kg). PAs are hepatoxins and can cause irreversible liver damage. One of the problems is that the effects of the alkaloids can be cumulative. Therefore, damage to the liver may not be associated to the alkaloids in comfrey. Sometimes toxicity signs will not be present until an animal is stressed by something that requires greater liver function (e.g., lactation). Also, the leaves and roots of comfrey have been shown to be carcinogenic. PAs from comfrey given to rats caused mortality. Liver pathology was characteristic of PA toxicosis. When rats were fed dietary levels of 0.5% roots and 8% leaves, they formed hepatomas.

 

 

Useful websites

The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland – Founded in 1836 as the Botanical Society of London and welcomes both professional and amateur botanists. The society focuses on the study of botany in the British Isles.

The British Bryological Society – For the study and conservation of mosses and liverworts worldwide.

The British Lichen Society – The first society in the world entirely devoted to the study of lichens.

The Natural History Society of Northumbria – Everything you might want to know about NHSN including details of their field meetings, lectures, and nature reserve.

Common by Nature – James Common regularly writes about his botanical finds across Newcastle and Northumberland on his personal blog.

Help Identifying Plants Online

BSBI Plant Crib – Sections from BSBI’s ground-breaking publication make the identification of complex plant families much easier.

NatureSpot – Perfect for beginners, this online resource hosts species accounts for many plants also found in the North East.

Arable Plant Crib – A series of helpful crib sheets for the UK’s arable plants from the Colour in the Margins project (now ceased).

Common’s Cribs – A new series of beginner-friendly crib sheets exploring the identification of various plant families and group.

 

EXTRA PAGES OF PLANTS
MENU
Introduction
Site Map
 

PLANT USE
Plant Selection
Level 1
Bee Forage Plants
Attracts Bird/Butterfly
Photos - Butterfly

Bee Pollinated Plants for Hay Fever Sufferers in
Bee Pollinated Calendar and Index Galleries
0-24 inches
(0-60 cms)
24-72 inches
(60-180 cms)
Above 72 inches
(180 cms)
Photos - Bee Pollinated Plant Bloom per Month
Blooms Nov-Feb
Blooms Mar-May
Blooms Jun-Aug 1, 2
Blooms Sep-Oct
 

Poisonous Cultivated and UK Wildflower Plants with Photos
or
Cultivated Poisonous Plants
or
Wildflower Poisonous Plants
Rabbit-Resistant Plant
Flower Arranging
Wildflower
Photos - Wildflowers

 


PLANTS FOR SOIL
Plant Selection
Level 2
Info - Any Soil
Any Soil A-F
Any Soil G-L
Any Soil M-R
Any Soil S-Z

Info - Chalky Soil
Chalky Soil A-F 1
Chalky Soil A-F 2
Chalky Soil A-F 3
Chalky Soil G-L
Chalky Soil M-R
Chalky Soil Roses
Chalky Soil S-Z
Chalky Soil Other

Info - Clay Soil
Clay Soil A-F
Clay Soil G-L
Clay Soil M-R
Clay Soil S-Z
Clay Soil Other

Info - Lime-Free (Acid) Soil
Lime-Free (Acid)
A-F 1
Lime-Free (Acid)
A-F 2
Lime-Free (Acid)
A-F 3
Lime-Free (Acid) G-L
Lime-Free (Acid) M-R
Lime-Free (Acid) S-Z

Info - Sandy Soil
Sandy Soil A-F 1
Sandy Soil A-F 2
Sandy Soil A-F 3
Sandy Soil G-L
Sandy Soil M-R
Sandy Soil S-Z

Info - Peaty Soils
Peaty Soil A-F
Peaty Soil G-L
Peaty Soil M-R
Peaty Soil S-Z

Following parts of Level 2a,
Level 2b,
Level 2c and
Level 2d are included in separate columns
together with
Acid Soil,
Alkaline Soil,
Any Soil,
Height and Spread,
Flowering Months and
Flower Colour in their Columns,
and also
Companion Plants to aid this plant Page,
Alpine Plant for
Rock Garden Index Page
Native to UK WildFlower Plant in its Family Page in this website
and/or
Level 2cc
in the Comment Column
within each
of the Soil Type Pages of
Level 2

Explanation of Structure of this Website with User Guidelines Page for those photo galleries with Photos (of either ones I have taken myself or others which have been loaned only for use on this website from external sources)


PLANTS PAGE MENU

Plant Selection by Plant Requirements
Level 2a
Sun aspect, Moisture


Plant Selection by Form
Level 2b
Tree Growth Shape
Columnar
Oval
Rounded / Spherical
Flattened Spherical
Narrow Conical
Broad Pyramidal
Ovoid / Egg
Broad Ovoid
Narrow Vase
Fan
Broad Fan
Narrow Weeping
Broad Weeping
Single-stem Palm
Multi-stem Palm
Shrub/Perennial Growth Habit
Mat
Prostrate / Trailing
Cushion / Mound
Spreading / Creeping
Clump
Stemless
Erect or Upright
Climbing
Arching


Plant Selection by Garden Use
Level 2c
Bedding
Photos - Bedding
Bog Garden
Coastal Conditions
Containers in Garden
Front of Border
Edibles in Containers
Hanging Basket
Hedge
Photos - Hedging
Pollution Barrier 1, 2
Rest of Border
Rock Garden
Photos - Rock Garden
Thorny Hedge
Windbreak
Woodland


Plant Selection by Garden Use
Level 2cc Others
Aquatic
Back of Shady Border
Crevice Garden
Desert Garden
Raised Bed
Scree Bed
Specimen Plant
Trees for Lawns
Trees for Small Garden
Wildflower
Photos - Wildflowers


Plant Selection by Plant Type
Level 2d
Alpine
Photos - Evergr Per
Photos - Herbac Per
Photos - RHS Herbac
Photos - Rock Garden
Annual
Bamboo
Photos - Bamboo
Biennial
Bulb
Photos - Bulb
Climber
Photos - Climber
Conifer
Deciduous Rhizome
Deciduous Shrub
Photos - Decid Shrub
Evergreen Perennial
Photos - Evergr Per

Evergreen Shrub
0-24 inches 1, 2, 3
24-72 inches 1, 2, 3
Above 72 inches 1, 2

Semi-Evergreen Shrub
Photos - Evergr Shrub
Fern
Photos - Fern
Fruit Plant
Grass
Herb
Herbaceous Perennial
Photos - Herbac Per
Remaining Top Fruit
Soft Fruit
Sub-Shrub
Top Fruit
Tuber
Vegetable
Photos - Vegetable

 

Photos - with its link; provides a link to its respective Plant Photo Gallery in this website to provide comparison photos.
Click on required comparison page and then centre of selected plant thumbnail. Further details on that plant will be shown in a separate Plant Description webpage.
Usually the Available from Mail Order Plant Nursery link will link you to the relevant page on that website.
I started this website in 2005 - it is possible that those particular links no longer connect, so you may need to search for that plant instead.

When I started, a click on the centre of the thumbnail ADDED the Plant Description Page, now I CHANGE the page instead. Mobile phones do not allow ADDING a page, whereas stand alone computers do. The User Guidelines Page shows which Plant Photo Galleries have been modified to CHANGE rather than ADD.

------------

Ground-cover Height
Ground Cover. How to use flowering and foliage plants to cover areas of soil by Mineke Kurpershoek.
ISBN 1 901094 41 3
Plant combinations for normal garden soil,
Plant combinations for sandy soil,
Plant combinations for clay soil,
Woodland, heaths and wet soil and
Shrubs for slopes and large beds chapters are useful
Groundcover Height
0-24 inches
(0-60 cms) 1, 2, 3
24-72 inches
(60-180 cms) 4, 5, 6
Above 72 inches
(180 cms) 7


PLANTS PAGE MENU

REFINING SELECTION
Plant Selection by
Flower Colour
Level 3a
Blue Flowers
Photos -
Bedding
Bulb
Climber
Evergr Per
Evergr Shrub
Wild Flower

Orange Flowers
Photos -
Bedding
Wild Flower

Other Colour Flowers
Photos -
Bedding
Bulb
Climber
Evergr Per
Evergr Shrub
Wild Flower

Red Flowers
Photos -
Bedding
Bulb
Climber
Decid Shrub
Evergr Per
Evergr Shrub
Herbac Per
Rose
Wild Flower

White Flowers
Photos -
Bedding
Bulb
Climber
Decid Shrub
Decid Tree
Evergr Per
Evergr Shrub
Herbac Per
Rose
Wild Flower

Yellow Flowers
Photos -
Bedding
Bulb
Climber
Decid Shrub
Evergr Per
Evergr Shrub
Herbac Per
Rose
Wild Flower

Photos - 53 Colours in its Colour Wheel Gallery
Photos - 12 Flower Colours per Month in its Bloom Colour Wheel Gallery

Plant Selection by Flower Shape
Level 3b
Photos -
Bedding
Evergr Per
Herbac Per

Plant Selection by Foliage Colour
Level 3c
Aromatic Foliage
Finely Cut Leaves
Large Leaves
Other
Non-Green
Foliage 1
Non-Green
Foliage 2
Sword-shaped Leaves


PRUNING
Plant Selection by Pruning Requirements
Level 4
Pruning Plants


GROUNDCOVER PLANT DETAIL
Plant Selection Level 5
Plant Name - A from Ground Cover a thousand beautiful plants for difficult places by John Cushnie
ISBN 1 85626 326 6
Plant Name - B
Plant Name - C
Plant Name - D with Ground Cover. How to use flowering and foliage plants to cover areas of soil by Mineke Kurpershoek.
ISBN 1 901094 41 3
Plant combinations for normal garden soil.
Plant combinations for sandy soil.
Plant combinations for clay soil.
Woodland, heaths and wet soil.
Shrubs for slopes and large beds.
Plant Name - E
Plant Name - F
Plant Name - G
Plant Name - H
Plant Name - I with How about using staging in your unheated greenhouse and stock it with bulbs and ferns for looking at from the house from autumn to spring, before using it for salads during the spring/summer from The Culture of Bulbs, Bulbous Plants and Tubers Made Plain by Sir J. L. Cotter.
Plant Name - J
Plant Name - K
Plant Name - L If you have no garden but only a concrete or tarmac area why not use 1 of the 8 Garden on a Roll garden borders and then maintain your garden using their Maintaining your border instructions.
Plant Name - M Importance of providing a mulch with the ground cover
Plant Name - N
Plant Name - O
Plant Name - P
Plant Name - Q
Plant Name - R
Plant Name - S
Plant Name - T
Plant Name - U
Plant Name - V
Plant Name - W
Plant Name - XYZ with Ground cover plants for 14 Special Situations:-
1 Dry Shade
2 Damp Shade
3 Full Sun
4 Banks and Terraces
5 Woodland
6 Alkaline Sites
7 Acid Sites
8 Heavy Clay Soil
9 Dry Sandy Soil
10 Exposed Sites
11 Under Hedges
12 Patios and Paths
13 Formal Gardens
14 Swimming Pools and Tennis Courts
Why grass/lawn should never be used as a groundcover
and
Why seaweed is a necessary ingredient for gardens
The 1000 Ground Cover plants detailed above will be compared in the Comparison Pages of this Wildflower Shape Gallery and in the flower colour per month comparison pages of Evergreen Perennial Gallery starting in November 2022


Then, finally use
COMPANION PLANTING to
aid your plant selected or to
deter Pests
Plant Selection Level 6

Remember the following from Row 2 of the TOPIC TABLE
Topic -
Plant Photo Galleries
with Plant Botanical Index
...A, B, C, D, E,
...F, G, H, I, J, K,
...L, M, N, O, P, Q,
...R, S, T, U, V, W,
...X, Y, Z
for all plants detailed in this website.

Bulb Galleries has its own set of Flower Colour Pages
...Flower Shape
...Bulb Form
...Bulb Use
...Bulb in Soil

Bulb houseplants flowering inside House during:-
......January
......February
......March
......April
......May
......June
......July
......August
......September
......October
......November
......December

Climber in
3 Sector Vertical Plant System
...Clematis
...Climbers

Remember the following from Row 2 of the TOPIC TABLE
Topic -
Fern
...Cold-hardy
...From Lime-hating Soil
...From Limestone Soil
...Hanging Basket
...Indoor Decoration
...Outdoor Pot
...Terrariums
...Wet Soils
...Ground Cover
...Pendulous Fronds

 

Remember the following from Row 4 of the TOPIC TABLE
Topic -
The following is a complete hierarchical Plant Selection Process
dependent on the Garden Style chosen.
Cultivation Requirements of Plant:-
Outdoor /Garden Cultivation,

Indoor / House Cultivation,

Cool Greenhouse Cultivation with artificial heating in the Winter,

Conservatory Cultivation with heating throughout the year, and

Stovehouse Cultivation with heating throughout the year for Tropical Plants

Remember the following from Row 5 of the TOPIC TABLE
Topic -
Flower/Foliage Colour Wheel Galleries with number of colours as a high-level Plant Selection Process
Bee instead of wind pollinated plants for hay-fever sufferers
All Bee-Pollinated Flowers
per Month 12
...Index
......Single Flowers provide honeybees with pollen

Rock Garden and Alpine Flowers
Rock Plant Flowers 53 INDEX
A, B, C, D, E, F,
G, H, I, J, K, L,
M, NO, PQ, R, S,
T, UVWXYZ
...Rock Plant Photos

 

Remember the following from Row 6 of the TOPIC TABLE
Topic -
Use of Plant in your Plant Selection Process
Plant Colour Wheel Uses

Uses of Bedding
...Bedding Out

Uses of Bulb
...Other than Only Green Foliage

Uses of Rose
Rose Index

Remember the following from Row 7 of the TOPIC TABLE
Topic -
Camera Photo Galleries showing all 4000 x 3000 pixels of each photo on your screen that you can then click and drag it to your desktop as part of a Plant Selection Process:-
with
Plant with Photo Index of Ivydene Gardens - 1187
A 1, 2, Photos - 43

and

Coleus Bedding Foliage Trial Gallery, which also contains:-
Tables of Annuals:-
 2, Blue to Purple Flowers
31, To Cover Fences
Annuals from the Infill Galleries:-
...Cut Flowers 1, 2
...Bee Pollinated
...as Houseplants
with
Bedding Gallery
and
Bedding from the Infill Galleries:-
...for Spring
...for Summer
......Coloured Fol

Remember the following from Row 8 of the TOPIC TABLE
Topic -
Fragrant Plants as a Plant Selection Process for your sense of smell:-
Sense of Fragrance from Roy Genders

When you have chosen a plant, remember to use
Companion Planting
A ,B ,C ,D ,E ,
F ,G ,H ,I ,J ,K ,
L ,M ,N ,O ,P ,Q ,
R ,S ,T ,U ,V ,W ,
X, Y, Z to aid it or prevent problems for it

 

Remember especially not to replace a plant from the following
Rose 1
Rose 2
Rose 3
Rose 4

immediately with the same specie or another from the same family, because of Specific Replant Disease. See article in Recommended Rose Pruning Methods.

To be on the safe side, do not replant the same specie in the same place, which is why we have a 4-year Vegetable rotation pattern.

 

Handbook of alien species in Europe
Biological invasions by alien (non-native) species are widely recognized as a significant component of human-caused global environmental change and the second most important cause of biodiversity decline. Alien species threaten many European ecosystems and have serious environmental, economic and health impacts. The DAISIE (Delivering Alien Invasive Species Inventories for Europe) project has now brought together all available information on alien species in Europe (terrestrial, aquatic and marine) and from all taxa (fungi, plants, animals). Thus for the first time, an overview and assessment of biological invasions in the Pan-European region is finally possible. The Handbook of Alien Species in Europe summarises the major findings of this groundbreaking research and addresses the invasion trends, pathways, and both economic as well as ecological impact for eight major taxonomic groups. Approximately 11.000 alien species recorded in Europe are listed, and fact sheets for 100 of the most invasive alien species are included, each with a distribution map and colour illustration.The book is complemented by a regularly updated internet database providing free additional information. With its highly interdisciplinary approach, DAISIE and its Handbook will be the basis for future scientific investigations as well as management and control of alien invasive species in Europe.

 

 

Herbaria@home, a ground-breaking new approach to digitising and documenting the archives of the UK's herbaria. This site provides a web-based method for documenting herbarium sheets. We welcome participation in the project, so please read more about the project and if you would like to help then get involved!
Current progress
82560 herbarium specimens have been documented so far.
We are currently concentrating efforts on sheets from the South London Botanical Institute and Gloucester Museum.
8 May 2011

 

 

Ukwildflowers has lists of English Common Names with their Latin botanical name.

 

 

APHOTOFLORA
An Educational Photographic Resource and Botanical Stock Image Library
dedicated to the Flora, Wildflowers, Trees, Shrubs and Habitats of South-West 
England, including the Devon and Cornwall Peninsula by David Fenwick.

 

 

Since 1972 I (Leif Stridvall) have almost exclusively been working with Nikon 35 mm system cameras as photographic equipment. They have proved to be very reliable and have never let me down. I started with Nikkormat, later exchanging it for Nikon FA (had matrix metering) and ended up with Nikon 801 (had autofocus) adding Nikon F70 as a reserve camera. In 2001 I began shooting digitally, first with Nikon Coolpix 990 and a couple of years later Minolta Dimage 7Hi, both excellent cameras for close-up photography. However when Nikon last year released its digital system camera D70 at a very affordable price, giving me opportunity to use all my old lenses with their new camera model, I gave up 35 mm photography for good. Since many years I use as macro lens the very sharp Nikon 60/2,8 AF (many old photos are taken with Mikro-Nikkor 3,5/55, also an excellent lens for macro work but only with manual focusing).

All my 35 mm photos are taken with slide film, before 1972 Agfacolor, from 1972 till 1991 Kodachrome 25 (very few with Kodachrome 64) and from 1992 onwards with my favourite film, Fuji Velvia, very sharp and contrasty. Slides have been scanned by a HP PhotoSmart S20 Photo Scanner at a fairly moderate resolution of 1200 dpi. Most photos have been slightly edited either in Ulead PhotoImpact or in Adobe Photoshop.

Photos with filenames starting with 4 letters are shot with a digital camera (AAAAxxxx or BBBBxxxx indicate Nikon CoolPix 990, MINAxxx Minolta Dimage 7Hi and NIKAxxxx Nikon D70).

 

 

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation grew out of the Convention on Biological Diversity and is being fed into government policy around the world.
The GSPC highlights the importance of plants and the ecosystem services they provide for all life on earth, and aims to ensure their conservation.
The GSPC consists of 16 outcome-oriented targets for conservation with a deadline of 2010.

 

 

Biopix is a collection of biological photos, primarily from Scandinavia. Biopix is used online by a wide range of students, teachers, researchers, photographers etc. The photos are used professionally in a large range of publications; the sale helps to cover the expenses.
Photographers are primarily:

  • Antje Neumann (plant ecologist and nature guide) Home page
  • Ib Nord Nielsen (Forester)
  • Jens Christian Schou (botanist, teacher, scientific illustrator, writer)
  • Jens Kristian Overgaard (teacher)
  • Kirsten Andersen (teacher)
  • Niels Sloth (biologist PhD) Home page
  • Technique
    The photos were mainly taken with digital cameras: Nikon CP8700, Olympus E330, Nikon D80, Nikon D300 but many photos were also scanned from 24x36 negatives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre has under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand Licence produced the following information from Chapter IX - Ferns for the Open Garden from The Cultivation of New Zealand Plants by L.Cockayne published by Whitcombe and Tombs Limited, 1923, Auckland:-
"No descriptions are given. The leaves of ferns are too complex in form to allow of a useful brief description. However, photographs of all the species are to be seen in H. B. Dobbie's, "New Zealand Ferns," and to this book readers are referred.

Class 1.—Ferns requiring no shade in dry districts.
Blechnum (Lomaria) penna marina, (vh.); Cheilanthes Sieberi, (vh.), alpine-garden, dry ground; Doodia media, (hh.); Histiopteris (Pteris) incisa, (vh.); Hypolepis millefolium, (vh.); Lindsaya linearis, (vh.), grows in bogs; Notochlaena distans, (vh.); Paesia (Pteris) scaberula, (vh.), will grow in full sunshine in Christchurch.

Class 2.—Ferns requiring only the minimum amount of shade.
Asplenium bulbiferum, (vh.), there are many forms differing somewhat in their shade-requirements; A. flabellifolium, (vh.); A. flaccidum, (vh.), there are many forms; A. Hookerianum, (vh.); A. lucidum, (vh.), A. oblusatum and its allies, (vh.); Blechnum (Lomaria) Banksii, (vh.); B. capense (vh.) grows under many conditions. and changes its form greatly according to habitat; B. (L.) durum, (vh.); Cyathea dealbata (ponga, silver tree-fern, vh.); C. medullaris (mamaku, black tree-fern. h.); Cyclophorus (Polypodium) serpens (vh.) comes of its own accord in the wetter districts on rough-barked, exotic trees, e.g., Cupressus macrocarpa and elderberry (Sambucus niger); Dicksonia fibrosa, (vh); D. squarrosa wheki, vh.); Dryopteris (Polypodium) punctata, (vh.); Gleichenia circinata. (vh.); G. dicarpa, (vh.), these last two difficult to establish from wild plants; Hypolepis distans, (h.); H. tenuifolia, (vh.); Loxsoma Cunninghamii, (hh.); Pellaea falcata, (vh.); P. rotundifolia, (vh.); Polypodium diversifolium (Billardieri of all New Zealand books on ferns), (vh.); Polystichum (Aspidium) Richardi, (vh.); P. vestitum (A. aculeatum var. vestitum), (vh.); Todaea barbara, (hh.).

Class 3.—Ferns requiring a moderate amount of shade.
Adiantum aethiopicum, (h.); A. affine, (vh.); A. fulvum, (h.); A. hispidulum, (hh.); Alsophila Colensoi (vh.) has its trunk mostly underground; Blechnum (Lomaria) discolor, (vh.); B. (L.) filiforme, (hh.); B. (L.) Fraseri, (hh.); B. (L.) lanceolatum, (vh.); B. (L.) vulcanicum, (vh.); Dicksonia lanata, (h.); Dryopteris (Nephrodium) glabella, (vh.); D. (N.) hispida, (vh.) D. (N.) velutina, (h.); Gleichenia Cunninghamii (umbrella-fern, vh.), difficult to establish; Hemitelia Smithii, (vh.); Leptolepia (Davallia) novae-zelandiae, (vh.); Lindsaya cuneata (trichomanoides), (vh.); Polypodium dictyopteris (Cunninghamii), (hh.); P. novae-zelandiae, (vh.); P. pustulatum, (h.); Polystichum adiantiforme (capense), (vh.); Pteris macilenta, (hh.); P. tremula, (hh.).

Class 4.—Ferns requiring a considerable amount of shade.
Adiantum formosum, (hh.); Asplenium Colensoi, (vh.); A. Richardi, (vh.); A. umbrosum, (hh.); Blechnum (Lomaria) fluviatile, (vh.); B. (L.) Pattersoni, (vh.), grows in drip of water or extremely wet ground; Cystopteris novae-zealandiae (fragilis of New Zealand authors—vh.); Dryopteris (Nephrodium) decomposita (h.); D. (Polypodium) pennigera, (vh.); Gleichenia flabellata, (hh.), difficult to establish: Leptopteris (Todaea) hymenophylloides, (vh.); Lindsaya viridis, (h.); Lygodium articulatum, (hh.); Marattia fraxinea (para, king-fern, hh.)."

 

 

GrassBase - The Online World Grass Flora:-
"W.D. Clayton, M.S. Vorontsova, K.T. Harman & H. Williamson.

What is GrassBase?
GrassBase will ultimately provide an integrated, online view of the World Grass Species databases which have historically been held in two separate downloadable databases. The first step towards this integration has been the generation of nearly 11,000 species descriptons from the DELTA format that they're encoded in. In addition to this the synonymy/nomenclature database now contains links to these species descriptions integrated with searches for the accepted name and synonyms for just over 60,000 grass names."
To view a description just click on the name of the species you want from the GrassBase Descriptions List.

 

 

A Vegetative Key to Grasses by Ellen McDouall from the Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre.

 

 

Landscaping with Perennials in USA Name Index using these books:-


  • Landscaping with Perennials by Emily Brown. 5th printing 1989 by
    Timber Press. ISBN 0-88192-063-0         for planting sites in the USA for perennials,
    which include most plant types except Annuals and Biennials    .
  • Perennials The Gardener's Reference by Susan Carter,
    Carrie Becker and Bob Lilly. Published by Timber Press in 2007
    for plants for Special Gardens in the USA. It also gives details of species
    and cultivars for each genus.
  • Perennials & Ephemerals chapter of Plants for Dry Gardens by
    Jane Taylor. Published by Frances Lincoln Limited in 1993.
    ISBN 0-7112-0772-0 for plants that are drought tolerant.

Landscaping with Perennials in USA
Name Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

Landscaping with Perennials in USA
Name Index

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

Landscaping with Perennials in USA
Name Index

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

Landscaping with Perennials in USA
Name Index

V

W

X

Y

Z

Per in USA with no flowers are compared in --->

January Unusual Colour Flower Page

 

Companion Planting

Companion planting is the name given to the system of using one plant to help another. It happens in various ways:-

  • 1. Plants may help each other directly.
  • 2. Plants may help each other indirectly by improving the soil.
  • 3. Plants may compete with and/or directly harm others.
  • 4. Some plants help others if they are present in a small proportion, but hinder or harm them as the ratio increases.
  • 5. Plants may repel harmful insects or attract them away from other plants.
  • 6. Plants may support insect populations which are beneficial to other plants.
  • 7. Plants may repel other and larger pests.
  • 8. Plants may attract birds and other creatures which prey on pests and/or are generally beneficial.
  • 9. Plants may reduce the incidence of fungal or other diseases in nearby plants.
  • 10. And, finally, plants may be attractive and/or beneficial to animals and people.

Further details in Companion Planting page of Garden Design.

Pest Control
using Plants to provide a Companion Plant to aid your selected plant or deter its pests.
 

 

The following plants shall be added to the Flower Shape pages of this gallery
from

 

Climbers:-

3 Sector Vertical Plant System from Infill3 Gallery

Ramblers Scramblers & Twiners by Michael Jefferson-Brown (ISBN 0 - 7153 - 0942 - 0) describes how to choose, plant and nurture over 500 high-performance climbing plants and wall shrubs, so that more can be made of your garden if you think not just laterally on the ground but use the vertical support structures including the house as well.

Warning - Just as it is a mistake to try to keep a tiger in a dog's kennel, it can be a disaster to plant a rampant grower in a site that it will very quickly outgrow. Strong climbers, especially self-supporting ones (Ivy, Ampelopsis, Parthenocissus and Vitis), can quickly get to the eaves, where they may sabotage gutters, and if allowed to get onto the roof, distort or even dislodge tiling. Climbing roses must be supported by humans tying them to structures since the roses cannot do it themselves (keep the top of the structures 3 feet below the eaves so that annual pruning can reduce the risk of the odd stem reaching the guttering!!).

There are 3 sectors on a house wall or high wall:-

  • 0-36 inches (0-90 cms) in height - The Base. This gives the most sheltered conditions in the garden, with soil and air temperatures above those of the surrounding area. This area will suffer less buffeting from wind. Soil care will be ensuring a high humus content - to enrich the nutrient value and help to create reservoirs of moisture. Light intensity will depend on the aspect of the wall (North-facing will get very little sunlight) with the surrounding buildings and plants, including trees.
    The following pages in InFill3 gallery cover
    The Base:
  • 36-120 inches (90-300 cms) in height - The Prime Site. As the plant moves upwards to about 6 feet, conditions change: plants still benefit from the reflected heat and stored heat of walls warmed by the sun but have more light and air. Many climbers will have established a trunk below and now begin to spread themselves. This middle section is visually important, because it is at eye level and just below that that we should display those items to which we want to draw most attention. Most of the shrubs that are suitable for growing against walls are between 3 and 10 feet in height.
    The following pages in Infill3 gallery cover
    The Prime Site:
  • Above 120 inches (300+ cms) in height - The Higher Reaches. This is only likely to occur on house walls and other tall buildings with climbers and trained trees/shrubs covering all the way up to 36 inches from the guttering at roof level ( to prevent ingress to the internal roof space or blockage of the guttering).
    The following pages in Infill3 gallery cover
    The Higher Reaches:

The climbers in the Climber Plant Gallery have been placed into one of these 3 heights with the Text Box Boundary in:-

  • Blue for 0-36 inches (0-90 cms)
  • Green for 36-120 inches (90-300 cms)
  • Red for above 10 feet.

The Climber Plant Gallery splits the climbers into their following ways of climbing:-

  • Ramblers/Scramblers - These climbers lean on other plants or need artificial supports to climb - Roses, Jasmine, Espalier-trained Fruit Tree/Fruit Ramblers. These are suitable for house or building walls where vine-eye and wire or 1 inch square timber trellis support structures can be erected up to 3 feet below the gutter for the climbers to be tied to with natural twine (not plastic or metal wire - stems grow sideways but plastic and metal contrict this, whereas natural twine will eventually rot or be broken by the expanding stem), or they can be trained on chainlink fences, trellis, pergolas or arbours. Herbaceous Clematis has been added since the top growth dies off completely in the Autumn and Non-Climbing Clematis since it will require being tied to a support structure. In theInfill3 Plants Index Gallery, these climbers go into the
    3a House-Wall Ramblers
     
  • Self-Clingers: Aerial Roots - A series of roots are produced along the length of its stems. These attach themselves very strongly to the surfaces they find - Ivy (Hedera).
    Self-Clingers: Sucker Pads - Tendrils are produced along the young growing stems, opposite the leaves. The main tendril stem divides into a number of slender filaments, each of which has a scarcely perceivable pad at its tip.Once the tips have established contact, the tiny pad is much expanded and becomes a significant sucker, which fits so strongly to the surface that if the stem is pulled away the suckers are left behind- Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia).
    Self-Clingers: Twining - Many climbers find support simply by twining their stems around any object they find - Wisteria and Honeysuckle.
    Self-Clingers: Twining Leaf-Stem - Some climbers make do with sensitive leaf stalks which wrap themselves around objects for support - Clematis. Others establish themselves with thorns, hooks, spines and prickles.
    Self-Clingers: Twining Tendrils - A group of climbers climb by producing a series of tendrils. These are touch sensitive and will curl round any small object they come into contact with and thus enable the plant to climb securely on itself or other plants or manmade support structures - Chinese Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus henryana), Sweet Pea and the Pea Family (Leguminosae).
    All these Self-Clingers are suitable for garden walls, chainlink fences, trellis, pergolas or fedges, but not for House-Walls. In the Infill3 Plants Index Gallery, these climbers go into the
    3b The Higher Reaches - Non-House-Wall Climbing Twiners 1, 2 Page or
    3c The Higher Reaches - Non-House-Wall Self-Clinging Climbers Page.
     

Climber 3 Sector Vertical Plant System Use Pages:-

The Gardener's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Climbers & Wall Shrubs - A guide to more than 2000 varieties including Roses, Clematis and Fruit Trees by Brian Davis. Published by Penguin Books Ltd. in 1990. ISBN 0-670-82929-3 is providing more climbers to add to the ones from Ramblers Scramblers & Twiners by Michael Jefferson-Brown (ISBN 0 - 7153 - 0942 - 0).

 

Further details of each are available in Climber Plant Gallery:-
Climber Ramblers and Scramblers for House Wall and other supports like garden walls, pergolas, tripods, shrubs, trees,
Climber Wall Shrub Index for House Wall and other areas of the garden,
Climber Annuals Index for all support areas except House Walls,
Climber Base of Wall Plants for all support areas except House Walls,
Climber Self-Clinging Index for all support areas except House Walls,
Climber Tender Plants Index for all support areas except House Walls, or
Climber Twiners Index for all support areas except House Walls

 

Bedding:-

The following details about BEDDING comes from Wikipedia:-
"Bedding, in horticulture, refers to the temporary planting of fast-growing plants into flower beds to create colourful, temporary, seasonal displays, during spring, summer or winter. Plants used for bedding are generally annuals, biennials or tender perennials; succulents are gaining in popularity.
Some bedding plants are also referred to as "patio plants" because they are widely used in pots and other containers positioned on patios, terraces, decking and other areas around houses. Larger tender "conservatory plants" may also be moved out from greenhouses or conservatories and planted out in borders (or stood in their pots in sheltered positions) for the warmer months, then returned to shelter for the winter.
The modern bedding plant industry breeds and produces plants with a neat, dwarf habit, which flower uniformly and reliably. They are bred primarily for use in large-scale bedding schemes where uniformity and predictability is of paramount importance, but this is often achieved by losing the plants' individual character, and has been criticised by such notable plantsmen as the late Christopher Lloyd, who championed an informal style of bedding.

Bedding plants
There exists a huge range of plants specifically grown to produce a period of flower colour throughout the spring and summer, and (usually) discarded after flowering. They may conveniently be divided into four groups:-

  • Hardy annuals sown directly into the ground early in the season (poppy, stock, sunflower, clarkia, godetia, eschscholzia, nigella, dianthus)
  • Tender annual or perennial plants treated as half-hardy annuals - sown under glass in late winter in heat, or purchased as young plants, and hardened-off outdoors when all danger of frost has passed (begonia, lobelia, petunia, argyranthemum, chrysanthemum, pelargonium, nicotiana, cosmos, fuchsia)
  • Hardy biennial plants, or perennials treated as biennial, sown in one year to flower the next, and discarded after flowering (antirrhinum, polyanthus, wallflower, daisy, foxglove, some dianthus, some poppies, campanula, delphinium, aubrieta, aquilegia, cornflower, pansies)
  • Corms, rhizomes, bulbs and tubers, planted each year and lifted after the plant has died down and stored in winter, or discarded (tulip, narcissus, hyacinth, gladiolus, dahlia, canna)

Types of bedding
Formal bedding, as seen in parks and large gardens, where whole flower beds are replanted two or three times a year, is a costly and labour-intensive process. Towns and cities are encouraged to produce impressive displays by campaigns such as "Britain in Bloom".

  • Spring Bedding
    Plants used for spring bedding are often biennials (sown one year to flower the next), or hardy, but short-lived, perennials. Spring-flowering bulbs such as tulips are often used, typically with forget-me-nots, wallflowers, winter pansies and polyanthus.
  • Summer Bedding
    Plants used for summer bedding are generally annuals or tender perennials. They become available (often as what are referred to as "plug plants") in nurseries and garden centres during spring, to be gradually "hardened off" (acclimatised to outdoor conditions) by the purchaser and finally planted out around the time that the last frosts are expected. Experienced gardeners keep an eye on the weather forecasts at that time of year and are on standby to protect their bedding displays overnight with horticultural fleece (or the older alternatives of net curtains or newspaper) if frost threatens.
  • some annuals for bedding:-
  • Carpet bedding
    Carpet bedding employs two or more contrasting plant cultivars with a neat, dwarf habit and distinct colouring (of flower or foliage) to create geometric displays. It is often used to form such things as lettering, logos or trademarks, coats of arms, or floral clocks. Suitable plants are rosette-forming succulents such as Echeveria or fairly slow-growing or mat-forming foliage plants, such as coloured-leaved Alternanthera cultivars, which are tolerant of clipping; such plants may also be used in three-dimensional sculptural forms or pseudo-topiary.
  • Winter Bedding
    Planted in autumn to give a display until early spring, the plants used for winter bedding are mainly hardy perennials. As it has to be planted at the same time of year as spring bedding does, winter bedding tends to be less commonly seen, except in containers such as windowboxes. Some are short-lived and will be discarded after their first display; others may be used as a source of cuttings for the next year. Winter-hardy ornamental vegetables such as cultivars of kale and cabbage with coloured or variegated foliage are increasingly common. Primula cultivars (polyanthus and primroses) are commonly used, as are winter-flowering heathers and Viola × wittrockiana, winter pansies. Variegated evergreens such as cultivars of Vinca minor (lesser periwinkle), Euonymus fortunei and Hedera helix (ivies) are also popular."
  • Other Bedding Plant Uses in Pear Gallery (Bedding):-

 

 

How www.discoverlife.org Works
"We have tools to study natural history and track the impact of climate change, invasive species, and other large-scale ecological factors. We are building a network of study sites across North America. It's exciting to participate in our research projects and help us collect high quality data. We hope you will join us.

About
Our web tools can benefit you and your projects. Teachers can design hands-on ecological research projects for the schoolyard or local park without killing specimens. Park managers can track migrations of invasive species. Scientists can map large collections and present information about species. Amateur naturalists can upload images and make a life list of species they find. Environmental educators can build online field guides so simple they can be used even by the youngest beginner.

Everyone can benefit in some way from a partnership with Discover Life. With our powerful integrated web tools, you can:

• Keep a life list - store your photographic (or video/audio) records of natural history. It's your own electronic nature journal - this is a service somewhat like Flickr or Picasa web albums, but linked to species information, map data and more. You can keep thousands of photographs and other data on our site for free, and store associated information as well. To see examples of stored photographs, click here.
 
• Map species you find - every time you enter locality data to one of your photo records, it will instantly map as a point on the Global Mapper. This works similarly to Google Earth, but our mapper is capable of mapping many more points, each of them attached to an individual record of species occurrence.
 
• Monitor species locations - You can enter a species name on the Global Mapper and it will show all the points where we and our partners have records for that species - each of the points on a species map is a live link to species occurrence, with photo or other record.
 
• Learn about species - Discover Life is an online encyclopedia of life, with over a million species pages, many with photos, information, and links to more info on other sites. You can access this information via the search box on the home page, via "All Living Things" or if you are unsure of the identification, using the IDnature Guides.
 
• Identify species - use our IDnature Guides to identify bees, ants, caterpillars, slime molds, birds, invasive species, among many other groups - many of our online guides are under construction but some are quite complete.
 
• Create your own field guide - use our technology to create a field guide to your local schoolyard, national park, even your own back yard. With our guide-building tools you can build simple guides to plants, insects, fungi, whatever group you are interested in.
 
• For scientists, we provide further services. We can create labels with unique identifiers for your specimens. Using our electronic journal, Proceedings of Life, we can translate cumbersome printed literature such as catalogs into efficient, integrated electronic databases. With the same technology teachers have used to build simple guides to schoolyard plants, you can build very sophisticated guides to any group. You can store and map your photos, videos, audio, locality data, species relationships such as host/parasite information, and other notes on each species record. Discover Life provides the tools to monitor large amounts of natural history data, over large areas, over any period of time. Imagine the possibilities, develop the questions.

We are dedicated to improving education about the natural world, and therefore make our tools available for everyone, for free. You keep copyrights of your photographs and other information, you control how much or how little information you provide. We work constantly to improve our technology to make it easier to use."

 

 

BackyardGardener.com:-
"Since 1996, Backyard Gardener in the USA has provided gardening tips, information, season-by-season, how to grow for almost every gardening type you can imagine. Whether you're interested in flowers, plants, trees, organic gardening, vegetable gardening, composting, rocks... we have it all, and more.

This is no superficial overview. We have everything you need to learn, explore, and improve your gardening. We also provide every product imaginable to assist you in creating your beautiful home garden surroundings.

Backyard Gardener has provided gardening information since 1996. We are a one stop informational site to help people understand their gardening needs. Backyard Gardener provides gardening plans and plant lists to enhance your gardening knowledge.

We assist in providing the best gardening reference sites on the web with our own 'hands on' gardening information."

 

 

Monty Don. The Observer, Sunday 22 April 2001

"Weeds are the unwanted visitors which spoil our garden parties. But before you chuck them out, they can teach us a thing or two. There are other ways to deal with weeds:-

1 Hoe. There are lots of hoes available, but there are only two basic principles: you either push or you pull. I find I use a Dutch hoe most of the time, which, if kept sharp, slices through the roots of any weeds just below the surface of the soil. The secret of hoeing - like all weeding - is to do it little and often. If you have a very weed-infested bit of ground you want to cultivate (and remember, weed-infestation implies good healthy soil) and they have not yet gone to seed, then hoe the weeds off with a mattock or large draw or field hoe, let the weeds wilt for a day in the sun and then dig the whole thing over, weeds and all. This will not get rid of the perennial weeds but will increase the fertility and allow you to grow a crop of fast-growing, weed-suppressing vegetables such as potatoes, beans or squashes.
2 Mulch. Cover every piece of bare soil with a light-excluding but moisture-permeable layer. I use mushroom and garden compost and cocoa shells. Well-rotted horse or cattle manure is good, but cattle manure can include a lot of weed seeds if it is not very well-rotted. But anything will do, including straw, hay, shredded bark, permeable plastic, old carpet, or rolls of white paper mulch. If you are using an organic mulch (ie, one that will rot down into the soil), place it at least 2in thick - 4in is better. This will not stop existing perennial weeds growing through but will make them much easier to pull up.
3 Hand-weed. First the bad news: hand-weeding means getting down on your knees and removing every scrap of weed. Now the good news: it is one of the most enjoyable aspects of gardening. You get to know your soil, your plants, the seedlings and herbaceous perennials coming through.
4 Timing. You must remove weeds before they seed. The old adage 'one year's seeding means seven years' weeding' is pretty much accurate.

 

My weeds: Monty's list of garden horrors, most of which are detailed in this website - look by common name or botanical in the Cream and Brown Wild Flower Gallery Page menus above:-

  • Annuals
    Never let these seed:
    shepherd's-purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris);
    bittercress (Cardamine);
    fat hen (Chenopodium album);
    caper spurge (Euphorbia lathyrus);
    petty spurge (Euphorbia peplus);
    goosegrass (Galium aparine);
    herb Robert (Geranium robertianum);
    Himalaya balsam (Impatiens glandifulifera);
    knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare);
    shepherd's needle (Scandix pectenveneris);
    groundsel (Senecio vulgaris);
    charlock (Sinapsis arvensis) ;
    prickly sow thistle (Sonchus asper);
    chickweed (Stellaria media)
     
  • Perennials
    Very difficult (will take long-term strategy or inspired acceptance):
    Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum);
    horsetail (Equisetum)
     
  • Take very seriously (dig up every scrap of root and burn): ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria);
    bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis, Calystegia sepium); creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens);
    couch grass (Agropyron repens);
    lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria)
     
  • Work at (dig up as and when you can):
    broad- leaved dock (Rumex obtusifolius);
    nettles (Urtica dioica);
    spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare);
    creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense);
    burdock (Arctium lappa)
     
  • Handsome (but intrusive):
    daisy (Bellis perennis);
    greater celandine (Chelidonium majus);
    teasel (Dipsacus fullonum);
    rosebay willowherb (Epilobium angustifolium);
    hogweed (Heracleum spondylium);
    dead-nettle (Lamium);
    alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens);
    mallow (Malva sylvestris);
    plantain (Plantago major);
    silverweed (Potentilla anserina);
    selfheal (Prunella vulgaris);
    comfrey (Symphytum);
    feverfew (Tanacetum);
    dandelion (Taraxacum)."

 

How www.discoverlife.org Works
"We have tools to study natural history and track the impact of climate change, invasive species, and other large-scale ecological factors. We are building a network of study sites across North America. It's exciting to participate in our research projects and help us collect high quality data. We hope you will join us.

About
Our web tools can benefit you and your projects. Teachers can design hands-on ecological research projects for the schoolyard or local park without killing specimens. Park managers can track migrations of invasive species. Scientists can map large collections and present information about species. Amateur naturalists can upload images and make a life list of species they find. Environmental educators can build online field guides so simple they can be used even by the youngest beginner.

Everyone can benefit in some way from a partnership with Discover Life. With our powerful integrated web tools, you can:

• Keep a life list - store your photographic (or video/audio) records of natural history. It's your own electronic nature journal - this is a service somewhat like Flickr or Picasa web albums, but linked to species information, map data and more. You can keep thousands of photographs and other data on our site for free, and store associated information as well. To see examples of stored photographs, click here.
 
• Map species you find - every time you enter locality data to one of your photo records, it will instantly map as a point on the Global Mapper. This works similarly to Google Earth, but our mapper is capable of mapping many more points, each of them attached to an individual record of species occurrence.
 
• Monitor species locations - You can enter a species name on the Global Mapper and it will show all the points where we and our partners have records for that species - each of the points on a species map is a live link to species occurrence, with photo or other record.
 
• Learn about species - Discover Life is an online encyclopedia of life, with over a million species pages, many with photos, information, and links to more info on other sites. You can access this information via the search box on the home page, via "All Living Things" or if you are unsure of the identification, using the IDnature Guides.
 
• Identify species - use our IDnature Guides to identify bees, ants, caterpillars, slime molds, birds, invasive species, among many other groups - many of our online guides are under construction but some are quite complete.
 
• Create your own field guide - use our technology to create a field guide to your local schoolyard, national park, even your own back yard. With our guide-building tools you can build simple guides to plants, insects, fungi, whatever group you are interested in.
 
• For scientists, we provide further services. We can create labels with unique identifiers for your specimens. Using our electronic journal, Proceedings of Life, we can translate cumbersome printed literature such as catalogs into efficient, integrated electronic databases. With the same technology teachers have used to build simple guides to schoolyard plants, you can build very sophisticated guides to any group. You can store and map your photos, videos, audio, locality data, species relationships such as host/parasite information, and other notes on each species record. Discover Life provides the tools to monitor large amounts of natural history data, over large areas, over any period of time. Imagine the possibilities, develop the questions.

We are dedicated to improving education about the natural world, and therefore make our tools available for everyone, for free. You keep copyrights of your photographs and other information, you control how much or how little information you provide. We work constantly to improve our technology to make it easier to use."

 

 

What is The Threatened Plants Database
"At its heart, the TPDB is a database about the 400-or- so rarest species in Britain, and was set up to enable the Joint Nature Conservation Committee to fulfil its statutory duties in protecting these plants and advising the UK government on conservation issues. It was originally compiled for the production of the third edition of the Red Data Book, which went on sale this month (April 1999), and it is now being run by the BSBI under a three-year contract to the JNCC and the country agencies.
As such, it is a very restricted set of biological records. On the other hand, in order to compile it, one needs to have an enormous amount of information available. For example, how would anyone know which plants were rare and which were common if they didn’t keep information on the common ones? So, in the long term, it is not sufficient to simply keep rare plant records. Instead we need to have access to a full set of information on all the British flora in order to be able to extract the particular data that we want. And, of course, that is precisely what the BSBI has been building up for over 150 years.
We have a strategy, therefore, to use the TPDB project to reach into every corner of the BSBI’s work and create an integrated network of information sources which can all send and receive biological records accurately and to uniform high standards. This sounds ambitious, but again it is just an extension of what we’ve all been doing for years. When someone gives a record to a vice county recorder, and the recorder goes out to check it, and then sends a pink card to the BRC, that is a typical example of data management. The only difference is that this process is now being done using computers and the internet.
While all this is happening, there are considerable benefits and spin-offs. It is becoming increasingly possible for ordinary people, with no special training or access to expensive equipment, to produce complex reports and analyses of botanical data. For example, a county checklist can take just minutes to produce. Distribution maps are available at the touch of a button. And there are many other things one can do with the data once you know how to use the software. We have an opportunity to develop this initiative over the next few years, and the plan is to do just that.
Of course not everyone in the BSBI will notice a great change to their everyday activities. This is not an imposed change on the way people work – it is an opportunity for those who wish to take advantage of it. In this newsletter some of those opportunities are explored, and examples are given of people who are involved in this work already. "

From Sarah Ravens Kitchen & Garden:-

Wildflowers - Clay and rich loam soil mix

There are two main things I want from my wildflower meadow –

  • to look beautiful for months not weeks, with flowers coming out and going over in succession
  • AND
  • to grow pollen-rich, insect friendly plants from EARLY in the year to LATE. I want my patch to be a regular and reliable food source for the birds and the bees.

That’s what you’ll get with this beautiful selection of my favourite easy and reliable perennial wild flowers.

To cover an area of 3m2

  • General Height: 60cm.
  • Sow: April- June

Spring into Summer Flowering

• Cowslip March – May
• Common Birdsfoot Trefoil May – July
• Lady’s Bedstraw Late May – August
• Rough Hawksbit May – July
• Red Clover May – October
• Oxeye Daisy May – July
• Yellow Rattle May – July
• Meadow Buttercup May – July

Summer into Autumn Flowering

• Self Heal June – September
• Sorrel June – September
• Tufted Vetch June – September
• Common Knapweed June – September
• Common Toadflax July – October
• Musk Mallow July – October
• Ragged Robin July – September
 

From Sarah Ravens Kitchen & Garden:-

Wildflowers - Chalk and sand, freely-drained soil mix

A wonderfully varied self-sowing wild flower mix for thin, poor, chalky or sandy soils to give your garden or field flowers right through the year and food for the birds and bees.

To cover an area of 3m2

  • General Height: 60cm.
  • Sow: April- June
  • Spring into Summer Flowering
    • • Cowslip March – May
    • • Crosswort April - June
    • • Common Birdsfoot Trefoil May – July
    • • Kidney Vetch May – July
    • • Lady’s Bedstraw Late May – August
    • • Red Clover May – October
    • • Yellow Rattle May – July
    • • Meadow Buttercup May – July
    • • Wild Mignonette May – August
  • Summer into Autumn Flowering
    • • Field Scabious June – September
    • • Hedge Bedstraw June – August
    • • Viper’s Bugloss June – September
    • • Meadow Cranesbill June – September
    • • Greater Knapweed June – August
    • • Salad Burnet June – September
    • • Common Knapweed June – September
    • • Wild Carrot June – September
    • • Wild Marjoram July – September
       

Ivydene Horticultural Services logo with I design, construct and maintain private gardens. I also advise and teach you in your own garden. 01634 389677

 

Site design and content copyright ©May 2008.
Page structure amended October 2012.
Feet changed to inches (cms) July 2015.
Menus and Master changed January 2016.
New Common Names and Botanical Names added February 2021.
Wildflower Index added in November 2023.
Chris Garnons-Williams.

DISCLAIMER: Links to external sites are provided as a courtesy to visitors. Ivydene Horticultural Services are not responsible for the content and/or quality of external web sites linked from this site.


"We have a choice - to use up the world's resources, or to save humanity" from i The Essential Daily Briefing from The Independent on 26 May 2011:-

It is coming from the people of Ecuador, led by their President Rafael Correa, and it would begin to deal with 2 converging crises.

In the 4 billion years since life on earth began, there have been 5 times when there was a sudden mass extinction of life-forms. The last time was 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs were killed, probably by a meteor. But now the world's scientists agree that the 6th mass extinction is at hand. Humans have accelerated the rate of species extinction by a factor of at least 100 and the Harvard biologist EO Wilson warns it could reach a factor of 10,000 within the next 20 years.. We are doing this largely by stripping species of their habitat.

At the same time, we are dramatically warming the atmosphere. The joint-hottest year ever recorded was 2010, according to Nasa. The best scientific prediction is that we are now on course for a 3 feet rise in global sea levels this century. Goodbye London, Cairo, Bangkok, Venice and Shanghai.

So where does Ecuador come in? At the tip of this South American country, there lies 4,000 square miles of rainforest where the Amazon basin, the Andes mountains and the equator come together. It is the most diverse place on earth. When scientists studied a single hectare of it, they found it had more different species of trees that the whole of North America put together. It holds the world records for different species of amphibeans, reptiles and bats. And - more importantly - this rainforest is a crucial part of the planets lungs, inhaling huge amounts of heat-trapping gases and keeping them out of the atmosphere.

Yet almost all the pressure from the outside world today is to cut it down. Why? Because underneath that rainforest, there is almost a billion barrels of untapped oil, containing 400 million tons of planet-cooking gases.

The oil beneath the rainforest is worth about 7 billion dollars. Ecuador's democratic government says that, if the rest of the world offers just half of what the oil is worth - 3.5 billion dollars - they will keep the rainforest standing and alive and working for us all. In a country where 38% live in poverty and 13% are on the brink of starvation, it's an incredibly generous offer and one that is popular in the rainforest itself.

No country with oil has ever done anything like this before. Not a single one has ever considered leaving it in the ground because the consequences of digging it up are too disastrous.

They first made this offer in 2006. Chile has offered $100,000. Spain has offered $1.4million. Germany initially offered $50million, then pulled out. Now Mr Carrea is warning they can't wait forever in a country where 13% are close to starving. If they do not have $100million in the pot by the end of this year, he says, they will have no choice but to pursue Plan B - the digging and destruction of the rainforest."

What the idiots in power in the world do not realise is that a 25 feet by 25 feet grass lawn will provide enough oxygen for a person per year. A car travelling 60 miles consumes the same volume of oxygen as a mature beech tree produces in a year. Every person in the UK travels by car, bus or public transport and they therefore consume more oxygen per year than the property they own or the country they live in can create. We get our oxygen from outside the United Kingdom.

We owe over 900 billion pounds and now we are lending more than 3.5 billion dollars to Greece, Ireland and Portugal. We are spending £800,000 on dropping 1 missile on Libya and last month we were involved in 3 wars costing more that £3.5 billion a year. UNFORTUNATELY THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT INTERESTED IN THE FACT THAT WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BREATHE FAIRLY SOON.

Since no government will do it, perhaps you as the individual reading this could send £1 a month by standing order to the Ecuador Embassy in your country, so that President Carrea can carry out Plan A rather than Plan B.

Ivydene Gardens Water Fern to Yew Wild Flower Families Gallery:
Wildflower 17 Flower Colours per Month

Only Wildflowers detailed in the following Wildflower Colour Pages
are compared in all the relevant month(s) of when that Wildflower flowers -
in the Wildflower Flower Colour
of that row

CREAM WILD FLOWER GALLERY PAGE MENUS


Common Name with Botanical Name, Wild Flower Family, Flower Colour and Form Index of each of all the Wildflowers of the UK in 1965:- AC,AL,AS,BE,
BL,BO,BR,CA,
CL,CO,CO,CO,
CR,DA,DO,EA,
FE,FI,FR,GO,
GR,GU,HA,HO,
IR,KN,LE,LE,
LO,MA,ME,MO,
NA,NO,PE,PO,
PY,RE,RO,SA,
SE,SE,SK,SM,
SO,SP,ST,SW,
TO,TW,WA,WE,
WI,WO,WO,YE

Extra Common Names have been added within a row for a different plant. Each Extra Common Name Plant will link to an Extras Page where it will be detailed in its own row.

EXTRAS 57,58,
59,60,

 

BROWN WILD FLOWER GALLERY PAGE MENUS

Botanical Name with Common Name, Wild Flower Family, Flower Colour and Form Index of each of all the Wildflowers of the UK in 1965:- AC, AG,AL,AL,AN,
AR,AR,AS,BA,
BR,BR,CA,CA,
CA,CA,CA,CA,
CA,CE,CE,CH,
CI,CO,CR,DA,
DE,DR,EP,EP,
ER,EU,FE,FO,
GA,GA,GE,GL,
HE,HI,HI,HY,
IM,JU,KI,LA,
LE,LI,LL,LU,LY, ME,ME,MI,MY,
NA,OE,OR,OR,
PA,PH,PL,PO,
PO,PO,PO,PU,
RA,RH,RO,RO,
RU,SA,SA,SA,
SC,SC,SE,SI,
SI,SO,SP,ST,
TA,TH,TR,TR,
UR,VE,VE,VI

Extra Botanical Names have been added within a row for a different plant. Each Extra Botanical Name Plant will link to an Extras Page where it will be detailed in its own row.

EXTRAS 91,
 

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Blue

1

1

1

Blue
Edible Plant Parts.
Flower Legend.
Food for Butterfly/Moth..
Flowering plants of
Chalk and Limestone Page 1, Page 2 .
Flowering plants of Acid Soil Page 1 .
SEED COLOUR
Seed 1 ,
Seed 2 .
Use of Plant with Flowers .
Scented Flower, Foliage, Root .
Story of their Common Names.
Use for Non-Flowering Plants .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Brown

1

1

1

Brown
Botanical Names .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Cream

1

1

1

Cream
Common Names .
Coastal and Dunes .
Sandy Shores and Dunes .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Green

1

1

1

Green
Broad-leaved Woods .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Mauve

1

1

1

Mauve
Grassland - Acid, Neutral, Chalk.

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Multi-Col-oured

1
 

1
 

1
 

Multi-Cols
Heaths and Moors .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Orange

1

1

1

Orange
Hedgerows and Verges .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Pink

1

1

1

Pink A-G
Lakes, Canals and Rivers .

Pink H-Z
Marshes, Fens, Bogs .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Purple

1

1

1

Purple
Old Buildings and Walls .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Red

1

1

1

Red
Pinewoods .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
White

1

1

1

White A-D
Saltmarshes .
Shingle Beaches, Rocks and
Cliff Tops .

White E-P
Other .

White Q-Z
Number of Petals .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1 Yellow

1

1

1

Yellow A-G
Pollinator .

Yellow H-Z
Poisonous Parts .

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Shrub/ Tree

1

1

1

Shrub/Tree
River Banks and
other Freshwater Margins .
 

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Fruit or Seed

1

1

1

SEED COLOUR
Seed 1
Seed 2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Non-Flower Plants

1

1

1

Use for
Non-Flowering Plants

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Chalk and Lime-stone

1

1

1

Flowering plants of
Chalk and Limestone
Page 1
Page 2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1
Acid Soil

1

1

1

Flowering plants of
Acid Soil
Page 1

 

There are other pages on Plants which bloom in each month of the year in this website:-

12 Bloom Colours per Month Index

Plants Blue, Orange, Red, Yellow, White, Other Colours which lead on to other pages

Colour Wheel - All Flowers per Month 12

Bedding
Bulb
Climber
Deciduous Shrub
Deciduous Tree
Evergreen Perennial
Evergreen Shrub
Evergreen Tree
Herbaceous Perennial
Rhododendron
Rose
Wild Flower

Plants for Cut Flowers in
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Climber 3 sector Vertical Plant System with flowers in
Jan,
Feb,
Mar,
Apr,
May 1, 2
Jun,
Jul,
Aug,
Sep,
Oct,
Nov,
Dec

 

Indoor Bulbs for
December
January
February

Indoor Bulbs for
March
April
May

Indoor
Bulbs for
June
July
August

Indoor Bulbs for
September
October
November

Plant Bloom
Dec-Jan
Feb-Mar

Plant Bloom
Apr-May
Jun-Aug

Plant Bloom
Sep-Oct
Nov-Dec
 

 

Links to external sites were valid when I inserted them but they may no longer connect since either the page has been removed or that website is no longer active, so you will have to use your search engine to find either the plant or data yourself

.

 

This table copied from Blue Wildflower - Flower Legend Page

Cultural Needs of Plants
from Chapter 4 in Fern Grower's Manual by Barbara Joe Hoshizaki & Robbin C. Moran. Revised and Expanded Edition. Published in 2001 by Timber Press, Inc. Reprinted 2002, 2006. ISBN-13:978-0-
88192-495-4.

"Understanding Fern Needs
Ferns have the same basic growing requirements as other plants and will thrive when these are met. There is nothing mysterious about the requirements - they are not something known only to people with green thumbs - but the best gardeners are those who understand plant requirements and are careful about satisfying them.
What, then, does a fern need?

All plants need water. Water in the soil prevents roots from drying, and all mineral nutrients taken up by the roots must be dissolved in the soil water. Besides water in the soil, most plants need water in the air. Adequate humidity keeps the plant from drying out. Leaves need water for photosynthesis and to keep from wilting.
All green plants need light to manufacture food (sugars) by photosynthesis. Some plants need more light than others, and some can flourish in sun or shade. Most ferns, however, prefer some amount of shade.
For photosynthesis, plants require carbon dioxide, a gas that is exhaled by animals as waste. Carbon dioxide diffuses into plants through tiny pores, called stomata, that abound on the lower surface of the leaves. In the leaf, carbon dioxide is combined with the hydrogen from water to form carbohydrates, the plant's food. This process takes place only in the presence of light and chlorophyll, a green pigment found in plant cells. To enhance growth, some commercial growers increase the carbon dioxide level in their greenhouses to 600ppm (parts per million), or twice the amount typically found in the air.
Plants need oxygen. The green plants of a plant do not require much oxygen from the air because plants produce more oxygen by photosynthesis than they use. The excess oxygen liberated from the plants is used by all animals, including humans. What do plants do with oxygen? They use it just as we do, to release the energy stored in food. We use energy to move about, to talk, to grow, to think - in fact, for all our life processes. Although plants don't talk or move much, they do grow and metabolize and must carry on all their life processes using oxygen to release the stored energy in their food.
Roots need air all the time. They get it from the air spaces between the soil particles. Overwatering displaces the air between soil particles with water, thereby removing the oxygen needed by the roots. This reduces the root's ability to absorb mineral nutrients and can foster root-rot.
Plants need minerals to grow properly. The minerals are mined from the soil by the plant's root system. If a certain mineral is missing, such as calcium needed for developing cell walls, then the plant will be stunted, discoloured, or deformed.
Some plants tolerate a wide range of temperatures, whereas others are fussy. If the temperature is too high or low, the machinery of the plant will not operate satisfactorily or will cease entirely.

The basic needs of plants are not hard to supply, but growing success depends on attending to these needs with care and exactitude. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to a discussion of these requirements, with the exception of mineral needs, which are discussed in Chapter 5."

Flower Legends by M.C. Carey. Published by C. Arthur Pearson Ltd in 1929. This provides the information for the plants listed below.

Common Name

Botanical Name

Flower Legend

The Anemone

 

A Greek legend relates how once the gentle Zephyrus, who was said to produce flowers and fruits by the magic sweetness of his breath, made the fair Anemone his bride. She was a favourite nymph at the court of Chloris, and fairer and more graceful than any of the lovely band that formed that court of flowers round the goddess.
Chloris noticed the wind god's affection for her nymph, and was so jealous for his love that she was enraged and drove Anemone from her presence, forbidding her to return.
Anemone wandered sadly through the woods and groves followed by her sorrowing lover, who, as he said farewell, changed her into a star-like flower - "most delicate and fair" - and which to this day he loves to caress.
And the ancients said that every spring Zephyrus comes again to coax her with his sweet breath to open her petals, the
"Coy anemone that ne'er uncloses
Her lips until they are blown on by the wind."
But he only abandons her later to the rude caresses of his brother Boreas, who "unable to win her love, blights with his rude embraces her half unfolded charms".

The Arum Lily

 

It is said that when Joshua and Caleb were sent out by Moses to spy out the Promised Land of Canaan, Aaron gave them his rod to take with them. The story goes, that the spies, in proof of their report of a land "flowing with milk and honey", carried back a giant cluster of grapes, cut from vines at Eschol, borne between them on the rod, which they supported on their shoulders.
They laid their rich burden at the feet of Moses, and stuck the rod in the ground. T o the surprise of all, an arum sprang from the earth at its foot, a living symbol of the fruitfulness of the land to which they were adventuring. And to this day farmers are known to judge their harvests by watching for the size of the spadix of the arum in the spring.

On the deep green leaves of the arum are curious purple spots, and tradition tells that when Christ hung suffering on the Cross, and cried in agony: "Father, forgive them...," a bird was flying by. Hearing the cry of pain, it swerved in its flight, and perched on the Cross. Then, in pity for our Lord, it tried with its little beak to wrench the nails from His hands and feet, and its breast was soon red with the Blood flowing from the wounds. The crimson drops fell to the ground, and stained the leaves of an arum lily growing at the foot of the Cross, and those stains have been borne by the plant ever since.

The Blackthorn

 

Two blackthorn trees, are, in France, inseparably connected with the life of St. Patrick.
The story goes that the saint was on his way to join St. Martin one Christmas time when it was bitterly cold, and snow lay on the ground. Tired with his long day's walk, he came to a river and sat down to rest under a thorn tree that stood gaunt and bare, its black branches outlined against the snow.
As he rose to go on his way, the thorn burst into full bloom in his honour, and was covered by a mantle of tiny snow-like flowers.
St. Patrick blessed the blackthorn, and crossed the river on his cloak, to come again to rest under another tree growing opposite its fellow on the further side. This also blossomed in his honour, and from that time onwards the 2 thorns have never ceased to bloom at Christmas time in memory of the saint and his journey.

The Bladder Campion

Bladder Campion is
Silene vulgaris
cbladderflocampion1

Pink family

Owls, as everyone knows, are reputed to be very wise birds, which is, no doubt, due to the fact that long ages ago they were under the special protection of the goddess of wisdom, Minerva, who kept them as pets and was escorted by them wherever she went.
Her owls were particularly fond of flies, and as they seldom flew abroad by day the goddess found t difficult to catch enough flies for their needs.
Finding that she could not spare the time herself to capture the insects, she called to her a small boy named Campion, and told him to spend his days in catching flies for her hungry flight of owls, amply rewarding him for his services.
Every morning the little boy would wander out into the fields carrying a big bladder bag on the end of a long stick, into which he would put all the flies he could catch, and in the evening he would return to be greeted by the sound of soft brown wings, as the great birds came for their supper.
But Campion was a lazy fellow. He soon tired of his task, and on the hot sunny days would creep into the shade of a tree, and sleep through the long afternoons, while the flies and gnats buzzed safely over his head. The owls grumbled and hooted at their meagre rations, and grew so thin that Minerva noticed their plight, and questioned Campion closely about their food. The boy hung his head and looked so guilty that the goddess suspected what was happening, and warned him that if he did not mend his ways and keep her birds well fed, he would be severely punished.
Time went on, but Campion did no better, and the owls grew thinner and thinner. Then the goddess descended in her wrath, and in a fit of anger turned Campion into a flower, and sent him for ever on to bare hillside, there forlornly to wave his empty bladder in which no flies were now to be imprisoned.

The Broom and the Juniper

 

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was flying from the wrath of Herod with the Holy Child in her arms.
With Josepth walking beside her, she rode upon a donkey in the hurried flight into Egypt, casting anxious looks backwards for fear of pursuit.
They were encamped for the night, too weary to go on longer without rest; as Mary was crossing an open pathway, she was suddenly alarmed, and thought she heard the sound of soldiers close by. She at once took refuge behind a bush of broom growing near, and whose leaves would have concealed her, but the treacherous plant gave out such a crackling that it would have attracted notice from anyone, even from a passer-by who was not on the look out for the escaping travellers.
The holy Mother looked round in terror, and a juniper tree seeing her distress opened wide its branches under which she crept with the little Jesus. As she did so, the juniper quietly closed behind her, and she was safely hidden from any who should pass by.
So the broom for ever after has need to remember the cause of its humble employment of sweeping, which today it suffers, and in token of further disgrace it was chosen by witches who ride through the clouds upon it at night.

The Campanula or Canterbury Bell

 

The true Campanula was supposed to resemble an ancient mirror, for it was said that Venus once possessed a mirror which added to the beauty of everything that was reflected in it. There came a day when she missed her treasure, and it was found by a rough shepherd, who was so enchanted by the reflection of is own countenance, that he stood lost in admiration gazing into the mirror as if in a dream.
Cupid, who was looking for the glass, at last discovered the old man, and partly amused and partly annoyed that Venus's precious belonging should be handled by a mere herdsman, snatched it suddenly out of his fingers, so that it fell to earth, and the man was left lamenting.
But the mirror, being divine, left its mark on the grass where it had lain, for there sprang up a carpet of flowers to be afterwards known to men as campanulas, or Venus's looking-glass.

The Carnation

 

To this day the family of Ronsecco in Italy displays the device of a carnation in its armorial bearings, in memory of the Countess Margherita Ronsecco and her lover.
It was in the time of the Crusades that the fair Margherita loved a chivalrous and handsome knight, Orlando, and the date was indeed fixed for the marriage when the call through the land bidding all brave men arm for a Crusade against the Saracen, and so deliver Christ's Holy Tomb.
Orlando, though distracted with grief, never for a moment thought of failing in his duty, and Margherita would not have had him stay.
"Farewell," she cried, "be true to me and do not forget."
"Never while I draw breath," was his answer, and he claimed from her the flower she wore in her bosom, and vowed that he would wear it as a talisman next his heart.
I tears she fastened the flower, a white carnation, in his breastplate, and he rode away.
Years after there came a strange horseman to seek admittance at the great Ronsecco gates. He brought news of Orlando, who had fallen at the hand of the Saracen foe, and he carried with him 2 relics for Margherita, a shining lock of her lover's hair, and a withered flower. An arrow had pierced Orlando's breast and the little silken bag in which he kept the talisman, so that his blood had dyed both a deep crimson.
The maiden kept the relics as her dearest treasure, and seeing some tiny seed pods on the flower's stalk, planted them in a pot, watching and weeping over them daya after day.
To her joy in due time green shoots appeared above the mould, and strong healthy plants grew and flourished, and bore flowers; but the carnations as they opened were not the same as the original flower, but had only an outer rim of white, the centre marked by deep crimson petals, as if blood had stained them.
Then Margherita knew that God had wrought this miracle in token of His love for loyalty and courage and true faith in man, and the head of the house of Ronsecco chose to have a red and white carnation on his coat of arms.
The Countess Margherita never married. She loved her flowers, tended them faithfully, and died leaving the carnations as a gift to her sisters, and bidding them never give away a bloom to anyone except to the men to whom they were betrothed.
So the plant was treasured as an heirloom, and cuttings taen from it only increased in each generation according to the number of maidens, for every daughter of the house was given a plant of this famous red and white carnation at her birth.
And from this custom the legend grew up that whenever a maiden of the Ronsecco family was destined to die unmarried, so certainly would the flower wither and die, and if one of them lost her honour or gave the flower to a lover unworthy of her, her carnation would be found blighted over-night.

The Christmas Rose

 

Known as the "Rose of Love", the Christmas roses first bloomed in the gardens of heaven, and were watched over by the angels. At the fall, the earth was covered with snow, and not one flower so carefully tended by Adam and Eve was to be seen.
The angels wept over this scene of desolation, and pleaded with the Almighty to allow them to carry at least one flower to mankind, in token of His love and mercy.
God listened to their prayers and gave them leave to take their special favourite, "the pure celestial flower", to their stricken world.
On the night when the shepherds left their flocks and followed the Star to the stable in Bethlehem, a young peasant girl, sister of 2 of the shepherds, went with them.
But when they reeached the inn, and she saw the crowd pressing round the door, where the Wise Men and their caravans had arrived to lay their gifts before the Holy Child, she drew back, and did not dare push her way through after her brothers, because her hands were empty and she had no gift to offer.
After a while she turned away weeping, and went back towards the lonely hills, until on the edge of the desert she found the flocks.
But suddenly the light of the stars was dimmed, and an angel appeared to her in a blaze of light, and spoke to her.
"Child, why do you carry sorrow in your heart?" he asked.
And the girl answered: "Because I carry no joy to the Child of Bethlehem."
The angel bent low and smiled at her, and brushed his wing tips over the snow-covered ground. There beneath bloomed a carpet of Christmas roses. Then he vanished from her sight, and the girl sank on her knees with a cry of joy and wonder. She filled her arms with the flowers, and hastened to return to Bethlehem, where the crowds thronged even more densely than before. But the people made way for her, and looked with amazement at the armful of lovely flowers she carried on that winter night.
At last she reached the stable and timidly drew near to the manger. The Wise Men were rising from their knees, surrounded by the gold and jewels and precious gifts they had brought the Christ, but when the Babe saw the Christmas roses, he stretched out His little hands for them, and smiled as the shepherd girl heaped them around Him, and even to this day the delicate flowers are flushed with ratitude.
And the angels were watching in Heaven, and Gabriel said: " For evermore roses of Christmastide must solitude endure, and cold, and winter days, but they have and shall always share the Christ Child's blessing".

The Chrysanthemum

 

When the Magi, following the star in the East, that guided them to Bethlehem, reached the village, they were puzzled to find no signs of rejoicing in the streets. All was silent, and the people were going about their business as usual, in spite of the many caravans that had journeyed in from far for the tax.
Night was falling, and they made their way along the narrow streets where no sounds of music or dancing could be heard proclaiming a great event. As the camels wound along, one behind the other, the great men searched for the chosen spot in vain, when suddenly the word to halt was given by King Malcher, and the caravan stood still.
"Here is the place," he cried, "I have found a flower whose petals are rayed like the star which we have followed, and which is at this moment hanging over our heads".
They all looked up at the strange star blazing in the sky, and then down at the flower that Malcher bent to pick, and as he did so the door of the stable by his side opened of its own accord, and they went in.
There they found the Holy Child lying in a manger, and into His outstretched hand Malcher placed the stem of the chrysanthemum flower, and the tall men knelt before the Child, to them the newborn King, and who held as sceptre the pure white winter flower, shaped like the Heavenly Star which had guided them to His side.

The Clematis

 

The Cossacks were once at war with the Tartars, and finding themselves greatly outnumbered were about to turn and flee.
But at this time the old Cossack leader spurred hir horse forward and struck his forehead with a charmed pike. At that moment arose a wild tempest which whirled the cowardly Cossacks into the air like so many leaves: it blew them into fragments and their dust mingled with that of their nemies.
From that dust is sad to have sprung the clematis flower. But the souls of the Cossacks were so troubled, knowing that their bones were lying amongst those of the Tartars, that they besought the Saints in Heaven to spread the flowers of the clematis or tziganka into the Ukraine.
Their prayer was granted, and it came to be a popular superstition in Little Russia, that if only every man would hand a spray of tziganka from his belt, the dead Cossacks who fell so strangely in that great battle would come again to life.

The Cornflower

 

The classic name of the cornflower is Cyanus, after the Greek youth who worshipped Chloris, the goddess of flowers and spring, with the most touching devotion.
Day and night he knelt at her shrine, only leaving it to gather cornflowers in the fields to lay in masses at her feet, so that, as he thought, her eyes might rest on the blue of the sky below her as well as on the real blue of the heavens above.
One morning Cyanus was found dead, lying in his favourite field of corn, with half-finished garlands of cornflowers at his side, and in pity for his devotion, the goddess called the flower after his name.

The Cowslip
(Keys, Our Lady's Keys, Keys-of-heaven, Herb Peter, St Peter's-wort, Peter's-keys, Fairy-cups)

Primula veris
ccowslipflo1a

Primrose Family
 

In Norse legend, and later in Christian fable, the cowslip is connected with the symbol of the keys, obviously owing to the appearance of the flower itself, which looks so like a bunch of yellow keys hanging fromits s;lender stalk.
The "key legend" that comes from the North relates that the cowslip was the special flower of Freia, the goddess of Spring, who is also known as the Key Virgin from the key she carried in her crown.
Every thousandth cowslip was supposed to be a key flower, and if picked and held against a rock, a secret door would open and discover to the lucky adventurer a glimpse of the Enchanted Land.
There could be seen great jars covered with cowslips and full of the most precious gifts, gold, jewels, and exquisite stuffs and precious stones. The holder of the magic cowslip may enter in and carry off the treasure, but if he drops the key flower in his efforts to hold more than he can bear away, he will find himself again on the grass of the meadow outside, and the door of the Enchanted Land will be barred agaist him for ever.
This Norse legend has come down through Christian days in an altered form, though the key symbolism remains. St. Peter's Herb, or Herb Peter as it is called in some parts of the country, takes its name thus:
Once upon a time St Peter heard it whispered in Heaven that men were gaining admittance through some back and secret entrance, and escaping his vigilant eye at the great main door, where he stands for ever as Keeper of the Gate.
This so agitated him that he let fall his heavy bunch of keys, and these fell to earth. But where they fell sprang up a golden flower - the keys of Heaven - and to this day the golden cowslips bear witness to the truth of this story.

The Crocus

 

A Greek legend tells of the spring crocus that once there lived a youth named Krokos, who loved Smilax, a young shepherdess on earth. By this he offended the gods, who changed him into a flower which even to this day

"Heralds the spring, young waking love declares
And everywhere the name of crocus bears."

The saffron crocus which does not bloom till the autumn was for a long time said to be the monopoly of the Rajah of Cashmere, by reason of its famous dye. In the days of Edward III an Englishman disguised as a pilgrim travelled through India, and when he reached the northern frontiers stole a bulb of the precious plant at the risk of his life, and hid it in a hollow staff which he had carried with him for the purpose. Eventually he returned to England, and reached his home at Walden, in Essex, and planted it in his garden. Such a wealth of flowers sprang from that single bulb, that ever since that year the village has been known as Saffron Walden.

The Daisy

Bellis perennis
daisycflobritishflora1

Daisy - Cudweeds Family

Once upon a time the daisy was the flower that noble spirits chiefly chose when after death they took the form of a flower and bloomed on earth.
For once the golden Belus, queen of the woodland, was playing with her sister nymphs in the forest when twilight fell, and the sun began to sink like a red ball behind the trees.
The nymphs came out to dance together in an open glade, and one of the fair Belides dancing with her lover looked so fresh and exquisite that Vertumnus, the garden deity of Spring, was fascinated by her. He flew down upon them, but her lover jealous, stood between her and the god, and the nymph herself was so alarmed by the intruder that she turned herself into a daisy flower.

When the fiingers of Death are laid gently upon the heart of a tiny baby, and it is carried by the angels back to God, the little creatures long to console their mothers left behind on earth to mourn for them. So the babies scatter new and lovely flowers down from the heavens, as a memory of the dead and to cheer the living.
One day, Malvinia, who had just lost her infant son, was weeping amongst her maidens. Suddenly one of them came to her and said: "Look, look, Malvinia, raise your eyes! We have seen your baby. He smiled to us out of a rainbow-tinted cloud, and stretching out his hand from the the star-girt bed, a harvest of new flowers shed. See here is one, a golden centre, and a wreath of silver leaves round it tinged with crimson!"
So Malvinia looked up, and there swaying in the breeze that swept over the meadow, she saw a host of the little white flowers, like children playing amongst the green grasses.
And she was comforted.

The Dandelion

 

The word dandelion is a corruption of dent de lion, less by reason of the shape of its leaves, as has been suggested, than because the lion was once the symbol of the sun.
A legend of the North American Indians tells that Shawondasee, the south wind, still sighs for love of a maiden with golden hair whom he once saw in the spring.
The south wind is lazy, and he loves to lie and sleep in the shade of the magnolia trees, filling his lungs with the scent of their heavy blossoms, and breathing it out again until the perfume drifts far over the fields.
One day, as Shawondasee lay half dreaming on a soft spring morning, he saw a little way off, a slim girl standing in the sunshine, which lit up her yellow head of hair. Ife he had not been so idle and lazy he would have called her to him, but he let the moments slip by until dusk crept over the prairie. The next day he eagerly looked again for the maiden, and she was still there, more beautiful than ever, and this went on for some time, the south wind always on the look out for her, yet never bestirring himself to speak to her.
There came a morning when there was a strange look about the figure he so anxiously sought. He looked again, almost roused to action, and looked yet a third time. A woman was indeed standing where the girl had been, but how different she seemed! The glory of her golden hair had vanished and instead was a head of softest grey, borne on old and shrunken shoulders.
"Alas, alas," cried Shawondasee, " I see what has happened. It is the hand of my brother, the north wind, which has been here in the night. He has touched her head and whitened it with his frost."
And Shawondasee in his sadness sighed such a mighty sigh that the breath of it reached the figure, and in a moment her white hair scattered like a cloud from her head, and floated away on the wind, and was gone.
Others with golden heads like that first maiden's come and go, and the sun lights them up on the prairie with his bright beams, but in spring the south wind sighs for the girl of the yellow hair as he first saw her.

The Edelweiss

 

There is a legend which tells of an angel who, tiring of her heavenly home, besought to be allowed to return to earth, even though she should suffer sorrow and misfortune there again.
She was allowed to resume her mortal shape, but she had forgotten how tragic were the woes of mankind, with its ceaseless fret of discontent and poverty, crime and disease and pain, and she fled in despair to the mountains of Switzerland, far from the world upon which she could then look down in pity.
Possesssing the soul of an angel she was wondrously beautiful, and she was upon one occasion seen by a bold climber, and from that day men sought for her year by year in her icy seclusion, where in vain she tried to hide in crevice and crack from them, and once having seen her they ineviably and hopelessly loved her for ever.
She was kind to them all, but cold as the snows that surrounded her, and at last in desperation her lovers prayed to God that as they could not make her love them nor possess her, she might be taken from their sight into Heaven, so that they might escape the agony of longing that they suffered loving her.
The prayers of the lovers were granted, and the angel was received again into Heaven, leaving her human heart to bloosom on the heights in the form of the flower of edelweiss, in memory of her short life on the mountain tops.

The Forget-Me-Not

 

Following from Stories 1-3 in Story of their Common Name here is
Story 4 -
One golden morning after the Creation, an angel was found weeping outside the close-barred gates of Eden. He had fallen from grace through the sin of loving a daughter of Earth, whom he had seen as she sat on the river bank, entwining her hair with flowers of the blue forget-me-not.He was not permitted by God to rise again to the heavenly heights until the maiden he loved should have sown the whole world over with the seeds of the flowers she wore, and for this reason he was weeping over the hardness of his sentence.
However, he took heart, and leaving the unyielding gates behind him, departed to tell the Earth daughter what was decreed.
So forthwith they set out to travel far and wide over the world, planting the tiny seeds as they went.
Years later, their task accomplished, together they entered Paradise, and like her lover the angel, the maiden became immortal, as the earth below blossomed into a carpet of little blue flowers; "For," said the Keeper of the Gate, " your love is greater than your wish for life."

Story 5 -
After the battle of Waterloo, a tiny plant sprang up all over the field, spreading a blue carpet over the scarred and desolate plain. The flowers came from the seed of a small spray carried next his heart by a young Englishman who fell in the fight. Surely a fitting memory of one who gave his life for his country, and for her who had given him the token.
 

The Geranium

 

In the East the geranium almost reaches the proportions of a tree, and there it was first created.
For once when the prophet Mahomet had washed his shirt, he threw it over a plant of mallow in the sun to dry. It was not long in drying, but even in that short time a marvellous change took place in the mallow, which was transformed by contact with the sacred garment into a tall and lovely plant, covered with bright scarlet flowers, its leaves giving out an exquisite scent.
The mallow had become a geranium, the first ever seen on earth, in honour of the virtues of the Prophet.

The Heliotrope

 

Apollo, the sun god, loved a king's daughter - the fair Leukothea. But Clytia, to spite her rival and to gain Apollo's favour, went to the king and told him of the secret meetings of the lovers, which so enraged him that he buried the luckless Leukothea alive, and so ended her brief and happy life.
Apollo, saddened, returned to the heavens and never even cast one glance in the direction of Clytia, who, realising the harm she had done by her cruel deed, fell to the ground in misery of remorse, and lay there for 9 long days watching the sun god pass in his chariot, and praying to him for a look of pity.
But Apoolo would not heed her cry.
At last the gods had mercy on her, and changed her into the flower of heliotrope. And thus she still lies, looking towards the sun with half-averted eye, as if hoping for the forgiveness of Apollo.

The Wild Hyacinth or Bluebell

 

Once upon a time there lived a youth called Hyacinthus, the son of a Spartan king, who was much beloved of Apollo, the god of the sun, and Zephyrus, god of the west wind.
The 2 gods loved the boy for his grace and beauty, and while the one warmed him with his bright rays, the other caressed him with soft breezes, and each was jealous of the other.
Unfortunately, Hyacinthus grew to prefer the sunny warmth of Apollo, and openly disliked the sudden buffeting winds that Zephyrus sometimes let loose upon him, and the wind god became insanely jealous of his rival, and secretly swore to revenge himself, should the chance arise.
One day Apollo and the fair Hyacinthus were playing their favourite game of discus, and Zephyrus stayed near them, hoping for a chance to harm the boy's favourite. Apollo raised his great arm, and hurled the quoit into the air. It flew straight for the mark, but alas - the wind god seized his opportunity; he blew the discus to one side, too late realising that the lad stood in its path as he watched the throw unconscious of the danger.
The quoit, blown with tremendous force, struck him on the temple, and he fell; Apollo in anguish rushed to raise his head, but he died, the blood pouring from the wound, while the cruel and thoughtless west wind crept away in horror at what he had done.
Apollo, utterly miserable at the loss of his little playfellow, raised up from his blood a purple fower to bear his name, and on the petals he wrote 2 letters - "AI, AI" which means in Greek, "Alas, Alas!"
Nowadays these markings on the flowers are not easily seen. But the Greeks may have had clearer eyes than we have, and been able to read the sun god's lament.

The Iris

 

When history alludes to the lilies of France, it is really the iris to which it refers.
It is said that King Clovis of France originally had the device of three black toads as his coat of arms. All went well in time of peace, but in battle the French were roundly trounced, and the royal troops began to fear that the toads were bringing ill-luck on His Majesty.
One day a saintly hermit, who was sitting in the door of his cell wrapt in contemplation, received a visitation from a heavenly being bearing a dazzling sky-blue shield, on which were emblazoned three iris flowers. This the angel gave into the trembling hands of the old man, and departed after bestowing his blessing upon him.
The hermit took the shield and gave it to the queen, telling her of the vision. And Clovis the king removed the black toads from his escutcheon, and when the heavenly shield was borne before him in battle, no foe could triumph against it. So from that time onward his armies were victorious, and the iris, or "lilies", became the royal standard of France.
(Some say that the legend of the toads is not founded on any known fact, but that the iris flowers were so badly drawn by the artists of those days that they were mistaken for toads! Louis VII adopted the iris in the crusades of 1137.)

The Jasmine

 

An Indian myth tells how a king had a lovely daughter, with whom the sun god fell in love. But he soon deserted her for another, and in despair the young princess killed herself from grief.
Above her tomb grew a tree of jasmine, and from that time its flowers shrank in horror from the perfidious sun, and were never after known to open their petals in the light; and to this day we know it as the night jasmine, in blossom like the orange flower, though more delicate in scent and shape.

The jasmine flower is much loved in Italy, and in the year 1699 the Grand Duke of Tuscany was able to secure a specially lovely variety, unequalled in the size and fragrance of its blooms.
He was so proud of being the only possessor of such a rare plant that he refused to part with a single cutting, and his gardeners had strict order never to allow it to go beyond his grounds.
But he had one gardener who was in love, and who could not resist the temptation of slipping a spray of the lovely jasmine into the bunch of flowers he gave his sweetheart on her birthday. Charmed with the flower, the girl planted it in fresh earth, and the sprig sprouted and grew. Then, later on, acting under her lover's direction, she raised and sold cuttings for high prices, and so saved enough money to marry her faithful gardener.
It is in memory of this that Tuscan girls wear jasmine wreaths on their wedding day, and say: "She who is worthy to wear the jasmine, is worth a fortune to her husband".

The Lavender

 

Our Lord was lying as a tiny babe at the inn where his Mother lodged, and one day she took some of His little garments down to the stream to wash. The river flowed over some stones very clear and fresh, and formed a natural basin where Mary rinsed and wrung out the tiny clothes.
Rising at last from her knees, she looked about to see where she could spread out the linen to dry, and she noticed that a low grey bush was growing close by, covered with small stiff leaves. There were only a few spiky flowers upon its grey stalks, and gathering up the wet garments, Mary carefully spread them out in the sun over the bush and went home to her Child.
In the evening she went down again to the river to fetch the clothes, and found them laid out dry and clean on the stones at the water's edge, while the whole air was scented with a curious and delicate fragrance. Mary looked round, surprised not to find the clothes where she had left them, and then perceived that the dried-up-looking bush had broken out into green leaves and spikes of a pale mauve colour.
She went close to the bush and bent to smell the lovely scent that came from the blossoms, each one a tiny flower in itself growing closely together on single stalks.
As she lifted her head there came a voice at her side, and turning quickly she saw the Angel Gabriel smiling upon her.
He blessed the lavender and said: "Henceforth thou shalt be no more scentless, but beloved of men for the purity of thy scent. Thou alone of all things growing shalt breathe the breath of Paradise."
Then the Angel vanished, and Mary, with the fragrant little garments in her arms, picked a sprig of the lavender, and breathed a prayer over it as she hid it in her breast.

The Leek

 

The origin of the adoption of the leek as the badge of the Welsh, and which is worn on St David's day - the first of March - is said to be as follows:
St David was a holy man, who lived in the days of King Arthur as a hermit, only feeding upon the leeks which he gathered in the fields.
He left his cell at the call of his country to fight the Saxons, and ordered the Welsh soldiers each to place a leek in their caps, so that not only would they know friend from foe in the battle, but that the horrible smell of the plant might also cause their enemies to waver and draw back. Thus in the confusion of battle it turned out as St David had hoped: the Saxons struck at friend and foe alike, but the Britons avoided slaying their comrades, and so won the fight.
Ever since that day they wear the leek in memory of the victory and of the part the holy St David played in it.

In Sicily the leek is always associated with the mother of St Peter, who to them is traditionally ill-favoured and stingy.
Only once was she ever known to have given anything away, and that was when she threw a leaf of a leek to a beggar at her gate. So it was that "when she died hell received her".
Years after, when St Peter was door-keeper in Heaven, he heard a voice pleading: "Son Peter, son Peter, see what torment I am in; go and ask the Lord God to let me out!"
St Peter listened, and being a dutiful son he went to the Lord God and asked that his mother might be spared further punishment.
But God said: "She never did a nail-paring of good in her liferime. However, for thy sake here is the leaf she was let fall as a gift; an angel shall take it and shall tell her to lay hold of it, while he pulls her up. If she can ascend by it, well. If not, she must be as she is" .
The leaf was lowered and the woman grasped it. But the souls in torment clung to her, so that the angel was soon pulling up a throng. And so avaricious and unkind was the old woman that she kicked the unhappy souls away that sought to gain their freedom by her aid, so that the leaf strained and broke, and all fell back for ever into the depths.

The Lily of the Valley

 

A Sussex legend tells that it was in the forest bearing his name that the bold young warrior saint, St. Leonard, sought out and gave battle to the might dragon Sin. For 3 days and nights they fought up and down the forest, and it was not until the fourth day that victory came to the saint, and he drove back the monster.
And where the blood from young Leonard's wounds stained the ground, there sprang up fragile lilies, with white bells that softly chimed in honour of the knightly victory won for God and His saints.

The White Lily

 

Lilies were not white at the beginning of time, but saffron-coloured. But the sea-borne Aphrodite appearing before them whiter than the foam from which she sprang, was so exquisite and beautiful that the lilies trembled and grew pale from jealously, and so for ever remained white.

The Marigold

 

There once lived a maiden called Caltha, who loved the sun so deeply that she would sit all day long gazing at the heavens, rejoicing in his beams when he appeared and watching for him when hid behind a cloud.
She would not even leave her post at night in case she might miss the first moments of early dawn heralding his appearance in the eastern sky, and so not be the first to greet him.
So she waited and adored, until there came a day when she vanished away altogether from mortal sight, absorbed in the sun's rays. But in her place there appeared a flower, bedewed with teardrops, and coloured like the sun, with rays of gold. And to this day the marigold, when the sun sets, shuts up her yellow flowers drooping all night, and when he warm returns points her enamoured bosom to his rays.

The Pansy

 

A German legend tells that long ago the first pansies had a lovely scent, and were even sweeter than their little sisters, the March violets. They grew in cultivated fields, chiefly amongst the long yellow stalks of corn and barley, and were peaceful and happy with such nice neighbours. But the fragrance of their scent became known, and as they were also said to possesss certain healing properties, the corn and barley and oats were trampled ruthlessly down by the thoughtless people trying to find the flowers.
The pansies were terribly upset by this. They felt that it was all their fault that their friends should be left broken and bent by the cruel human feet that walked through the fields.
One quiet evening, when the angels were hanging the pale curtains of night round the world, and the faint misty glow of twilight slipped through their fingers, the little pansies in the cornfield prayed to Heaven, and the angels stayed their hand and waited, until the All-Loving Father heard the tiny voices. And the prayer was this - that the pansie's greatest treasure, their scent, might be taken from them, as it was causing harm and suffering to those around them.
The unselfish wish was granted, and as the angels passed by on their evening labours, the stars came twinkling out, and shone upon a field of scentless little pansies.

The Poppy

 

Long ago, on the banks of the river Ganges in India, there lived a magician with a little red mouse. The mouse was quite happy with its lot for several years, but after a time it grew discontented, and asked the rashi to change it into something else. So he transformed it into a cat; but it was not content with this, and again he changed it into a dog, then to an ape, to a bear, and at last into a beautiful girl, to whom he gave the name of Postimani. Then only was the little red mouse content.
One day, as Postimani was gathering flowers by the river, the king of the country passed by, and drew rein as he saw the lovely girl. He sent one of his courtiers to enquire her name and parentage, and she lied to him in fear, and told him she was the daughter of a prince, and as a child had been found wandering in a wood by the rashi, who had adopted her.
The king fell in love with her beauty, and married her, and they lived happily together.
Not long after this Postimani found herself standing by a deep well in the courtyard of the palace, and looked down into the clear depths at her own reflection. Turning giddy she slipped, and falling into the well was drowned.
The king was beside himself with grief, and was on the point of killing himself for love of Postimani's memory, when the old magician, or rashi, came to him and told him the true story of his wife: how she had deceived him, and the changes through which he had transformed her. Then the king's grief was turned to a furious anger, and he bade his servants leave the body in the well, which must be filled with earth and stones.
And from the filled-up well sprang the postimani, or opium poppy, those heavy white blossoms with a purple stain on their petals, and whoever tastes its seeds, develops a quality of each of the animals into which the little red mouse had been changed. He will become fond of milk like a cat, filthy as an ape, savage as a bear, and moody like the queen Postiman herself.

The Primrose
(Butter-rose)

Primula vulgaris
cprimroseflo1a

Primrose Family

The harbinger of spring, the prima rosa, is the twin sister of the cowslip, and the same legend of the key flower is told of it.

The Rose

 

According to legend roses were the sacred flowers of Venus, the goddesss of Love, but Cupid as a bribe later consecrated them to Harpocrates, the god of Silence,in order to keep hil quiet, and prevent him from giving away secrets concerning the goddess.
From that day the rose came to be looked upon as the emblem of silience, and in certain coutries there was even an old custom of including the flower as a central design in the fine carvings that decorated the ceilings in many old banqueting halls. The idea of this was that the guests should be reminded that conversation at the table should be nowhere else repeated, the emblem of the "God of Silence" overshadowing them all through the meal, the practical origin of the Latin phrase, sub rosa.

The Dog Rose

 

There was once a Roman soldier who went raving mad when bitten by a savage dog. As he lay dying his mother had a dream, and in her dream was told of the healing virtues of the root of a rose tree. When she awoke, she at once sent her slaves to procure her this strange remedy, and held it against the wound of her son, who was now unconscious. To the amazement of the onlookers, the poison seemed to disappear and the man recovered. And the name remains.

The Moss Rose

 

In those far-off days when angels came down to earth as messengers of goodwill, there was one who, after a long day's toil in the haunts of men, grew tired.
This particular day things seemed to have been more than usually depressing, and he was glad at last, as the evening shadows began to fall, to turn his face to the west. and spread his great wings for the flight home through the darkening air. But hardly had he started when a sudden storm blew up from the north, and swept across the plain in sheets of rain and hail and a tearing blustering wind, while clouds came rolling down on the hills and blotted out the sky.
The angel, buffeted by the gale, was afraid to face the long flight heathenwards, and gliding quickly back to earth, looked for shelter in the homes which he had been so lately blessing by his kindly deeds.
To his surprise all doors were barred against the storm, and no one opened so much as a crack to give the wanderer shelter.
He stopped knocking at the locked doors, and sighed. Then, he turned and made his way with difficulty along a narrow path bordered with flowers, which, like the houses near which they grew, had pressed their petals closely about them, and slept, swaying to the storm.
Only one noticed him pass. A small red rose raised her head, and seeing the stranger, at once opened her petals to shelter him, and he lay on her breast safely protected all through the night, and slept till the dawn broke, calm and still after the gale.
The flowers opened to the sun one by one, and the angel awoke as the little red rose raised her head and uncurled her petals. Glancing at her perfect beauty he realised that no gift of his of colour or shape or scent could make her more lovely than she was already, but as he floated off on his homeward way he gently threw a soft green veil of moss over the rose, and she has worn it ever since.

The Red Rose

 

Cupid was dancing in and out amongst the gods, and paying no heed as to where he played he managed to overturn a cup of nectar, the drink of the immortals. The precious liquid fell to earth, staining red the roses upon which it was spilled. This colour they have kept all the ages, and you also know them by the scent of the nectar which they still bear, the gift of the gods to them.

The Snowdrop

 

There is an old legend that as the beautiful brave-hearted Hope bends year by year over the white death pillow of Earth, weeping for the buried flowers and cold bare ground below, she lets fall tears which drop on to the frozen snow and melt it. And as the tears fall there spring up the little white flowers we call the snowdrops - tears from the eyes of Hope - messengers of comfort on dark winter days.

The Thistle

 

Legend, in accounting for the adoption of the thistle as the Scottish emblem, takes us back to the days when the Danes were harrying and raiding the coasts of the north, and proving themselves formidable enemies by both sea and land.
Upon the occasion quoted they attempted a surprise attack on the Scottish army; up till then they had given out that it was unbefitting to a warrior to attack during the hours of darkness, and the Scots had grown accustomed to this idea of a tacit truce at night. But this time the invaders changed their tactics, and crept unnoticed in the darkness upon the sleeping Scottish camp.
The surprise was so nearly successful that the Danes were on the point of sounding the signal for the final charge, when one of them trod upon a thistle with his naked foot. Instinctively he uttered a cry of pain, and the sound was enough to alarm the camp, as the Scots roused and seized their arms and routed the foe.
So it was that the "guardian thistle, to the foeman stern" was chosen by a grateful country for an emblem.

The Tulip

 

A German fairy tale accounts for the wonderful variety of colours in the tulips in this way. There was once a flower king, who had an only daughter - Violet - of great beauty. Both the king and the queen were very proud of her, so proud that their one desire came to be to make the princess haughty and vain, and their chief care was to teach her to dress herself in the most exquisite clothes that could be found.
In order she should have a faultless carriage, the king engaged Madam Tulip as governess, who was famed through the length and breadth of the flower world for her stiff erect beauty.
Poor little princess! She was so often scolded that even the royal parrots on their perches took up the phrase, "hold up your head! Hold up your head!" And the tall box and yew trees in the palace gardens, who watched Violet and her stiff governess pace up and down the paths as straight as pokers, longed to be even more formal than they were already, and let the gardeners cut and shape them with their great shears as much as they liked.
The Court itself became stiffer and prouder than ever, so great was Madam Tulip's influence, which so delighted the king that he gave her one coloured order after another, so that her yellow Court gown was positively striped, so decorated was it with ribbons. And even today you will find these lovely stripes form the gala dress of Madam Tulip of the tulips.

The Violet

 

According to a Greek myth the violet is the flower of Io, a priestess of Juno's temple. Jupiter fell in love with her, but on one occasion was very nearly discovered with the maiden by the jealous goddess. To save Io, Jupiter instantly changed her into a white heifer, but as grass was not a fit food for so delicate a creature, the moment "she in hunger stooped in tears" there sprang to meet her lips the first white violets, created by Jupiter as her special food.
Later, Venus, becoming envious of Cupid's admiration of the violet's purity and sweetness, flew into such a rage that she turned them blue.

The Wallflower

 

On the banks of the Tweed stood an old grey castle, in which lived a maiden, who was so young and beautiful that she was never allowed to set foot outside her father's grounds.
The garden round the castle was full of shady trees, and a lovely place for a girl to wander in, but she was lonely, and longed to go through the big gates and see the world beyond the walls that so shut her in.
To add to her sorrows, she had fallen in love with the young heir of a hostile clan, and both were desperate over the jealous gurad that was kept upon her at all hours of the day.
At last one night the young man, disguised as a wandering minstrel, stole to the castle garden and sang to the girl at her window.
He sand softly, and in the words of the song she heard him tell her to be ready the following night to fly with him, that the signal would be the cry of a moor cock, when she must steal to the ramparts and find him waiting with horses and an armed band, to ride for home and happiness.
The next night, when darkness fell, and the moon was low in the sky, the note of the moor cock was heard across the moat, once, twice, three times, and the girl crept from her room, down into the garden, clad just as she was in the golden dress of the banqueting hall, over which she threw a russet-brown cloak to escape detection.
With her she carried a silken cord to help her descent from the wall. She climbed an old apple tree, and with trembling fingers fastened the cord to a branch; then hearing her lover's voice below, hurried to throw down the end of the cord and slip hastily after it. Alas, " 'tempting down to slide withal", she let her whole weight come on the slender strands. "The silken twist unty'd", and she fell to the ground, to find death in her lover's arms.
Venus, walking in the halls of Olympus, looked down with pity on the tragedy to such a deed of love.
And, bending low to earth, she turned the maiden into the velvety flower which has ever since haunted old grey walls, covering them with a robe of gold and a mantle of russet-red, and which we call the Wallflower.

The Blue Mountain Anemone

Blue Mountain Anemone is
Anemone apennina
bluecflomountainanemonewikimediacommons1
Anemone apennina at Dresden, Botanical Garden(Saxony, Germany).By Olaf Leillinger, via Wikimedia Commons

Buttercup family

There are a number of explanations for the name, but the most popular account relates to Anemona, a nymph at the court of the goddess Flora. The sage declared that Zephyros, the god of the west wind, had fallen in love with Anemona. Jealous Flora turned her into a flower so that Zephyros could only kiss her petals and that’s why the flower always opens out completely when it blooms – she’s inviting her lover.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A FLAILED CORNISH HEDGE
This details that life and death from July 1972 to 2019, with the following result for
UK wildflowers, birds, butterflies and moths:-

  • "Of the original 186 flowering species (including sub-species), the 5 colour forms and the 8 unconfirmed species, (193 flowering species in total) only 55 have persisted throughout the 35 years of flailing since 1972. Of these 55 species:-
  • 3 species are unchanged.
    11 species have disastrously increased.
    41 species are seriously reduced in number, most by over 90%. Of these, 18 are now increasing under the somewhat lighter flailing regime. 13 are still decreasing, and 35 have only a few specimens (from 1-12 plants) left.
  • Of the rest of the original species:-
  • 37 species and 3 colour forms have disappeared, then reappeared after varying lengths of time. Of these, 20 have fewer than 6 plants, most of them only 1 or 2, and are liable to disappear again. Only 6 of the recovered species look capable of surviving in the longer term.
  • 23 species have reappeared, then disappeared again due to being flailed before they could set seed or to being overcome by rank weeds.
  • Only 3 species have reappeared for a second time, and one of these has since disappeared for the third time.
    68 species and 2 colour forms disappeared and have never reappeared to date (2008).
  • Of the 83 flowering species (excluding 11 rampant species) and 3 colour forms now present in the survey mile, around 50 are unlikely to survive there in the long term, certainly not in viable numbers, if flailing continues.
    Unless the degradation of habitat, high fertility and spread of ivy and other rampant weeds can be reversed, it appears highly unlikely that more than a dozen or so of the lost floral species can ever safely return or be re-introduced.
  • The only birds sighted more than once so far this year along the mile have been magpie, rook, crow and buzzard, and a swallow (probably the same one each time) hunting between the hedges now and then at the sheltered eastern end of the mile. One wren heard June 21st, one blackbird seen June 27th (these also at the eastern end) and one greenfinch today July 31st. On this hot sunny high-summer day counted only 7 hedge brown butterflies (6 of them males), one red admiral and one large white. Half a dozen small bumblebees, two carder bees, half a dozen hoverflies of two common Eristalis species, one flesh fly, one scorpion fly and one dragonfly, Cordulegaster boltonii, not hunting, zooming straight down the road and disappearing into the distance.
  • Only 8 butterfly species so far this year, and only one specimen each of five of them (red admiral, speckled wood, large white, ringlet and large skipper, the latter seen only once since 1976). Only small white, hedge brown and speckled wood have managed to appear every year since the flail arrived.
    For some years I have been noticing very small specimens particularly of hedge brown and speckled wood. This year nearly all the hedge browns seen in the mile ('all' being a dozen or so in total) are of this stunted size, some of the males appearing really tiny. I am wondering if this might be a response to general environmental stress, or due to inbreeding as flail-reduced numbers are so low. The hedge brown does not fly far from its hatching place so mating opportunity is now extremely limited. With the few species of insects now seen in the hedges there seems to be a high proportion of males to females, at least five to one.
  • So far this year only a single moth has come to the house lights. It was a Drinker, and it killed itself against the bulb before it could be saved.

September 21st. Most of the survey mile closely flailed today along both sides of the road.

End note, June 2008. I hear spring vetch has been officially recorded somewhere in West Cornwall and confirmed as a presence in the county, so perhaps I can be permitted to have seen it pre-1972 in the survey mile. I wonder where they found it? It's gone from hedges where it used to be, along with other scarcities and so-called scarcities that used to flourish in so many hedges unrecorded, before the flail arrived. I have given careful thought to including mention of some of the plants and butterflies. So little seems to be known of the species resident in Cornish hedges pre-flail that I realise some references may invite scepticism. I am a sceptic myself, so sympathise with the reaction; but I have concluded that, with a view to re-establishing vulnerable species, it needs to be known that they can with the right management safely and perpetually thrive in ordinary Cornish hedges. In future this knowledge could solve the increasingly difficult question of sufficient and suitable sites for sustainable wild flower and butterfly conservation - as long as it is a future in which the hedge-flail does not figure.
Times and attitudes have changed since the days when the flail first appeared on the scene. The plight of our once-so-diverse wildlife is officially recognised as a priority; agricultural grants may embrace conservation measures, and perhaps economic strictures will tend more to a live-and-let-live policy in future with less of the expensive, pointless and desecrating "tidying-up". We now have an enthusiastic generation keen to help nature recover its diversity, but often unsure as to how this is best achieved. [Please see CHL "Restoring Biodiversity in Cornish Hedges"] 21st September 2007.
There is still widespread ignorance of the effects of such destructive machinery as the flail-mower and other rotary trimmers and strimmers. Few people but the elderly now remember or understand the life that ought to be abundant in the everyday hedges, verges, field margins and waste places. The simple remedy of returning to the clean-cutting finger-bar scythe used in late winter, trimming alternate sides of the hedge in different years, not trimming green herbaceous growth and leaving the cut material (mainly dead stems and twigs) on or near the hedge, is largely unrealised. This wildlife-friendly type of trimmer is still available from some suppliers.
Cornwall County Council has changed from being (in this instance) the chief offender to employing said-to-be environmentally-aware officers concerned with reconciling conservation and development. In recent years the council has issued instructional leaflets about hedges and their wildlife, including one entitled Cornish Roadside Hedge Management (since altered, perhaps not entirely for the better). This leaflet largely embodied the principles that our petition of 1985 asked for. Ironically, it is no longer the council's employees who are carrying out the work. Although this advice is now available, it does not necessarily reach the farmers and contractors out on the job. The flails are still in destructive action at any time from June onwards, though on the whole the work does seem to be being done later rather than sooner. Some farmers are now correctly leaving it until January and early February, a good time to allot to road work while other farm jobs may have to wait for drier weather. Most farmers, despite the bad publicity they tend to suffer, truly wish to do the best they can for their wildlife. Sadly for all, the flail is still the universally-available tool.
Those ignorant of the flail's real effects may imagine that 'sensitive' use of it is all right, as some common plant and insect species return temporarily and a few others increase when the work is switched to the less damaging time of year and done lightly. In the longer term, this is delusive; even in winter an unacceptable number of individuals are killed at every flailing and the habitat still inexorably degrades. No matter how or when or how seldom the flail is used, species continue to die out.
Until naturalists and environmentalists understand the catastrophic and cumulative effects of the flail they will continue to say they don't know why, despite all well-intentioned efforts, the numbers and diversity of wild flowers, songbirds, bats, butterflies, moths and bumblebees are still falling.
Nature lovers have to stop thinking mainly in terms of schemes to benefit a handful of charismatic species at special sites, and start looking at what the flail and other rotary mowers have done to thousands upon thousands of acres of the British countryside and billions upon billions of its most essential, ordinary inhabitants. It has struck at the major heart of the core existence of our native species, slaughtering them wholesale in that very sanctuary of the hedges and verges. These species had already mostly gone from the rest of the local area; the hedges where they had all taken refuge were their last resort. The remnants of species and their precarious survivors are still being wiped out, smashed to death every time the flail is used. It is the utterly wrong tool for the job and it has to be scrapped.
A brand-new flail-mower operating in February 2008. Right time of year for trimming, wrong kind of trimmer. As long as it is manufactured and turned out into the roads and fields the flail will decimate wild flowers, massacre the small creatures remaining in the hedges and verges, destroy their habitat and ruin the ancient structure of Cornwall's hedges.
Since the last yellowhammer flew across the road in 1980, I have never seen another while walking the survey mile. Since the last grasshopper in July 1981, I have never seen or heard another in these hedges. Since all the other species this diary recorded absent disappeared, they have not been seen again except in the few instances stated in the text. Most of the remaining species are declining. Fewer than half of them are likely to survive in the longer term if present trends continue. The long-vanished flowering species are likely never to return, as repeated flailing before seeding has exhausted their dormant seed stocks. The survey mile is typically representative of a majority of Cornish roadside hedges.
The photographs - in the pdf in their website - illustrating many of the flowering species lost were not taken in the survey hedge,for the obvious reason that they were no longer there. Most were taken in the house's wild garden adjoining, while those that did not grow there were obtained only with extreme difficulty, by searching all over West Penwith in a roughly thirty-mile radius for un-flailed pockets of survival. Along the roadside hedges, in this whole distance I found just one or two plants or patches of only a few of the species sought - common toadflax, field scabious, tufted vetch, scentless mayweed, red clover, self-heal - species that before the flail were so commonly seen along the whole length of hundreds of hedges in West Cornwall, now growing only where for some unusual reason of situation the flail had missed.
Some of the photographs of invertebrate species killed out by the flail in the survey mile were taken in the garden adjoining, where, despite nurturing since pre-flail days, the majority have now disappeared due to over-predation. In the survey mile this year, for the first time since 1992, the hedges remained un-flailed throughout the summer, giving a few common invertebrates the chance to reappear. No adult moth is illustrated because only half a dozen individuals were seen during the whole summer season of 2007, unfortunately at moments when the camera was not in my hand or they were fluttering out of reach. The drinker caterpillar alone was found posing beautifully and goes down to posterity as the only visible surviving moth larva noted in the survey mile this year, illustrating the millions of his kind killed by the flail.
Along this one typical mile of Cornish lane alone my records show that the flail has been the outright death or caused the persisting non-appearance of

  • 90 flowering herbaceous species,
  • 5 shrub species,
  • 20 grass species,
  • 60 moss species,
  • 40 bird species,
  • 23 butterfly species,
  • 250 larger moth species,
  • many scores of other invertebrate species, and untold thousands of individuals.
  • It has condemned the hedge itself to a long-term, silent, living death, wrecked its antique stone construction and destroyed its great beauty. Along the whole of the estimated 30,000 miles of Cornish hedges the deaths of individual plants and creatures from flail-battering and the loss of their generations represent truly astronomical figures. The degradation of habitat resulting from flailing prevents revival in most species even where a few individuals manage to escape the physical impact of the flails. Although the effect in Cornwall with its solid hedge-banks and their more complex ecology may be worse than with the English hedgerow, the flail-induced wildlife crisis is nation-wide - and still almost universally unrecognised or unacknowledged.
  • There is no hope of recovery for our countryside wildlife until the flail type of machine is consigned to the black museum of history. To achieve this it will probably have to be banned by law.
  • The finger-bar scythe has to be reinstated and any trimming (except where needed for road-junction or access visibility) must be carried out in winter, the later the better between November 1st and February 28th. Trimming must take away the woody scrub growth on the sides of the hedge, leaving the herbaceous growth on the sides and the bushes on the top untouched. Only then can the flail-ruined hedges and verges begin to see a real return to some kind of healthy and abundant life."

CHECK-LIST OF TYPES OF CORNISH HEDGE FLORA by Sarah Carter of Cornish Hedges Library:-
"This check-list is a simple guide to the herbaceous plants typically indicating different habitat types found in the Cornish hedge. The short lists are of typical plants, not complete species lists for the habitat. Many of the plants in the Typical Hedge list also appear in the other types of hedge. Areas of intermediate population where location or physical conditions begin to change and habitats overlap are not included.
Hedge Type:-

  • Typical Cornish Hedge (woodland-edge/ heathland mixture)
  • Coastal Hedge
  • Moorland/ Heathland Hedges
  • Woodland Hedge
  • Wet Hedge (marsh or ditch)
  • Stone Hedge (Earth capping but with stone core)
  • Typical garden escapes in Cornish Hedges
  • Typical species rampant in flail-damaged hedges

Titles of papers available on www.cornishhedges.co.uk:-

  • Advice for Working on Roadside Hedges
  • Building Hedges in Cornwall
  • Building Turf Hedges
  • Building and Repairing Cornish Stone Stiles
  • Butterflies, Moths and Other Insects in Cornish Hedges
  • Check-list for Inspecting New or Restored Hedges in Cornwall
  • Check-list of Types of Cornish Hedge Flora
  • Code of Good Practice for Cornish Hedges
  • Comments on the © Defra Hedgerow Survey Handbook (1st Edition)
  • Comments on the © Defra Hedgerow Survey Handbook (2nd Edition)
  • Cornish Hedges in Gardens
  • Cornish Hedges on Development and Housing Sites
  • Gates and Gateways in Cornish hedges
  • Geology and Hedges in Cornwall
  • Glossary of some Cornish Words used in the Countryside
  • Hedges in the Cornish Landscape
  • How to Look After a Cornish Hedge
  • How Old is That Cornish Hedge?
  • Literature Sources
  • Mediaeval Hedges in Cornwall (450AD - 1550)
  • Modern Hedges in Cornwall (1840 - present day)
  • Mosses, Lichens, Fungi and Ferns in Cornish Hedges
  • Pipe-laying and Other Cross-country Works Involving Hedges
  • Post-Mediaeval Hedges in Cornwall (1550 - 1840)
  • Prehistoric Hedges in Cornwall (5,000BC - 450AD)
  • Repairing Cornish Hedges and Stone Hedges
  • Repairing Turf Hedges
  • Risk Assessment Guidance for working on Cornish Hedges
  • Roadside Hedges and Verges in Cornwall
  • The Curse of Rabbits in Cornish Hedges
  • The Life and Death of a Flailed Cornish Hedge
  • Trees on Hedges in Cornwall
  • Unusual Old Features in Cornish Hedges
  • Who Owns that Cornish Hedge?
  • Wildlife and the Cornish Hedge

THE GUILD OF CORNISH HEDGERS is the non-profit-making organisation founded in 2002 to support the concern among traditional hedgers about poor standards of workmanship in Cornish hedging today. The Guild has raised public awareness of Cornwall's unique heritage of hedges and promoted free access to the Cornish Hedges Library, the only existing source of full and reliable written knowledge on Cornish hedges."
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