Wild Flower of the Day

Meet the local wild flowers of Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks.

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25 May 2020

White Campion - Selene latifolia

With crab spider

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Falsa ortica macchiata (Lamium maculatum L., Lamiaceae). 2

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Cinorrodi (falsi frutti) di Rosa selvatica (Rosa sp., Rosaceae)

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24 May 2020

Rose - Rosa sp.

I planted a rambling rose to grow up and through the rowan tree:

Plenty of visitors;

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Just because seeds on tarmac brought this ‘hedgerow shrub’ to my attention today. I’ve seen it for the greater part of each week for a long number of years and never given it a thought because it’s…

Too healthy, too big, too young and too vigorous to be an elm, right?

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22 May 2020

Foxglove - Digitalis Purpurea

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17 May 2020

Garlic Mustard - Alliaria petiolata

Known as Jack-by-the-Hedge

Illustration from Adam Lonicer's Krauterbuch, or Herbal, Frankfurt, 1557

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16 May 2020

Newly emerging ferns fronds.

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Dandelion and clover, inspiration for the perfectly chaotic garden,

Charles George Haite ©Victoria and Albert Museum

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14 May 2020

Red Campion - Selene dioica

Well, they look pink to me. Male and female flowers are on separate plants. These are female flowers, which have five crazy styles each.

A male plant:

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13 May 2020

Struggling to capture the strange shapes of aquilegias.

Jeannie Foord manages to make them look calm and elegant:

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12 May 2020

Wild Strawberry - Fragaria vesca

In my garden on the weekend....

...supplemented with some close-ups I took in May a few years ago (different camera). I particularly like the little aphids lurking on the back of the flower!

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11 May 2020

White Dead-Nettle - Lamium alba

Dead-nettles are a family of plants so named because their leaves look similar to nettles, but don’t have the sting (therefore ‘dead’). Native throughout Europe, White Dead-nettle is loved by bees, and is perfectly adapted for pollination by them - the bee lands of the lower lip of the flower, and reaches in to the base of the flower tube with it’s proboscis to get at the nectar. The stigma strikes its back first, followed by the stamens, so that cross pollination is likely to be achieved.

Illustration for Flora Londinensis by William Curtis:

Unknown:

Illustration by P. J. Redoute for La Botanique  de J. J. Rousseau:

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I dream of plant hunting…

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10 May 2020

Sweet Woodruff - Galium odoratum

Perfect plant for the chaotic garden.

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9 May 2020

Welsh Poppy - Meconopsis cambrica

The Welsh poppy is a plant of shady places, roadsides and hillsides.

British Plants, James Sowerby 1813:

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8 May 2020

Honesty - Lunaria annua

A native of south east Europe, it is very common. The bees like the flowers, but the most interesting part of the plant is the seed pods. Later they will be lovely silver papery discs.