Meadow Clary - Salvia pratensis

This plant grows in tall spikes up to a metre and a half. It grows from a basal rosette of leaves. It has a hood like upper lip to the flower. It's quite rare now in England and is a protected species but fairly common in the rest of Europe. It is mainly to be found on good quality chalk grassland. It needs some patches of bare ground to allow seed germination so it might typically be found growing near rabbit warrens. If you want any more information about this plant check out Plantlife's article about the species

Round headed rampion - Phyteuma orbiculare

This is flower is known as the pride of Sussex. The flower is deep blue, almost purple. Each flower head is actually made up of a cluster of smaller flowers.

Yarrow - Achillea millefolium

Yarrow is a really common plant of grasslands. The leaves look almost like green feathers. It is thought to be good at healing wounds and Achilles is said to have taken the plant with him into battle. The younger leaves are supposed to be edible when boiled. Infusions of the flower are said to help with respitory problems such as colds or allergies. Wikipedia has a great article about its various uses

Flower dictionary

I came across something so useful the other day that i thought i should add a link to it from my blog. It's a word dictionary that someone has compiled that adds latin flower names into your spell checker. Thanks to this dictionary I no longer have loads of red lines running through everything i write, hurrah! Get it here: http://crescentbloom.com/III/D/17.htm if you're interested in moss as well there's a moss dictionary available from the British Bryological Society: http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/bbs/Resources/Downloads.htm#spellchk which is also very handy.

Squinancywort - Asperula cynanchica

This flower has got to have one of the best common names. I love the way the name is so interesting and yet the flower itself is small and tiny and the plant is almost invisible when it isn't flowering. I've never seen the plant in flower before so it was a nice surprise to see it blooming all over the place, the tiny pale pink flowers are very beautiful close up. The plant itself is a bedstraw, which means that it has little spindly leaves arranged in whorls around the stem and four petals to the flower.

Stemless thistle - Cirsium acaule

God how i hate thistles! Especially when you're trying to do a vegetation survey on a bit of steep grassland. Oh, if only i had a pound for every thistle i sat on yesterday. Stemless thistles are the ones whose flowers have no stem to them - or only a very short stem. They look like little purple pom poms on the ground.

Vipers bugloss - Echium vulgare

This picture doesn't really do justice to the amazing shades of blues and pinks that this flower displays. I've not seen one quite so pink before as this, they're usually just a purplish blue, but this flower has streaks of almost neon colour in it. It was quite amazing. The flower stems grow quite tall. Apparantly it was once thought to cure the bites of vipers. If you want to know more about its medicinal uses check out this website: think natural

Restharrow - Ononis repens

This plant used to annoy farmers by tangling up their harrows whilst they were ploughing. Hence its common name 'restharrow.' This flower is a member of the pea family and has distinctive leaves that appear to have a neat crease down their centre, almost if the leaf has been folded in half and then opened up again. The leaves have little teeth round their edge and can sometimes be covered in sticky hairs or glands. I found this flower growing in damp grassland by the side of a ditch

Yorkshire fog - Holcus lanatus

I'm back from Yorkshire! Thank goodness, it was quite chilly up there indeed! I thought i'd start with a photo of a grass for my first post back.

I never really took the time to stop and look at grasses. I certainly never considered that they have flowers. Being wind pollinated they don't need to be showy with big petals but their flowers can still be quite beautiful when examined close up. I thought posting Yorkshire fog would be apt seeing as how i've been visiting there for the past week. Yorkshire fog is one of my favourite grasses. It's quite easy to spot because its leaves are really soft and hairy and if you look at the base of the stem it usually has purple stripes or veins running vertically. They remind me of stripy pajama bottoms. The flower head also has a rather pleasant purplish tinge. It's definately going on the list of my top ten grasses of all time!

Honeysuckle - Lonicera periclymenum

I really wanted to take a picture of this flower but the light levels were so low where i found it it was proving impossible (i never bother taking a tripod with me and have to rely on my steady hands instead). This was the best out of a bad bunch of pictures but i'm still not really satisfied with it. I learnt the other day that you can suck out the nectar in honeysuckle just like in Nasturtiums. I wonder if you could eat the whole honeysuckle flower?

I'm off to Yorkshire for a week so there'll be a break from posting for a week or so I'm afraid.

Ragged Robin - Lychnis flos-cuculi

This plant can also be found growing in damp meadows and fens. I found it along a woodland ride where there were large clumps of it growing. The small pearl bordered fritillary is said to be fond of this plant but sadly i didn't see any of them flying around. I did see a massive dragonfly hunting along the ride but it was too quick to identify.

Foxglove - Digitalis purpurea

These appear soon after a woodland has been cleared when light floods down to the ground layer. There were hundreds of these flowers in a recent clearing when I went to visit Abbott's wood.

Spotted or Perfoliate St Johns Wort - Hypericum punctatum

This species has pairs of opposite facing leaves which, when held up to the light, appear to have tiny pinpricked holes pierced straight through them. I found this growing on the edge of a woodland ride at Abbot's wood, near Hailsham

Bramble - Rubus fruticosus

Ah the bramble, how British! Apparantly bramble isn't just one species but there are over 200 different bramble species that only real specialists can tell apart. All these species are lumped together under Rubus fruticosus agg. so that us non-specialists can record it where we see it.

Agrimony - Agrimonia eupatoria

Found growing in improved pasture in the valley of Anchor Bottom

Pencilled cranesbill - Geranium versicolor

Oh man, the picture isn't really in focus. Nevermind, you can get the picture. This species is a garden escape, and introduced species. Its veins are deep purple making it look as if it has been drawn on in pencil and the petals are notched at the end. The flower can be white to pink. I found it in growing in a scrubby wasteland area at the back of some gardens.

Horseshoe vetch - Hippocrepis comosa

Horseshoe vetch can be found growing in chalk grassland and is the foodplant for the chalkhill blue and the adonis blue butterfly. The leaves of this vetch have a small, inverted notch at the end of them and the yellow flowers grow in a ring. They can look quite similar to birds foot trefoil but this species has only five leaves on each stalk and the leaves don't have an inverted notch. Also the flowers are often tinged with red. Because of this yellow and red colouration birds foot trefoil is also known as eggs and bacon! I found this plant growing at Anchor Bottom, just north of Shoreham cement works. It wasn't wildly abundant but there was enough to support the many adonis blue butterflies i saw flittering about.

Elder - Sambucus nigra

Elder tree growing in my back garden. I love the smell that these flowers give off. Everywhere i go there seems to be elder bursting into flower. Apparanly rabbits hate this plant so you can often find it growing close to their warrens.

I'm tempted to try and pick some elder and make some cordial out of it but i'm worried it would be too polluted coming from a city garden. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall had a recipe in last week's guardian showing you how to make battered elderflowers... sounds a bit greasy to me! Find the recipe here: Guardian

Common Spotted Orchid - Dactylorhiza fuchsii

There were so many purple spotted orchids at Anchor Bottom the other day, it was incredible. There were festoons of them. There were also fragrant orchids, some early pyramidal orchids poking up as well as the one bee orchid i spotted. This is a photo of a particularly large and fine looking specimen i came across. There are also green winged orchids present at the site but they flowered about a month earlier. I didn't have a chance to go out and have a look at them so sadly i missed them. Better luck next year.

Bee Orchid - Ophrys apifera

I couldn't believe it when i came across this flower. There i was happily walking along admiring all the other orchids growing at Anchor Bottom when suddenly i spied this beauty in the long grass. I've never seen one of these growing in the wild before. I think they're just incredible. I posted this picture of the bee orchid because it's an angle you don't usually see in photos. For example, I'd never noticed the small spur at the lip of the flower before because it can't be seen very easily from straight on. You might also be able to make out the flower bud ready to break open slightly higher up the stem. Apparantly the flowers open from the bottom of the stalk upwards so the flowers at the top are the last to open.

Pyramidal Orchid - Anacamptis pyramidalis

Just starting to come into flower now. This species can be distinguished because it is a much brighter, deeper pink and the flowers are all compressed to the top into one pyramid shape - hence the name.

Fragrant Orchid - Gymnadenia conopsea

Seen at Anchor Bottom. These smell amazing right now. The whole grassland was blanketed in their scent. This flower has deeply keeled leaves that look like they have been folded in half.

Kidney Vetch - Anthylllis vulneraria

This plant has flowers that look like they have been covered in a fluffy wrapping. They almost look like they have fluffy trousers or bloomers! The leaves are long and thin and curved slightly. There seems to be loads of it growing at Anchor Bottom at the moment

Common rock rose - Helianthemum chamaecistus

I really love the way the petals of this flower look like they have been crumpled up. Like old washing or a paper bag. The leaves are quite hairy underneath and long stipules at their base. I found this growing on chalk grassland but it can also be found on acid soils and in scrub.

Yellow wort - Blackstonia perfoliata

This is such a fantastic plant. I love the way it looks like someone has taken a spike and threaded it through the leaves. Like a floral kebab! I wonder what evolutionary advantage those leaves have? This was found growing at Anchor Bottom, near Shoreham, Sussex

Dropwort - Filipendula vulgaris

I love the contrast between the pink tips of the flower buds and the white petals

Small scabious - Scabiosa columbaria

There are three different scabious species in the UK. This one is the small scabious because the petals on each individual flower consist of five unequal lobes

Amphibious bistort - Polygonum amphibium

Sorry about the rubbish photo, i couldn't get any closer to the plant and then my camera died. I love the name of this species. This plant is either found in freshwater or growing close to it on banks. When it grows out of the water the leaves are much more rounded.

Yellow water lily - Nuphar lutea

I don't think there's much that you could mistake this species with. There's a similar species called least water lilly but this plant has flowers that are less than 4cm whereas N.lutea has flowers larger than 4cm. I found this growing in the lake at Wood's Mill.

Just took this picture (16Jun07) and thought i'd include it in this post as you get a much better shot of the picture. This flower was seen at the lake in Abbot's wood.

Quaking grass - Briza media

This is probably one of the first grass species i ever learnt to identify. This grass is only just opening up, i'll try to post another picture of it later in the season looking more typical.

The individual flower heads seem to resemble little woodlice to me! And they are said to quake and shake in the wind.