Tuesday 18 August 2015

More summer flowers

Field bindweed, a persistent weed in your garden, can produce a brlliant show of white or pink and white flowers in a meadow.


Ragwort is despised for being poisonous to horses, but it is an excellent source of nectar and pollen for insects

Perforate St John's Wort (pronounced 'wert' not 'wart') is less common at Filnore but you can find it below the power lines in the pylon field


Lady's Bedstraw. contains coumarin, which smells like new mown hay when the plant is dried.  This makes it suitable for perfuming bed linen.  The story goes that because the donkeys had eaten all the straw, the Virgin Mary, aka 'Our Lady', had to lie on a bed of Lady's Bedstraw .    

Close relatives include the white Hedge Bedstraw, Woodruff, and Goosegrass/Cleavers/Sticky Willy.  They all have the leaves in whorls (pronounced 'whirls') around the stem like the spokes of a wheel.

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