Friday, May 05, 2006

Stitchwort


The stitchwort is flowering. Locally here it is along the hedges and path sides, in the same sort of places as bluebells. One of my favourite floral displays is bluebells, stitchwort, and red campion all out together in the woods.


There are still some flowers on the willow - this bee was feeding happily on what's left. There was a red-tailed bumble bee about, which just would not stay still long enough to be photographed.


This is not a good photograph from the point of view of composing the shot, attention to background and so on, but I was trying to get a record of the plant, which I couldn't readily identify. There was a very large patch of it by the roadside. Study of my battered copy of Fitter and Blamey ("The wild flowers of Britain and Northern Europe" by Richard and Alistair Fitter and Marjorie Blamey ) reveals that it's probably yellow archangel - a rather upmarket name for something that looks remarkably like a nettle. The only difference is that the plant in the picture has variegated leaves, which is not mentioned in the book. If this is wrong, please identify it correctly for me.

1 comment:

stitchwort said...

Technically, it's Greater Stitchwort. But there's also my knitting and sewing interests, to which "stitchwort" makes a reference. (Though of course the sort of stitch it is supposed to remedy is the sort you get from running!)
It's also found in woodland, as I am so often.