Because yesterday in the Daily Bucket the talk came to whats still blooming, when good parts of plantworld are now moving to fruit setting, I thought i could just get ahead and go out have a look myself.
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns spinning around us.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
|
So, what do I have here? I live in a strip of coastal dunes, essentially a barrier line like they would have it in the Carolinas — or in the Baltic Sea — only the Dutch have poldered in the tidal mudflats behind them so that the barrier dunes are now the front of the coastside. Whatever it is, it is where I live, so what’s there?
Going out behind the house, theres just a stretch of duneland which is just filling in the space to the coastline. Its not a nature reserve of any kind, people walk there and jog there and do whatever all day.
So a quick collection, what grows and flowers in this open grassland between the bushes? I had boasted to OD that we had a lot of yellow composites so are there any?
Spent a time trying to figure it out, and i had trouble making out whether it was a crepis Hawk’s beard, or hieracium Hawkweed. They are quite similar, let alone the species with these groups, but i believe it is hieracium, and specifically, the hieracium umbellatum, the “narrowleaf hawkweed”, which i settle upon because it has narrow leaves:
and one can also see the character of this group of composites — only “lintflowers” as we call them, no “tube flowers” in the middle of the composite flower heads. Here’s a English page. USDA 5-9: this tells me nothing, but you likely something :)
But, as promised it was not the only
This was just on the open (stepped on) ground adjoining the bikepath, and I believe it is a Crepis, crepis vesicaria, called “dandelion-like hawksbeard”. And when I sat down a passerby stopped to ask me why I was looking at the dandelion. so, that settled the matter :) Totally different habitus though, most leaves from the ground, but many flower stems, and hardy — not the soft stalks of dandelion. and the actually definite criterion was this
And then there was the next one
This was once a yellow composite but is already in seed now, time flies. Its sonchus asper if im not wrong, english: “the prickly sow-thistle” and thats a good name :) White fluffy hairy seeds were once yellow lint-flower heads. And then there was this one
Here, you see one flower-head in full seed, like a really large fluffball, and the ther is the less easily visible, but very strong flower-head right of it, which runs sharp upwards like a bird’s beak or a crocodile’s jaws. Thats unmistakable for tragopogon. english “goats beard”, but the local legend is that these flowers only open for one hour a day, between 10 and 11 (I suspect that that is summertime corrected). And in this closed state i didnt dare try get it to species level. They are wonderful flowers, but I was too late. And, that concludes the yellow composites of this one random spot, but not the interesting flowers there. Two are already in the above image:
The pastinak is pastinaca sativa, its a traditional edible plant, and apparently also popular with beetles. They were all over it. And another umbellifer was there,
Peen is the Dutch name, its wild carrot in English, daucus carota, and it is also very popular with tiny insects, both for food,and as playground, and as hunting ground too. Its famous for the way its flower screens curve inwards to create nest like shapes,
Like this one did as well. you can see this is a flowerscreen thats now hundreds of seeds and these curve inwards and it forms a sort of ball, for protection I guess, but some species of insects got the better of it and let themselves be enclosed in this and then sit completely unseen and protected in a food ball. Always happens. Not in this case. And then there was a lot of yellow ground cover, but not composites;
Not the best image because the autofocus was fooled by the grass, but you get the idea, it is “geel walstro”, galium verum, called “lady’s bedstraw” in english. (The lady is not all ladies but THE lady, Maria). all in all a plant characteristic for the dunes, where the soils arent well developed, and nutrients are fought over. So, where this is there is then also it’s bane,
thats the highlight of the spot, a bit: its orobanche caryophyllaceae, “clove-scented broomrape”.
a parasitic plant, that doesnt make its own photosynthesis, but simply merges with the roots of the other plants around, and drink from their roots, apparently. They are manyfold specialised, and this one is specialised on the yellow lady’s straw. But to get this, the ground must be a bit undisturbed, there must be a bit of ecological co-development underground between the plants growing in the area and these parasites and the microbial or fungal life (of which I have no clue) which is associated with it undergrounds. These are of course also the conditions that orchids need in the wild, so, where this is seen, one might suspect to encounter orchids also too, and over the hill (out of the image at the top) there is indeed our best orchid spot :) But its past season now.
In reality, the history here went the other way around. These things have “always” lived there (in human timescale) and have used all the time to codevelop. Only recently we came along and built this town section atop of them, which I’m now living in, in the 1950s-60s after the war when living space needed to be built fast. Shortly before, this place was bombed to smithereens. What continues to amaze me is what a resiliency these interlocked communities have. After all we have done to them recently they are still there. Now, its a dog running place, with the disruptions and dogshit that brings, and its all still there. (Someone’s burrow was also there). But, before I drift into philosophy, this was not my point. Just that I said to OD yesterday that we were in peak yellow composite season, and I wanted to check if its actually true what I said, since, once cant ever trust oneself :)
And so you can have a bucket to fill your own observations in. any kind is welcome, foto or not, since just to notice something is already the first step to its preservation.
SPOTLIGHT ON GREEN NEWS & VIEWS potentially happens
EVERY SATURDAY AT 3 P.M. PACIFIC TIME
DON’T FORGET TO VIEW METEOR BLADE’S COLLECTION OF LINKS AND EXCERPTS FROM ENVIRONMENTALLY ORIENTED POSTS PUBLISHED ON DAILY KOS DURING THE PREVIOUS WEEK
|
last remark. its also astonishing how much of what just grows there was seen as edible, medicinal or otherwise useful (while also a lot is downright dangerous). People made use of what was there. We should not forget that. It is our original environment. The inside of a car is not our original environment, and in a pinch, I would rather eat a bit of pastinak, than a car’s seat!