Nick Acheson
@themarshtit
Nature conservation. Low carbon living. Classical music and opera. Theatre and books. Gruesome lefty vegan tree-hugger. 🏳️⚧️ ally. Happiest when muddy. 🦆🌱🚲🏳️🌈📚 themarshtit.com
Asteraceae doing the heavy lifting for this week’s #wildflowerhour #stillflowering challenge: musk thistle (with painted lady caterpillar) on chalk grassland, Canadian goldenrod, wall lettuce (in this case door lettuce) and (not Asteraceae) entangled tendrils of tufted vetch and hedge bindweed.
Wild things from yesterday: black bryony berries a wasp subduing a (still living) peppered moth a painted lady caterpillar on musk thistle
For this week’s #wildflowerhour #aquaticplants challenge, I have four plants (all today) growing very close to water, be it saline or fresh: purple loosestrife, hemp agrimony, sea holly and common sea lavender.
Some of the gorgeous things seen today, with the equally gorgeous @luciemr.bsky.social: Stictoleptura rubra, Conocephalus sp., and Anax imperator (emperor dragonfly)
I know I shouldn’t, but sometimes I snort a line of Buddleja davidii before work. I can totally see what the red admirals and peacocks are getting from it.
I’m going to need all the white stonecrop I can find to get through today’s drama.
As I was crossing Night Common just now, my handsome, hirsute friend came over to say hello. ‘Where have you been?’ He asked, not having seen me for a week. ‘Downriver,’ I replied.
The seeds of this hollyhock came from my late best friend Sarah. She died almost ten years ago but is still in full bloom in my garden. She always made a statement.
I just flushed a scarlet tiger in my garden (photo from 2 weeks ago). Without wanting to be simplistic, for every species that, assisted by climate change, goes from unheard-of to common, there’s a familiar, much-loved species that can’t cope. Want cattle egrets? Kiss good bye to willow warblers.
Hi @jo-the-botanist.bsky.social, a couple of weeks ago I sent you a record of a Hieracium sp., growing on top of a high wall. You asked for more details. This evening I’ve walked past one, in the same population, conveniently growing at ground level.
The very last of this year’s clustered bellflowers. Good bye, amazing blooms, until next year.
Grass-leaved orache Atriplex littoralis. It used the to be a plant of salt-rich coastal habitats (littoralis = of the shore). Now, just like Danish scurvy-grass, it’s just as much a plant of roadsides where tarmac was salted in winter.
I will never not have a moment when I see Catalpa bignonioides. Non-native? ✅ Blousy? ✅ Arguably in poor taste? ✅ But utterly fabulous? ✅ ✅ ✅
Some glorious south and mid-Norfolk plants today for #wildflowerhour, including spiny restharrow, sulphur clover, dyer’s greenweed and crested cow-wheat.