Fran Sinclair
@notfrangible
Plants are my passion but the rest of the world is pretty fascinating, too. Except sport.
Found this glabrous Amaranthus sp last week and returned yesterday hoping for seeds to confirm either A. hybridus or A. retroflexus. All other weeds untouched but this one taken without trace ☹️
Lastly, Wild Teasel, Woolly Thistle, Small Scabious and Dwarf Thistle. The last three from today’s meeting and the Teasel just because. #WildflowerHour
Three Clustered Bellflower from today’s #WiltsBotSoc meeting on the National Trust’s Stonehenge arable reversion sites - a very impressive selection of chalk grassland species in the fields where reversion began a fair few years ago. And a cool breeze too! #WildflowerHour
A few #PavementPlants for #WildflowerHour too - Chicory, Lady’s Bedstraw and, more reasonably for an urban setting, Garden Lobelia all in Bradford-on-Avon
The edge of the K&A canal was the closest I got to #WetlandPlants this week. Orange Balsam and Wild Angelica qualify but the Greater Burdock doesn’t much care where it finds itself. #WildflowerHour
Gatekeeper on Hemp-agrimony with attendant Mallards on the K&A canal #WildWebsWednesday
Mystery oddities in mown grass/ equisetum in southern Lapland last week. No other part of plants visible. Wondered if they were galls or phyllody (but of what?); anyone have an idea, please?
All #StillFlowering beside the Avon: Great Willowherb, Gypsywort, Branched Bur-reed and Tansy with Purple Loosestrife #WildflowerHour
Recorded these Broad-leaved Helleborines in 2024 when they had already gone over, last year they didn’t flower, but this year Yay! Extra spikes and #StillFlowering - such wonderful plants! #WildflowerHour
The interesting ones from my Finland trip that were harder to identify without books and time alone! Help/corrections would be much appreciated @ghostofdatura.bsky.social @bramblebotanist.bsky.social
My hosts don’t know what happened to this tree but it is protected as a landmark in Siika-Kämä, Finland #ThickTrunkTuesday
Collecting Cloudberries and midges in Siika-Kämä I happened upon Round-leaved Sundew Drosera rotundifolia 🙂
Some wonderful plants here in Oulu but the one I would most like to take home (so far) is Woolly Burdock Arctium tomentosum
A few #ClimbingPlants for #WildflowerHour Hedge Bindweed, Travellers’ Joy, Common Ivy and Hop scrambling over brambles.
Calocoris roseomaculatus - or what Snoopy would call a cute bug - on Catsear at Morgan’s Hill on Monday #WildWebsWednesday
A Mulberry tree at Avoncliff showing off its fruit #ThickTrunkTuesday
I’ve been watching this urbanum’weed’ for some time hoping it would survive to flower. Today at Bradford-on-Avon open gardens I saw what it can aspire to! Visnaga dacoides - not really #WildflowerHour
After hiding away from the heat this week, what a tonic - Wiltshire Wildlife Trust’s superb Distillery Meadows with #WiltsBotSoc (names in Alt)
We all know the Spindle Ermine moth webs adorning(!) the Spindle but this was just the second time I’ve seen their silken ropes to shimmy down to pupate at ground level. #WildWebsWednesday (photo taken a few weeks ago; hiding from heat today)
Today’s sun brought more #PollinatorPals out. Pollen Beetles and ? In the centre of a glorious Chicory flower, bumblebees on Meadow Cranesbill and Marsh Woundwort, and a sawfly on Meadow Buttercup #WildflowerHour
Not many #PollinatorPals about in yesterday’s humid overcast but Pollen Beetles on Hemlock Water-dropwort, a hoverfly on Hogweed, a Harlequin larva on Rough Chervil, Andrena sp. bee on Hogweed and another type of hoverfly also on Hogweed #WildflowerHour
An anthill garden - albeit rather a monoculture of Thyme - hosting a Burnet moth and five Buff-tailed Bumblebees; you only have to zoom in; I had to stagger up a near-vertical lump of chalk! (Cley Hill) #WildWebsWednesday
The best #ChurchyardFlowers locally for biodiversity at Holy Trinity, with Hedge Woundwort, Green Alkanet, the ubiquitous Balkan Spurge, the paler version of Stinking Iris, and an explosion of Catsear with Ox-eye Daisy, plus walls (not shown) with waterfalls of Yellow Corydalis #WildflowerHour
Not many #ChurchyardFlowers at these two! St Mary’s chapel, Tory (apolitical!), Bradford-on-Avon, where you may be able to spot Herb Robert at the top of the drainpipe 🙂, and the over-tidy Saxon church where someone neglected to weed out one Ivy-leaved Toadflax and a Petty Spurge. #WildflowerHour
The first of today’s #ChurchyardFlowers at Christchurch in Bradford-on-Avon; Rough Hawkbit mostly, but quite a few carefully marked and protected Pyramidal Orchids #WildflowerHour
#ChurchyardFlowers at Monkton Farleigh on a damp and windy day: Ox-eye Daisies, buds of Sweet Chestnut, Red Valerian and Nipplewort with a Sowthistle or two in the overflow cemetery #WildflowerHour
Cley Hill botanical visit, so checked cattle trough over the hedge for Duckweeds. No plants but 4 plume moths (2 pictured) and a wasp? Ichneumon? casualties, and other lives and deaths once I studied the photo.