My theme this year is wild flowers. Most of us will be aware of the flowers that grow in our gardens but what surprises me is how few wild flowers that I know.
I pass them every day but rarely look at them. Well this year will be different - even if many of them may fall under the letter 'X' for unknown.
'P' - Poppy, Periwinkle
I guess everyone is familiar with the red Common (or Field) poppy if only from its association with Remembrance Day, for which it has been a symbol since 1921.
It occurs typically in cornfields, grass verges and where ground has been disturbed as it did on the battlefields at Flanders in WWI.
Its seeds have been found in Egyptian grain stores dating back to 2500 BC. It was sacred to the Romans for the corn goddess Ceres. Picking the flowers was once believed to induce thunderstorms.
Petals from the poppy were once used to make syrup; seeds yielded two grades of oil - one, edible, for cooking and a coarse type used by artists in mixing paints.
Poppies of a different colour grow besides an unused track close to the village where I live.
I now know that if I am to identify what they are I need to pay attention to more than just the flowers.
I pass them every day but rarely look at them. Well this year will be different - even if many of them may fall under the letter 'X' for unknown.
'P' - Poppy, Periwinkle
I guess everyone is familiar with the red Common (or Field) poppy if only from its association with Remembrance Day, for which it has been a symbol since 1921.
 |
| Common (Field Poppy) in a field of oil seed rape |
Its seeds have been found in Egyptian grain stores dating back to 2500 BC. It was sacred to the Romans for the corn goddess Ceres. Picking the flowers was once believed to induce thunderstorms.
Petals from the poppy were once used to make syrup; seeds yielded two grades of oil - one, edible, for cooking and a coarse type used by artists in mixing paints.
Poppies of a different colour grow besides an unused track close to the village where I live.
 |
| Yellow Poppy poking above a bramble leaf |
 |
| Orange Poppy |
I know that Welsh poppies are yellow and Californian poppies orange bu I need to take a closer look at these this year as they may just be escaped cultivars.
My next flower shares its name with a seashore snail but other than that there is no connection.
 |
| Periwinkle |
There are two types of the bluish-violet flower. The lesser periwinkle has flowers 1" across, the greater 2" across. The long sprawling stems of the lesser periwinkle weave themselves together to form thick mats; on the greater the stems root wherever they touch the ground and spread rapidly that way.
 |
| Periwinkle in a birch wood |
I have yet to decide which type are the ones I have photographed.
Attribution:
- Common Poppy in field of oil seed rape, Fifield Bavant Common - 11 June 2009, ex geograph.org.uk by Trish Steel - CC BY-SA 2.0
