A-Z Challenge 2016 - Wildflowers 'O'

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.

'O' - Old Man's Beard, Orchid

In the 16th century herbalist John Gerard gave a plant its name because it "deck(s) and adorn(s) waies and hedges where people trauell".

Traveller's Joy

This rambling woody climber can live for 60 years and reach heights of 50 feet, covering large trees, extensive stretches of hedgerow and even smothering small timber trees.

It's sometimes called wild clematis or virgin's bower due to its interlaced white stems. The flowers are greenish-white or creamy white.

But its fruits - white and feathery - are what gives it the name that I know it by.

Old Man's Beard

Gypsies used to cut lengths of dry stem to smoke - hence it was also given the name gipsy's bacca; in Germany it is Rauchole, bois à fumer in France and smookhout in Holland.

When we walked from Padstow (in Cornwall) on the trail alongside the - 

Camel Estuary

we came across this flower.

"Purple Orchid" ?  - May 2011

Note my question mark as it might even be a Southern marsh orchid or not an orchid at all.

Although the early purple orchid is fragrant enough to begin with it is said be unpleasantly reminiscent of tomcats as the flowers fade. At the time I must confess that I didn't smell it - and Buster wouldn't wait any longer.

Nor can I vouch for its association with sex. The ancient Greeks used it to predict the sex of their children. In Ireland is was an ingredient in a powerful love potion.

Attributions:

• Traveller's Joy - 15 Aug 2009, ex geograph.org.uk by Jonathan Billinger - CC BY-SA 2.0 generic
• Old Man's Beard - 24 December 2007, ex geograph.org.uk by Colin Smith - CC BY-SA 2.0 generic