A Guide To Wildflowers - Update
I'd finally got around to being more organised with my wildflower project. Too many pieces of paper, too many photos and no organisation. Just like any project at the beginning it isn't a problem but after a while it gets a little confusing and after even longer flumoxing. In an organised moment I begun to add all the plants to an excel spreadsheet. Half way through this task I got a little distracted and began to look at my photo collection which made me realise I have some plants ticked off my list. Great, I thought I'm further ahead than I thought.
I went back to my excel sheet. The number of lines seemed to be getting higher when I finally finished I'd added 165 wildflower plants to the list. It was then I realised I'd miscalculated, originally I thought there were 157. Less than I discovered in my photo library. However I have a good motivator at the moment.
Since the beginning of the year, I've been checking the country lane banks that lead up hill on my sometimes daily challenge walk. In the past few weeks there have been signs of spring with shoots then leaves and now flowers popping up. This was the moment I'd been waiting for to explore with my camera. After a few walks I began researching some of the plants I'd been photographing. Some I'd not encountered before and after referring to my book I was beginning to tick off the woodland flowers plants. A little more research and I realised I'd been exploring an ancient wood. I knew it was special and had been there lots of times since moving to Wiltshire. After numerous visits I began to see things I hadn't noted before including:
Early Dog Violet
Lesser Celandine
Dog's Mercury
Wood Anemone
Primrose
Snowdrops
These added to last years finds:
Yellow Archangel
Bluebell
Bugle
Red Campion
All of the above indicate an ancient woodland which covers only 2.5% of the UK. So now not only am I going to be looking for the wildflowers in my guide but also ancient woodland species including fungi and insects!
The project just got bigger.
My discoveries are shared here:
https://www.quirkyjunket.com/british-wildflowers
https://www.instagram.com/quirkyjunket
