WILDFLOWERS YOU HAVE SEEN WHILE OUT WALKING

I saw a clump of Early Purple Orchids yesterday but I didn't have my camera, it seems to be a good year for Red Campions too, the hedgerows are full of them.

 

Cuckoo flower, complete with orange tip butterfly egg.

I know the picture looks like I picked it but I didn't I just held it still as it was blowing about in the wind.

 

@SherwoodArrow We used to see these in fields near us for years and then after the floods gone. However we have then seen them in different places that we hadn't seen before. Interesting about the orange tip as we have had them in the garden now for some weeks. No cuckoo flower but they seem to be attracted to the bluebells. Will have to have a closer look to see if there are any eggs.

 

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage - Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, flowers going over now ...



Lamium galeobdolon ...





I also saw Arum maculatum (Cuckoo pint) and Cardamine pratense (Lady's smock) but the photos didn't come out well.
Oh and lots of Bluebells too

 

Chrysosplenium oppositifolium @Michael Hewett what a wonderful name for a plant and one that we remember so well doing Botany courses. Haven't heard it for years so thank you for the memories.

 

I'm glad to have jogged your memory @On the Levels
It's quite common around here, I've even found it in my front garden this year, and because I like it I left it alone.

 

@On the Levels strange you didn't see them after floods as the fields these are in are very boggy and in the winter are running like a stream with water most of the time.
I have only seen a couple of male orange tips in my garden, however, as the females look like small whites I might have missed them

 

Last of the bluebells in the woods

Ferns surrounded by a layer of willow fluff - it's everywhere!

It looks almost like a shuttlecock fern, but it has to be a native?

 

I took our U3A nature group around Badbury Rings (Ancient hill fort) today after checking it out last Friday and some orchids had grown since then.
Greater Butterfly.


Common Twayblade, hundreds coming up and flowering.

Various shades of Early Purple.




From a nearby site, White Helleborine.

 

I saw these Early Purple Orchids today and tried to get a photo from the car window, but it was on a bendy road and the passing traffic was constant ... and fast ! so I took the photo in a hurry, hence it being poor quality ...

 

Fly orchid

 

I am hoping to see fly orchid and possibly this week but they are scarce in Dorset.

 

@Scroggin Just four at this site, possibly the only ones in Dorset.

 

Lovely specimen @strongylodon. So far this year I've only managed to find them in one location, in previous years they were spread about more. We've got quite a few orchid rosettes in the front lawn, last year we had Man, Bee, Pyramidal and Common Spotted, hoping for similar this year.

 

Found these on this morning's dog walk on the North Downs. Fly Orchid, White Helleborine and Twayblade