March Flowers

[pammosley]

Originally Posted by davidbr

The info board was sort of right, just a bit vague

It's Lenten-rose, Helleborus orientalis, rare in the wild but I'm guessing yours were photographed in a garden somewhere? In which case it might also be Hybrid Lenten-rose, Helleborus x hybridus, and it's beyond my level of knowledge to distinguish between them

Thanks for that David, I googled Hellebores & there were loads of them! Yes they were in a National Trust Garden. A new one for me so I`m pleased I like common names so Lenten Rose will be added tp my collection

[davidbr]

Originally Posted by pammosley

Thanks for that David, I googled Hellebores & there were loads of them! Yes they were in a National Trust Garden. A new one for me so I`m pleased I like common names so Lenten Rose will be added tp my collection

Hey, that's cheating - you can't count plants in people's gardens

[pammosley]

David, No, you`re right
But I can put it in my photo collection so I know what it is next time I see it I only count flowers that can be found in the wild.
So you don`t count Frenchay Hospital flowers then

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by animartco

I looked down the page and couldn't see any mention of coltsfoot. Any one seen any yet?

Yes, I saw some today when walking along the canal - there were a couple of patches of it.

I think they might be the first wildflowers I've seen this spring

The Arums were starting to show through and unfurling their leaves too.

[davidbr]

Originally Posted by pammosley

David, No, you`re right
But I can put it in my photo collection so I know what it is next time I see it I only count flowers that can be found in the wild.
So you don`t count Frenchay Hospital flowers then

The crocuses, aconites and anemones are fine; they've been there years and are spreading on their own, probably going back to before the hospital was built. The Cornelian cherry and daffodils, though - and the Winter Heath that's by the entrance - I couldn't bend my rules enough to allow those a place... A shame, because a couple of days ago I went to a supposedly "easy" site for Cornelian-cherry and didn't see a thing

Personally I accept anything that's spreading under its own steam, so I will count plants in people's gardens if they've seeded themselves; those are the rules followed by the authors of Alien Plants of the British Isles, so it's not just me

"Relics of cultivation" are also allowed, so plants that have survived on the sites of abandoned, derelict gardens or old estates are OK, and ones growing in a wild environment that were deliberately introduced. Trees planted in woodland, for forestry, flowers sown along new roads, that sort of thing. But not the shrubs mass-planted on roundabouts and in parks, unless they're reproducing

Of course, really, it's a matter of personal preference - some people do count the trees they find in parks, cemeteries etc, and that new book I've got includes all the foreign trees planted in those sort of places.

[pammosley]

Sounds fair to me David, your system sounds good

[oaxaca]

Went for a walk over the local woods to get to my local nature reserve. The only splash of colour I saw all day was from the gorse bushes beginning to flower. I did see some flowering winter aconite a few weeks ago on a road verge though.

I think spring is slow to hit my part of the midlands!

[posie]

There are daisies on the lawn, in bloom, have been there for at least a week.

[Cheryl]

Dogs Mercury for me today.



And here is the Coltsfoot that I saw the other day but forgot to add to my sighting.

[posie]

Nice pics, Cheryl,but where are you?