Posted on August 5, 2021
Purple/pink Knapweed, yellow St John’s Wort, and rusty-red seeded stems of Dock and Sorrel, with tall stalks of hogweed and their umbrella seed-heads, are thriving amongst the dry grasses in the place I call the Meadow on the edge of the village.
Posted on July 14, 2021
The purplish-pink fine-petalled flowers of Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra) are starting to open up in the Charlton Down Nature Reserve. They look a bit like thistles among the taller grasses. The flower buds look strange with their dark brown spikey bracts. Insects love the flowers.
Posted on July 12, 2021
Our local Charlton Down Nature Reserve is a small space with about half of the area left untouched at this time of year. One grassy patch now has a multitude of flowers and looks very colourful and attractive. The general low cover of Yellow Rattle is dying back with their characteristic seed pods forming; and taller flowers such as Knapweed, Oxeye Daisy, Wild Marjoram, Birds-foot Trefoil, and Ladies Bedstraw are flowering, mostly behind an outer border of tall grasses, dock, and umbelliferous plants.