Catkins

Today the air is cool but the sun is warm. Perfect weather for me. Here are two trees with catkins and a flower.

Silver Birch.

The Silver Birch is Monoecious meaning the tree has separate male and female flowers on the same tree. I couldn’t see any female flowers but it says that the female flowers appear when the new shoots break. No leaves on the tree at the moment.

Silve Birch

Silver Birch

Hornbeam

Hornbeam is Monoecious like the Silver Birch but here you can see both male and female flowers. No leaves on this tree yet either.

Hornbeam

Hornbeam

Hornbeam

Bird’s Eye Speedwell

This is Speedwell. I think it’s actually Bird’s Eye Speedwell but I’m not sure. At any rate the small, vivid blue flowers are very welcome.

Speedwell

Here you can see how it covers the ground. It often grows in big patches in the orchard grass but here its growing on some fairly poor and worn ground.

March Winds

It’s a bight, breezy, sunny day today and we’ve also had a few quick heavy rain showers. Seems like March winds and April showers all in one. I wandered around and took some picture of the flowers which are out.

I had to take a picture here of two of my favourites growing on a patch of well worn ground. Although there’s a season for these two you can find them in flower almost 10 months of the year.

I guess that Daffodils are not really wild but these are growing here and there and are slowly spreading.

Primrose

Primrose

The yellow flower at top right is a Lesser Celandine. The white flower in the middle is a Barren Strawberry. The leaves and flowers look very much like Wild Strawberries but they do not produce Strawberry fruits but a tiny green fruit . Pretty all the same. They have different Latin names so probably not related.

Lesser Celandine

Usually come right after the Snowdrops. Just a few sprinkled around at the moment but in a week they will carpet the ground.

Snowy Weather

March 10th and snow all around. The bees must be getting a bit confused. Only a few days ago it was like spring and they were all out and about.

Hazel

These are Hazel Catkins out well before the leaves. The catkins are the male flowers producing pollen.

Female flower of the hazel

This is the female flower of the hazel. This is where the Hazelnut will form. They are very small and you have to look carefully. Hazel is a monoecious plant meaning it has separate male and female flowers on the same plant. We find that some trees have very few female flowers but this one had lots.

In this picture you can just about see the female flowers with the tiny red tuft.

Snowdrops

First of March, St David’s day. I’m a bit late starting this year, the snowdrops have been out for a few weeks. This particular bunch is at the highest point of our holding under a thin hedge of Hawthorn and Brambles. And the patch has spread although you can’t see it in these photos. They seem to do well on our soil.