A foraging trip - flower pic heavy

I took my camera when foraging, tried to use the macro lens & had a few fluke results, partly from messing around with the images on a computer. I saw some wild flowers as I'd never seen them before & just want to share a few of them with you all.
This is one of may favourite "wild gardens", unusual for here because it's a narrow ravine with a spring at the bottom, (we have very little surface water.

ETA the photos are just plants I found, some are very poisonous for buns eg Stinking Hellebore (a type of christmas rose,

I found lots of
Marsh woundwort


and Hedge woundwort


then some Devil's bit scabious


and crossing a walkway over a dried up pond saw Purple loosestrife.


So I lowered myself off the walkway into the dried up pond to take lots of piccies of marsh plants I rarely see. Then found my hips don't bend as much as they used to, when I tried to get out. :no: Silly woman. Eventually got out by reversing the way I got in.

I got loads of this for Thumper


and returned home the scenic route passing "celtic fields".


I found a rare plant I didn't know grew round here in a clump of stingers - stinking hellebore.



I finally gathered some wild plums for myself in a tiny lane.


Wild plum cobbler is yummy.
Goodness but I love "nature's garden".

Brilliant pics - I wouldn't know half of those plants

What amazing pictures Judy,they look like a professional photographer has taken them.I see what you mean about the size of the plantains :shock::shock:,your a lady of many talents xxxxx.I love going for walks in the countryside it really lifts your spirits

Wow, I bow to your knowledge of plants.
Your photographs are amazing too. My favourite:

thumps_ said:

then some Devil's bit scabious

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It looks like something someone made up.

Wow look at those plantains! :shock:

Lovely photos, I love nature but would not know what any of those were, Thumper will be pleased

Lovely piccies.

You're so good at identifying plants - I wish I knew half as much!

And soooo lucky to find wild plums - that's one thing I always hope to find - plums and damsons - but never do

Lovely pictures

Take me! Take meeeee!!!

Yay, plant photos!!! Lovely!

Lovely, wish I knew how to forage and identify things. Hope you and Thumper enjoy

Thank you so much for your kind comments everyone.
If someone is going to forage, I'd advise that they stay within safe limits. If you're going to forage for a pink flower growing in a spike, get a good plant book & make sure you can distinguish between all the pink flowers which grow in spikes.
I'm not trained in botany at all, just a country lass always asking "what's that?"

Maizey said:

What amazing pictures Judy,they look like a professional photographer has taken them.I see what you mean about the size of the plantains :shock::shock:,your a lady of many talents xxxxx.I love going for walks in the countryside it really lifts your spirits

Click to expand...

I have your generosity to thank for a digital camera rather than my 30year old pentax, macro lens in front of a 5" heavy zoom, & the long wait developing celluloid, Maizey. I just happened to get good focus & cropping magnified the photo even more.

So for Jenova as you've had such a rough time recently, here's the side view of Devil's bit scabious. (I always seem to find an insect bum in the air when I take a flower photo.:lol: Did you see it on the front view?)


We have a lot of Meadow crane's bill round here. The lanes are transfomed to a heavenly powder blue. Bunnies can eat this.


Also knapweed which buns can eat.



And common mallow which buns can eat


I was excited to find a musk mallow had returned

Then saw loads of them below me on the M4 verge when crossing the footbridge. :lol: The motorway verges are truely our last haven for wild life.

Finally there's lots of teasel near my home. It spread from a Victorian rubbish dump. The heads were used in the wool cloth industry for making felt & finishing top hats!


I'm slowly building a collection of photos of poisonous plants. If anyone wants to see them they're here http://s866.photobucket.com/albums/ab229/judith_af_holland/poisonous wild plants/

Thank you.
I did see the bum. It was a bee too and I love bees.

Ah so that's what that stuff is, I thought it looked similar to my marshmallow. Can they eat all mallows?

They're wonderful photos thumps, you could take some similar ones in my garden at the moment it's so overgrown.

Maizey put it perfectly - you are a lady of MANY TALENTS

Thank you everyone it's lovely to be able to share my delight with you all.

All these photos have been taken within a 5 mile radius of my home (mostly less) at the edge of a massive conurbation.
I'm as excited as a child at Christmas over some of them (not necessarily rare) but which aren't common round here. We do have uncommon plants eg Bath Asparagus, Autumn crocus, the famous fritillary meadow at Cricklade about 15 miles away, & the famous bluebells of West Woods about 10 miles away.

Yes, Schuette, all the species of mallow are safe for buns to eat.
It's the same with the chamomile/mayweed family. I can't think of anything else with leaves like this family has.

I have difficulty with the unscented mayweeds. I'm wondering if I post pictures someone such as Bavarian Bunny would take me through the identification. The Pineapple mayweed hadn't naturalised in the UK when my reference book was written :lol:. It's everywhere now!




Finally, we have giant hogweed, as well as ordinary hogweed & I'm actually scared of it! :lol:
Many years ago a guy clad only in shorts, & no top, ended up in the burns unit from severe blistering & skin loss after walking through giant hogweed.
The big stuff is just huge, :shock: but in poor growing conditions many plants can be like tiny Lillyputian replicas of their true selves. How do I know if I've got a "Lillyputian" "ferocious" Hogweed or an ordinary harmless hogweed?

Wow, I am thoroughly enjoying all these lovely photos! Some of these remind me of plants from my youth when I lived in California; you wouldn't think you'd see these there.
But I do remember the wild plums. We had tons of trees across from my house that my folks would make jelly from the fruit. I mostly enjoyed having a quick snack to pick when I walked home from school.
(Mmm...cobbler. If you have the time, might a recipe follow, perhaps? )
Then the local country club tore a bunch of the trees out to extend the 6th tee and have the bulwark shored up that led to the street. It was very depressing.
We used to have something that looked like that teasel too. It was spiky enough when green, but let one of those dry out and it could be downright dangerous. It was like a porcupine on a stick. God forbid the neighborhood bully came at you with one!

The meadow's crane and the devil's bit are beautiful flowers! And some of the others look like something from an old Star Trek episode at first glance.

The plantain is impressive! Most of the ones that grow here are wimpy and underdeveloped compared to those, and I'm not sure we have any that remotely look like that.... That was something I had meant to ask you, Judy, was if it is very often you find plantain growing near bluebell? Some of our bluebell is very close to what looks like plantain here and it is sometimes hard to tell the two sets of leaves apart if there are no flowers blooming and the plantain leaves are darker coloured. I don't pick any for the bunnies if I can't distinguish them properly (hence why they eat mostly the lighter, wimpier ones that I CAN identify...lol) and I do know that bluebell is toxic to bunnies, so I just don't take the chance. I'm guessing if it is plantain there is always the stalk of seeds coming from the center of the plant, which bluebell doesn't have, and our bluebell sometimes forms a vinelike stalk growing straight up with leaves on either side that the plantain doesn't do. I think I'm going to check out your dangerous plants thread, it looks to be most edifying.

The knapweed reminds me of chive. At least the flowers do. And what fantastic chamomile! Another that grows here, but ours is puny compared to yours.

What a pleasant and peaceful walk it must be though...minus the bog. You poor dear. Mud in any form drives me nuts. Our clay here is so persistent, whether wet or dry, once it sticks to you there's no getting rid of it.:roll: When it dries it becomes the clingy-est dust I have ever had the misfortune to try to launder out of my clothes.
Which reminds me...kind of OT but...does anyone here know a good way to get dried dandelion milk out of fabric? By the time I get to it, it's made a lot of nasty little brown stains that are impossible to remove (hence why I've given it the name dandelion blood...it's as hard to wash out as the human version.)

Your countryside is gorgeous. I envy you deeply. Sure, we have lots of undeveloped land here, but it's just not the same. I don't think there are any hillsides in America as green and lush as those in England.

Please post some pictures from Alaska on here. A bit of everything from what it's like to live there, to your plants.

Your plants will be very different, even from those further North in Scotland although we may share a few in common.

The UK is so tiny but has a remarkably varied geology, causing widely different plants to grow, different history of land usage, & even different house building materials until relatively recent times with easy transport.

If you travel just 50 miles in any direction from here, the plants & countryside will be totally different. Perhaps I should have posted a photo of the houses in the old village. They're built from a warm honey-brown local sandstone called sarsen, timber framed & with reed thatched roofs, in terraces, about 200 years old! The smallest occupation is now 2 up 2 down but when originally occupied it was 1 up 1 down for a whole extended family, perhaps with a shack at the back for a work place for cottage industry. :shock:

The once common plants they used for eg dying wool, washing lace, making "rush" seats can still be found growing round the villages, as long as people don't get "too tidy" & eradicate them all as "weeds".

Very gorgeous pictures!!

You know so much about plants/flowers, its really amazing.