Summer Flowers

Evening sun at the East Meon Nature wild flower garden. Still some colour left.

Sigi Goolden and others have been busy tidying the wildflower garden beside the sports pavilion. There has been a good succession of pollinators – oxeye daisy, marjoram, white bryony, , woundwort, brambles etc. The lack of water does not seem to be so much of a problem to these plants.

The picture shows a ‘birdsnest orchid’ growing in Duncombe Wood next to the lower path. There are a few other ones in the wood, as well as a number of common twayblade orchids. The birdnest orchid is listed as ‘near threatened’. It generally grows on calcareous soils in deciduous woodland, Read more…

The picture shows a clump of harebells (campanula rotundifolia), also known as fairy bells. They are to be found on the upper part of the track that goes from South Farm to the South Downs Way on Hyden Hill. In Scotland harebells are known as ‘bluebells’ and bluebells are known Read more…

There is a magnificent showing of narrow leaved helleborines ( Cephalanthera longifolia) in Chappets Copse at the moment. This has one of the largest population of these rare orchids in the UK. There are four single ones in the northern bank of the Bereleigh Road if you are walking up that Read more…

This white helleborine orchid (Cephalanthera damasonium) was spotted next to the main footpath, leading to Small Down, in Duncombe Wood. It is found mostly in beechwoods on chalk in this area. After seeding it can be eight years before it shows a stem, and up to another two to three Read more…

Lady’s bedstraw is now flowering throughout the parish. It has a wonderful honey like scent. This picture was taken of a great flush of flowers on the footpath from South Farm to the South Downs Way. Flowers of the bedstraw family where often used in the stuffing of mattresses in Read more…

There a some wonderful patches of wild thyme flowering near the top of the path from South Farm to the South Downs Way as the track enters into a sunken section.

Meadowsweet is very fragrant, it has a smell like that of aspirin. This is due to the plant containing salicylic acid, similar to the synthetic acetylsalicylic acid of aspirin. Meadowsweet (filipendula ulmaria) originally had the latin name spirea ulmaria hence the link to the commercial name of ‘aspirin’.