Wow that’s gorgeous. It looked familiar, I just googled it and it looks like it’s related to potentilla the garden plant.

 

Potentilla - translates to small but powerful according to first nature

 

Another two plants worth looking out for around the banks and margins of ponds and lakes are water avens (Geum rivale) and bog bean (Menyanthes trifoliata). Keep an eye out for great burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis) in any damp grassland/meadows surrounding stillwaters and along stream and river banks, although it's sadly quite a rare sight these days.

 

Cheers VB. I haven't spotted any of those plants yet, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

 

last year I noted down the wild flowers i saw on the banks or in the brook, I wasnt sure how many there would be. I stuck to the common names as my latins gettinng very rusty and also i love the sounds of the old country names rolling off the tongue, not in my accent mind but I could kind of imagine Cerys Mathews or some similar accent reading them, like a Dylan thomas poem.

Lesser Centuary, Watermint, Great Willowherb

Clowns wound wort, water droplet, campion

Betony, Blue water speedwell, Crowsfoot

Reed canary grass, Fumitory, Wild Succory

White Byrony, Dock, Winter Cress, Meadow sweet, nettle

Hairy St. Johns Wort, Bramble, Creeping Thistle ,Yellow Iris

Water Forget Me Not, Yarrow, Broad leafed Arrowhead

Bittersweet , Hogweed, Briar Rose, Burnet, Saxifrage,

Hoary Plantain ,Lesser Centuary, Goats beard, Bellbine

Herb Robert, Branched Burr Reed, Rush, Dog Rose, Lesser burdock

Figwort, Devils-Bit -Scabious, Wormwood, Pignut*

Poppy, Bedstraw, Ragwort, Cleavers, Teasel, Flax,

Comfrey, Fools Parsley, Chicory , Vetch, Mallow, Hemlock, keck

Wild golden hops

WP

 

last year I noted down the wild flowers i saw on the banks or in the brook, I wasnt sure how many there would be. I stuck to the common names as my latins gettinng very rusty and also i love the sounds of the old country names rolling off the tongue, not in my accent mind but I could kind of imagine Cerys Mathews or some similar accent reading them, like a Dylan thomas poem.

Lesser Centuary, Watermint, Great Willowherb

Clowns wound wort, water droplet, campion

Betony, Blue water speedwell, Crowsfoot

Reed canary grass, Fumitory, Wild Succory

White Byrony, Dock, Winter Cress, Meadow sweet, nettle

Hairy St. Johns Wort, Bramble, Creeping Thistle ,Yellow Iris

Water Forget Me Not, Yarrow, Broad leafed Arrowhead

Bittersweet , Hogweed, Briar Rose, Burnet, Saxifrage,

Hoary Plantain ,Lesser Centuary, Goats beard, Bellbine

Herb Robert, Branched Burr Reed, Rush, Dog Rose, Lesser burdock

Figwort, Devils-Bit -Scabious, Wormwood, Pignut*

Poppy, Bedstraw, Ragwort, Cleavers, Teasel, Flax,

Comfrey, Fools Parsley, Chicory , Vetch, Mallow, Hemlock, keck

Wild golden hops

WP

That's a great list, had to look most of them up! but no snowdrops or anemones? They're very common on Welsh rivers.

I'm plagued with Hemlock at the moment, we let it go over lockdown and we're paying for it now. Every flood brings more balsam seeds, controlling that and the hemlock is creating a less diverse bankside vegetation.

 

I downloaded the PlantNet app at the start of the month and found like you, what I'd called cow parsley was also called pig nut, yet to try one but did photograph it

 

Traditionally, certainly in Cheshire, cow parsley was always the tall-ish plant that is commonly seen along the verges of country lanes: Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) - Woodland Trust and pignut was the small plant of more acidic old, unploughed, dry grassland and open woodland: Pignut - Wild Flower Finder

The trouble with umbellifer plants is that a lot of them look very similar, and some of them (such as hemlock, hemlock water dropwort, etc.) are highly poisonous (and can potentially poison people just by handling them without protective gloves), so do take care if thinking of foraging for 'wild food' or pulling seemingly invasive plants out by hand.

 

I'm well aware that it's poisonous but thanks for the pointer, it prompted me to search for the proper procedure for removing hemlock . Explains why I had welts on my face when I strimmed it without a mask 🤪 but it looks like I may get on top of it over two years as it's a biennial. Seeds viable 3-5 years, grrrrr.

 

Was up at our club loch yesterday. Orchids seem to like the bit of ground right where the boats are moored - and consequently it is much trodden. Maybe that is what makes it attractive to them? If so, they are living dangerously!

I took this shot at least 15 years ago...

I captioned it 'early summer orchid', but that was probably a guess.

Yesterday, I took this in exactly the same spot...

It's past its best. I dunno if they are the same species??? The colour is different and, possibly the pattern on the petals?

I compared it with this one I took at Loch of Swannay on Orkney in 2017...

Same but different???