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THE
RARE AND UNUSUAL
I
couldn't resist putting together a small sample of the weird and
wonderful plants I've photographed. Some are simply
beautiful albeit rare (a connection maybe?), whereas others are oddities
and arouse the imagination in terms of evolution.
Butterwort
04
Butterwort
A
carnivorous plant of bog and fen that is quite scarce and not
easy to find. The insects get stuck on the leaves and are
digested externally to the plant. It looks such a
delicate and pretty thing!
Autumn
Crocus 05
Autumn
crocus
Saffron,
a spice of the wealthy, the most expensive by weight of any
spice in the world (see link).
The
spice is the dried parts of the stalk and reproductive
organs. It is strictly a cultivated plant derived from
this, the wild variety, Crocus sativus. A
few colonies of this beautiful plant grows close to my
home. This is remarkable, because it typically thrives in
dry mediterranean habitats with dry winds. When growing in
damper climates it is very sensitive to the timing of rainfall,
drainage and cold. It can tolerate all 3, but in the wrong
sequence it can be a disaster. The flowers close to my
home are quite reliable, and guess what, may prove that global
warming is not a worry!
Martagon
Lily 05
Snakes
Head fritillary 23
Martagon
lily
Snakes
head fritillary
The
Martagon Lily is an extremely showy plant but rare in the UK. A
very small colony
of native Martagon Lilies exists in woodland close to my home in the Wye
Valley. Often called the "Turk's Cap" for
obvious reasons.
Pasque
Flower 14
Pasque
Flower 10
Pasque
flower
The
garden variety of this plant is hairy and not the
same. They exist in Gloucestershire at a small nature
reserve in the Cotswolds.
It
is a highly toxic plant that grows mainly in the USA. It
is used by medicine men to treat heart conditions such as high
blood pressure (it slows the heart). It is also used by
the Blackfeet Indians to induce abortions! All this and it
is the official state flower of South Dakota!!
Yellow
Birds Nest 05
Yellow
birds nest
An
unusual plant due to its lack of pigment. It doesn't need
chlorophyll because it parasitises its nutrients from tree
roots, especially beech.
Broomrape
Bean 01
Bogbean
19
Bean
broomrape
Bogbean
A
larger and more common family of parasitic plants are the
broomrapes. It
gets nutrients from the roots of nearby growing plants such as
cultivated beans (shown), knapweed and ivy.
Bogbean,
or Water Shamrock, is a well known herbal remedy for arthritus
and rheumatism. It seems to have hairy petals!
Field
Horsetail 06
Field
horsetail
A
dinosaur of a plant. Should be a fossil - and often is!!
Spring
beauty 1
Spring
beauty Claytonia perfoliata
A very
strange plant with an unusual flower - leaf arrangement.
Another herbal remedy, this time for Scurvy, or vitamin C
deficiency.
It is
an American native, and the Californian gold rush miners used to
eat it for this reason.
This
was photographed on a Wildlife Trust nature reserve in
Leicestershire were it grows in the wild.
Sasnd
Toadflax 02
Sand
toadflax
Braunton
Burrows, Devon, 2006.
A very
rare diminutive plant tolerant of dry arid conditions. It
is actually an introduced species (c1892) and just hangs on in
the dune systems of Devon.
It
gets my vote as the most boring and seemingly useless rare plant
of the UK. But I challenge you to find it without help -
like I did!
Cotton
grass
That
such a bizarre bit of vegetation could change the world is
astounding!!!!!!
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