Amelia's photos with the keyword: Wild Flowers

The hazel has both male and female flowers on each shrub, and the two flowers are quite different. The male flowers are gathered within the long, breeze-blown catkins and these are by far the most prominent. Each catkin is made up of many individual flowers – these are the small green/yellow male flowers which produce the pollen. The hazel is wind pollinated and the pollen from the catkins blows to reach the female flowers which you would never spot unless you looked carefully – they are tiny individual flowers, visible only as red styles protruding from a green bud-like structure on the same branches as the male flowers. Once pollinated in the springtime, the female flowers set to work producing the hazelnuts which ripen in the autumn.

These are garden escapees growing under the hedge at the entrance to Caffi Wylfa in Chirk. We quite often stop to have a (very nice) coffee here when we are out walking. The garden next door to the cafe is covered in these little beauties.

Brigadoon is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, and music by Frederick Loewe. Songs from the musical, such as "Almost Like Being in Love", have become standards. It features two American tourists who stumble upon Brigadoon, a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years. In the mid fifties we performed this musical at the Aldershot County High School for Girls. I had a minor role, Jean, in the production, and the song, Heather on the Hill, reminds me of the musical. The John Wilson Orchestra: The Heather On The Hill (from Brigadoon) The heather in the photo is Calluna vulgaris, common heather, ling, or simply heather, and it is is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the flowering plant family Ericaceae.. It covers large parts of the local sandstone hill called The Cliffe in Ruyton XI Towns.

The five petals are each deeply notched as to appear as ten petals. Flowers appear from April until June. When the seed cases ripen the seeds can be heard ‘popping’ as they are released, unless one is very deaf. ;-).

Wild strawberries are much smaller than the garden varieties, but infinitely sweeter and tastier. The flowers are tiny - about 12 mm. The plants were growing on a bank by the side of a rarely used unmade road. Now I know where to come in the summer when the fruits appear.

Summer meets Autumn

Sea campion is a native perennial of our coasts found on various habitats including sea-cliffs, shingles, sand dunes and strand lines. It can tolerate high nutrient levels (i.e. guano) and is particularly abundant on off-shore rocky islands and inaccessible cliff tops where large seabird colonies occur.

Three heart shaped leaves with a perpendicular stem descending from the middle, a little like clover. The leaves ‘wilt’ or close at night or if conditions are harsh. Delicate little five petaled white flowers with pink or purple veining appear in April. Habitat: Woodland floors and hedgerows and almost anywhere damp and shady that has been undisturbed for a long period of time. The leaves, stem and flowers are edible, and are high in Vitamin C. .

A flower of cold beauty and a symbol of 'the wilderness and wetlands'. Also known as the 'bog star', it isn't actually a grass at all, belonging to an entirely different botanical class. It isn't a common flower, although possibly many people would miss it as it is so tiny.