Catkins

Temperatures are just above zero, but since last week the first Hazels (Corylus avellana) are in flower. The bushes got a light yellow hue, caused by hundreds of drooping male catkins, each several centimeters long.






















Today I found some female flowers too. Mostly they start flowering about two weeks after the male flowers, maybe to avoid fertilization with pollen from the same bush. But here the lapse was much shorter.


The female flowers are tiny, consisting of only millimetre-long sticky red pistils.

Common Dogwood

It’s the winter sun that gives the branches of the Common Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) their colour. A red pigment, anthocyanin, is formed under influence of light and cold. It protects the twigs against the harmful effects of sunlight.























Dogwood is very common among the scrubs in dry and calcareous areas. It makes patches of colour in a wintery landscape, as you see when you look with nearly closed eyes.

Tor Grass

In the calcareous meadows where you can find lots of orchids you can also find a lot of Tor Grass (Brachypodium rupestre). It grows in large clumps and you can recognize it because it is coarser than the other grasses that surround it. In winter it is pale yellow, not as grey as other grasses.



Today an icing of frost enhances its beauty.


















Last summer its clear, light green stood out.

Butchers Broom

Just before Christmas I found at the market these prickly green branches with red berries. It is called Butchers Broom (Ruscus aculeatus) but False Holly would be a better name because it is used as a substitute for the real thing. However, no need to buy it, to pick some branches from the woods does no harm. Today, after decorating homes for the holidays, there is enough left. It is a small shrub with stiff and straight branches, growing in the shadow of deciduous trees.

When you have a good look, you can still find some small greenish flowers. They are seated in the center of a leaf, or so it seems. But this false holly has no leaves, they are cladodes, branches flattened into an oval shape. It looks a little bit like asparagus which belongs to the same family and has also cladodes.