The flora of Périgord in South-West France is abundant and diverse. In this blog you can find, in pictures, brief encounters with several hundreds of wild flowers and plants as they grow here in French Perigord. Following the seasons other species are added. An index of scientific and English names you find below on the right.

Corine Oosterlee is a botanist and photographer and she offers guided Botanical Walks and other activities around plants and vegetation in nature in Perigord. Do you want to know more? On www.baladebotanique.fr you can find more information. For Corine's photography see www.corineoosterlee.com. Both websites also in English.

Enjoy!




April 3, 2009

Great Horsetail


 A lot has changed since a hundred million years ago, but not those aliens.




They are sporophores of the Great Horsetail (Equisetum telmateia). During the Cretaceous several kinds of vascular plants already existed. (Not here in Dordogne, the greater part of modern France was below sea-level.) Like the dinosaurs most of them have become extinct or, at least, have changed a lot, but not the Equisetum-family. Today you can find horsetails which look virtually the same as their ancient ancestors.



The sporophores of the Great Horsetail do not have any chlorophyll. Later this spring the green, vegetative stems of this plant will appear.