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!




December 9, 2009

Grey Knight


Mushrooms are not plants. They do not have photosynthesis but are saprophytes, which means they get their energy from dead organic matter and not from sunlight. Photosynthetic organisms fix carbon from the air, heterotroph organisms like mushrooms need carbon already fixed by other organisms. Like plants they have cell walls, but those contain chitine instead of cellulose. Mushrooms are part of the large kingdom of Fungi, together with yeast and moulds and other, mostly small and monocellular organisms.



You can find the Grey Knight (Tricholoma terreum) until the first frost around pine and fir trees, and they are edible (actually, they taste good!).















Here is part of a fairy ring of Grey Knights. A tree is in the centre of the ring, and around it underground the mycelium spreads, with the spore-carrying mushrooms, the flowers of the mycelium, above ground. In the circle a lot of plants cannot grow, because the mycelium spreads poisonous substances or covers the roots of other plants. At the outside of the circle, out of reach of the mycelium, grasses grow normally. When the mushrooms disappear, the ring will still be visible.


December 8, 2009

Wet


Fallen leaves in a pond; reflection of nearly empty branches.