Autumn flowers

Here are two tiny plants flowering now.

The Autumn squill (Scilla autumnalis) likes its surroundings dry and with only sparse vegetation. It is not common in the Dordogne, so you are not likely to stumble upon it. Moreover, it is very small, a big specimen may measure 10 cm. And only during two weeks it is in flower, and after this it is nearly invisible. Like other Squills that flower in spring it is a bulb, the greater part of the year subterranean. If you really really look for them you'll be able to find, after flowering, some grey-green, millimetre-wide leaves.


This year it was late, may be because of this summer's dry weather.
















Normally you find end of august, beginning of september, hundreds of small Spiral orchids (Spiranthes spiralis). At least if you look in poor, dry, calcareous meadows with sparse vegetation, an environment that is not very common. But this year I found only two flowering stalks, also much later than usual.


This is a portrait of the first one.



















A hundred meter further on was the second one. From this one here some flowers in detail. You can see it is a real miniature orchid. The blue in the background comes from a stone.

Three creepers

Glowing red leaves of creepers are now to be seen: Parthenocissus are climbing walls and hanging from trees. They are, like the grape-vine, from the family of Vitaceae but their small blue-black raisins are not edible. Basically, they come in three kinds.


The first one is the False Virginia-Creeper (Parthenocissus inserta). If you find a creeper outside a garden, probably it is this one. It garlands, and sometimes overgrows completely, trees. The leaves, now turning into flaming red, are divided into five separate leaves.












The real Virginia-Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) has about the same leaves but grows on walls, mostly cultivated. On this picture, taken when it snowed last winter, you see the small suction-pads it uses to attach itself to a surface.











Those two species have their origins in North-America, the next one, despite its name, comes from Asia.


It is inaptly called Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata). Not only it is not from Boston, also it is not an ivy. And where its scientific name suggests leaves with three points, they quite often have five or more. On this spring picture you see the young, undivided leaves which still have red rims.

Common Juniper

On hazy mornings in September the Common Junipers (Juniperus communis) are disguised as Christmas trees ahead of time. They are covered with spider webs, made visible by morning dew. The spiders like the Junipers because many small insects find enough to eat there. The berries are also edible for us, they have a particular flavour and a strong, sweet-bitter taste. Delicious in sauerkraut. (Yes, also the berries give their name to the dutch beverage 'jenever', which became 'gin' in english, but in modern jenevers nearly no juniper berry is to be found!)



Here is a female Juniper with ripe berries between the spider webs. They need nearly two year to ripen and turn into this blue colour.
















In april-mai the Juniper flowers. Here are some branches of a male bush, just starting to flower. Junipers have wind pollination, when you touch them the pollen disperses like a cloud of smoke.