Common Bugleweed

It is time to get out the lawn mower, but, well! The grass grows, but also lots of flowers. Common Bugleweed (Ajuga reptans) colonized the lawn. Every angular and rigid stalk carries tens of little blue flowers.

The blue is accentuated by dark bracts below every ring of flowers.

Seen from nearby it is really hairy! In every flower grow four stamina, a pair of long ones and a pair of short ones. Yellow anthers hover above the flowers. Irresistible for pollinating insects.

Green-Winged Orchid

A very common orchid in Perigord. You can find the Green-Winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio) in meadows, lawns, on roadsides... And no, it has no green wings, maybe some small greenish stripes on its sepals.

Every year you are happy to see it again. Here in the last rays of an April sun in a dry limestone field.

Dog's Mercury

Dog's Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) grows under trees and can cover a lot of surface. It is one of those plants you don't remember because it seems to have nothing special to draw your attention. Just some nondescript green.

Beginning of March the first stalks emerge. Here you can already see the flower buds.

Now it is in full bloom. The flowers are very tiny and green. The plant above has only male flowers, like most plants, incidentally. A young grashopper tries to hide itself behind one of the flowering stalks.


Plants with female flowers are less common.

Here is one. It has already little globular fruits. Yes, they look like Spurge fruits. In fact, Dog's Mercury is, like Spurges, an Euphorbiaceae.