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!




August 10, 2015

Woolly Distaff-thistle


A wall of thistles in a stony field. The farmer has given up growing something here this year, the corn has not even germinated. It was too dry and too hot. He did not even worry about herbicides.




So much the better for those Woolly Distaff-thistles (Carthamus lanatus). You don't often see them in such large quantities, in fact, you nearly never see them, they are becoming very rare. They look nearly dead, but no. They are well adapted to dry circumstances, only the upper part of the plant is still green.


Nevertheless, in another field, a cereal field after harvest, grow also some plants.




Here, they are greener and still show some yellow flowers. The Woolly Distaff-thistle is very prickly, its bracts and leaves are tough and spiky, not at all soft as wool.







The seeds are rather big and they carry a crown of scales.





There are a lot of them in this stony field. Are they going to give new plants next spring, or are the voles going to eat them all?