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 9, 2016

Harebell


Little blue flowers grow between the taller grasses on a roadside. Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) begins to flower at the end of summer and goes on until the first frost. It grows nearly everywhere and the hot and dry August weather does not bother it at all.






Its thin stems carry little blue bells, opening like a five-pointed star.







The english name is easy to understand, they are just the right size for a hare who wants to take home a bunch of flowers to put in a vase. But why the scientific name 'rotundifolia'? There are not many leaves and those you can find are long and slender, not round at all.






You have to go back some weeks. At ground level you find a small plant with round, or nearly round, leaves, young leaves, and all kind of shapes in between. When the Harebell begins to make new sprouts, it starts with roundish leaves. When the season goes on, it makes leaves of a more oval shape. And the newest leaves are outright longish. When at last the first flowers develop, the round leaves have all but disappeared.