Autumn Squill

On this roadside colours have changed. It is no longer sallow grey and dry yellow.
Many tiny blue stalks appear from the morning fog.

 

Those are Autumn Squills (Scilla autumnalis) and, never seen before, this year there are so many of them they nearly cover the soil. And they are big, most plants have a dozen of flowers or more. Well, big...

You would not think plants like those dry summers. But maybe, in this case, the underground bulbs took some strenght from abundant and long-lasting spring showers? In summer Autumn Squill has no leaves or stems above ground, so possibly it did not suffer thet much from hot sunshine and drought.

A little white plant between hundreds of blue flowers. Why not?
  

The flowers are still closed, waiting for the sun coming through. In an hour they wil open up like little stars, and it will be more easy to see they are real squills.

There are not only Autumn Squils here. Carline Thistle (Carlina vulgaris) and a tiny Rough Marsh Mallow (Althaea hirsuta) are dried out completely and veiled by spider webs. They also are part of the flora of calcareous meadows.

Hop Trefoil

Like everywhere in Dordogne clovers abound. There are about twenty different species, white, pink or yellow. Hop Trefoil (Trifolium campestre) is very common and like all clovers it leaves consist of three leaflets stipulated at its base. It flowers in May and June, and if the summer is not too harsh and dry it will linger on.

Not this summer. It was rather hot and there was virtually no rain in three months. No problem, most plants in this kind of meadow do survive very well and have a full life cycle, flower, and produce  seeds, before the beginning of the dry season. 

See here the result. A meadow in tints of brown and grey from dried and sun-scorched plants. Yes, there is beauty in it, let's admit it...
The scorching changed the colour of the heads of Hop Trefoil, but not their shape. The Hop Trefoil flower heads are round and brown. The fruits are ripe now, but completely hidden in the dead flowers, like with other clovers the petals stay on the plant after flowering.

Some months ago. The banner - the largest petal of the butterfly-shaped flower - is folded backwards and downwards