Slender Bedstraw

Slender Bedstraw (Galium pumilum) is not a big plant. Its thin stalks go in all directions and blend in with surrounding vegetation. But its little cross-shaped flowers are a luminescent white, so luminescent that you have to look at it.

It likes dry limestone soils and sunny places. In a rich meadow with high, luxuriant vegetation you will not find it.

It is a typical bedstraw and shows the typical features of the Rubiaceae family it belongs to. A crown of long pointed leaves at everynode, small flowers like four-pointed stars in loose panicles, supple stalks.

It starts flowering in May and we can enjoy it for still a while, it goes on until the droughts of summer really set in.

Cutleaf Selfheal

At this moment the little Cutleaf Selfheal (Prunella laciniata) is in full bloom in limestone meadows. It loves the sun, so it is very happy those days!

It is a Lamiaceae, with a square stalk and opposite leaves, in fact the whole plant has something square and symmetric. There are other selfheals, but those mostly have blue flowers (like as an exemple 'Truncate Selfheal').

In the pictures it is surrounded by other flowers of this habitat. Above by Slender Bedstraw (Galium pumilum), and below by Horseshoe Clover (Hippocrepis comosa).