The flora of PĂ©rigord 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!




July 22, 2019

Marsh Thistle


In this wet meadow not recently mowed, new and bigger species replace the plants that grew here when it was stiil used for making hay. The biggest plants are some high-rising thistles.





Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre) can grow more than two metres high. It grows in wet or humid places with lots of light and a rather fertile soil, maybe a bit ruderalized or abandoned.





One single plant can make a wood of spiny branches. See here such a branch in detail:





The plant is covered everywhere in fine pink spikes, with white hairs between them.






At the end of every branch there are a dozen of small flower heads, typical thistle flowers.





The plants makes thousands of small white seeds with silky pappusses. You can distinguish Cirsium thistles from Carduus thistles because with the former the pappus is feathery, while it has simple hairs with the latter.

If this meadow is not mown very soon, ligneous plants wil begin to develop and in a few years there will be a wood of Alders and Ashes. And probably a lot of brambles.