Barren Strawberry

In not too dry forests, at the bottom of a valley or on a shaded slope under the trees, you can find those little white flowers very early in the year among the Yvy leaves.




They look like wild  strawberry flowers but they bear no fruit, as indicates their name: Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis).




Also the leaves look like strawberry leaves. Maybe a bit smaller and with some silken hairs.





Even if you don't make strawberries, isn't it enough to have nice flowers?

Mediterranean Buckthorn

In just a few weeks Mediterranean Buckthorn (Rhamnus alaternus) did change from winter bleakness to spring joyfulness.




Its persistent leaves that had turned reddish to cope with frosty mornings are now green. Surely, the exceptional amount of warmth and sunshine of this February did help.





Mediterranean Buckthorn grows on dry limestone soil and it squarely prefers slopes. It is a bush from some decimetres to several metres high. Its light grey branches with smooth bark carry leaves only at their tips.





It already begins to flower, with clusters of five-pointed flowers without petals.





This plant is male, you can see the stamina with their light yellow pollen coming out of the flowers.

Hutchinsia

This plant of the Cabbage (Brassicaceae) family is a camouflage champion; notwithstanding its abundant flowering it is difficult to find it where it grows between mosses and small grasses.





Sometimes it is really really tiny.





Also, it flowers only during a short time, even if there are many flowers.





In its natural habitat, between rocks and stones and scree on a dry limestone slope you don't suspect the presence of many plants. And it is also rare in Perigord.





For all those reasons you don't find too often Hutchinsia (Horningia petraea).






But now it flowers already in February; the weather is simply too good for not doing it. Hutchinsia has a rosette of deeply incised leaves sometimes a bit reddish. The flowers have four white petals, between which the oval spoon-shaped fruits can already be seen. Everything goes very quickly with the little spring Brassicaceae!

Field Marigold

In this little walnut orchard, under the trees, flowers of all colours grow. A bit early this year, but does it matter? Especially the orange of Field Marigold (Calendula arvensis) stands out.





Field Marigold looks very much like its big brother that is grown in gardens. Maybe its flowers are a bit paler. But it has exactly the same typical smell, the same irregular fruits, and both are a bit sticky and glandulous when you touch them.





In Dordogne we find this species mainly in the Southern part of the departement, in vineyards or other places where the soil is worked or otherwise loosened, but not in excess. The plants in the pictures grow in the same kind of habitat, but more in the North, between the rivers Dordogne and Vézère.




Good morning Marigold!