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!




September 19, 2020

Devil's Bit Scabious

This path goes through a Sweet Chestnut wood on sandy soil. Just the right place for Devil's Bit Scabious (Succisa pratensis). Notwithstanding two months without rain it is flowering abundantly. The heat was not a real problem for it, even if some leaves are drooping.

 



Surely, here it grows in shade. In fact it needs a soil that is not dry a large part of the year, but during its flowering season, from August into November it can do with what it gets.


 
 
You see its beauty especially when you get nearby. The flowerheads contain numerous small blue-lilac flowers that happily contrast with the pink stamens.

Do you think Devil's Bit Scabious is a Scabious? You are right, the genus Succisa belongs as well as the genus Scabiosa to the Dipsaceae family.

To complicate things: recently, for good reasons that do not concern us, the biologists community concluded that Dipsaceae should from now on be part of the Caprifoliaceae family. It does not matter that much, we can go on enjoying this plant exactly as we did!

 


 

 

 

Here, Devil's Bit Scabious in a more open setting, a meadow in the Dordogne valley.


 

If it does not flower you can find its leaves at ground level. Mowing or herbivores cannot do much harm.