Common Tamarisk-moss

Winter is the time to look for mosses, now they show their beauty. For most of them you need a magnifying glass, but this one is rather large. The leaves of the Common Tamarisk-moss (Thuidium tamariscinum) are several centimeters long and are easy to recognize. They are flattened, and look like miniature fern fronds.



December hoarfrost gives everything that covers the wood floor, mosses and also the leaves of English Yvy (Hedera helix) a distinctive silver rim.

Wild Service Tree

The Wild Service Tree (Sorbus torminalis) is a small rather unassuming tree which goes unnoticed amidst the oaks and hornbeams that surround it. Often it is so much in the shade of other deciduous trees it does not even make fruits. But it can live without producing brown berries: from the roots new shoots find their way up.



Only at this time of the year you notice it is not a very rare species, when it shows its splendid golden-brown autumn colour.

Daisy Fleabane

An American feeling at home here. In November, it still has a flower left among the old empty flower heads. The Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron annuus) grows in uncultivated areas and waste lands and flowers from summer until winter really begins.

Traveler's Joy

It climbs trees, hedgerows and steep rocks, and its long creepers fall down like curtains. At this time of the year its leaves are turning from green to yellow and white.



Traveler's Joy (Clematis vitalba) does not get its name because of its beautiful flowers. Where cultivated Clematises have brightly colored petals, those of Traveler's joy are small and pale green.

But in winter it shows fluffy white balls that stay on until the first snow covers them.










Like in other Ranunculaceae, in each flower several tiny oval seeds develop, and each seed ends in a long white protrusion. When the seed is ripe long white hairs make the fruit look fat and fluffy.

Grape-Vine

Among the fallen leaves of big trees a pinkish red one...

Look upwards. Contrasting with the yellow autumn leaves, high up in a fifty year old tree, there are more.


Once upon a time somebody had a vineyard here, and since then the trees have grown, and the long creepers of the Vine (Vitis vinifera) went up with them. Maybe there are even grapes for the birds ...

Small scabious

Thousands of lilac flowers on thin stems about forty centimeter high move in the wind. At the end of summer the Small scabious (Scabiosa columbaria) flowers in meadows and at roadsides.

After flowering each flowerhead changes into a tiny hedgehog. Each seed has five black thorns and a papery collar.

Herb robert

Robert Herb (Geranium robertianum) has small pink flowers you can find from early spring to late autumn in shadowy places along footpaths, among stones and in woods.

Its leaves are as long as wide and have a typical not completely nice smell if you rub them between your fingers. Often they are tinged with red.















The fruits have the form of a stork's bill. When the seeds are ripening, the bill dries out and releases the seeds hidden at its base.