White Lace Flower

Here are the typical fruits of an umbellifer. They are ovals, more or less elangated and split up in two parts, each containing a seed. In the picture below the fruit is covered with white hairs that stiffen when the seed ripens. The pink protrusions are the remnants of pistils, two in every single flower.



They are the fruits of a White Lace Flower (Orlaya grandiflora).


















It flowered in June on a poor and dry soil, and it looked like, well, lace.

Large Yellow Restharrow

A little bush not yet 20 centimeters high, it is easy to miss it. Only when you take the time to really look you notice the Yellow Restharrow (Ononis natrix) has beautiful flowers.



When the butterfly-like flowers open they show fine lines in red on yellow. The greyish down in the picture are the glandulous hairs that cover leaves and stem; if you touch the plant it sticks on your fingers. And you'll discover the smell, a bit nasty. Maybe the rabbits don't like it either!









Restharrows are perennial plants with long and tough roots, farmers don't like to find them in their fields.

Narrowleaf Crimson Clover

Most clovers are rather small, but this one is higher than the surrounding vegetation. Everything is long with the Narrowleaf Crimson Clover (Trifolium angustifolium). It has trifoliate leaves, like other clovers, but here the leaves are really long and thin. They are covered with very short downy hairs to protect the plant from drought. A necessary precaution because it grows in dry, often sandy, places.

The flower heads are also elongated, up to ten centimeters.

After flowering they are really decorative!

Small Broomrape

Their season is nearly over, but it is still easy to find Broomrapes. They are parasites without chlorophyl that live on the roots of other plants. Here is the Small Broomrape (Orobanche minor), surrounded by its host, Black Medick (Medicago lupulina) with small yellow flower heads. The Small Broomrape also 'eats' other clover-like plants.



Most stalks in this image are already dead, but the one at the right is still alive and in flower.

Dutchman's Pipe

2012 is a good year for the Dutchman's Pipe (Monotropa hypopitys). This smal ivory-coloured plant is not common at all in Perigord, but this summer it can be found in relative abundance. Maybe it enjoys the rains of this year after a very dry 2011.



The Dutchman's Pipe is a parasite on Pine trees. It has no chlorophyll but instead uses the tree to provide it with nutrients. In a pine wood, often only one or two trees are infested by Dutchman's Pipe, and as often as not those do not appear to suffer from their parasites. Maybe there is some reciprocity and the parasites do have also small favours on offer.

A Sandwort

A track in an arid calcareous meadow, maybe last winter fourwheeldrives of hunters compacted the soil. A place where the puddles of winter rain stay a little longer.



Those are the rather specific requirements for this tiny white flower, but when all conditions are met, the 'Controversial Sandwort' (Arenaria controversa, no English name) flowers abundantly.

Pyramidal Orchid

Color...



Amidst yellow, red-striped Horseshoe Vetch, a Pyramidal Orchid (Orchis pyramidalis) in full bloom. In Mai the first deep pink flower heads can be seen, and they are round. In the following weeks they grow longer and longer, and in June elongated spikes decorate meadows and roadsides.
Only butterflies can reach the nectar at the bottom of the long spurs, but often other insects visit the flower for a meal of pollen.