Musk Thistle

This year meadows and fallow fields are indeed beautiful! Many wild flowers thrived after the rains of May and June and are abundant, and very often also taller than other years. Like this Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans) with pink-purple flowers, here photographied in a field left fallow for two years.

The undersides of its prickly leaved are covered in a spider-web like tissue, and the flowerhead sits in an involucre with also spider-web threads between its prickly points.

Rough Marsh-Mallow

No, this small Mallow does not grow in marshes. The Rough Marsh-Mallow (Althaea hirsuta) prefers dry meadows on poor soil. It is small and unconspicuous compared to the larger flowers that surround it.


All mallows have below the pink petals a calyx that sits on a kind of deep dish with star-shaped points. The Rough Marsh-mallow has straight hairs on its stem.

Difficult to believe that this tiny plant belongs to the same family as the lime tree. But the red and black firebugs know, they prefer to feed on all kinds of Malvaceae.

Viper's Bugloss

A field full of colours. The blue flowers on long stalks forming large groups are Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare). A 'weed' that grows nearly everywhere, in abandoned fields, roadsides, amidst garden  and other garbage, even in vegetable gardens. If the sunny weather continues and turns into a period of drought, the Viper's bugloss does not die but will go on flowering. You can pick them and put them in a vase; they keep well.

Like many other plants from the Borinagaceae family, leaves and stem, in fact all green parts of the Viper's bugloss, are covered with rough reddish hairs.

Fly Orchid

Another plant that merges into its surroundings is the Fly Orchid (Ophrys insectifera). It is an orchid with unconspicuous tiny brown flowers. It grows in open spaces in woods on dry, poor soil where you can find it between small oaks and junipers.
 

But some insects know very well how to find it. The flowers look like a fly or bee, with even antennae. And they smell good to those insects because they secrete pheromone-like substances.

But some insects know very well how to find it. The flowers look like a fly or bee, with even antennae. And they smell good to those insects because they secrete pheromone-like substances.

Grass Pea

Heavy rain this month of May made the grass grow. The Grass Pea (Lathyrus sphaericus) is hiding itself between the long stalks. Even if its small flowers are of a fluorescent orange colour, you really have to look for it to find it. The plant is tiny, and its elangated stems and leaves make it merge in the surrounding vegetation.


You can find it in limestone meadows where the farmer did not use too much fertilizer, or even in abandoned fields.

Early Forget-me-not

In the same place as Grey Mouse-ear grow many small blue flowers, also annuals with a short life-cycle. The Early Forget-me-not (Myosotis ramosissima) is the smallest of all forget-me-nots, the plants are not larger than five centimeters high.

Grey Mouse-ear

In a dry meadow there are always some places where the grass does not grow. But Grey Mouse-ear (Cerastium brachypetalum) does, in large quantities. It is an annual plant with a short life-cycle, in one or two weeks the green stems in the image will be dry and yellow and the plant dies.