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.

Photo exhibition

As you see them when going on a botanical walk...

"Ambiance Nature"

Wild Plants in Perigord


Exhibition of photographs by Corine Oosterlee

Castle of Limeuil (24510), 3 to 30 June 2012, daily from 10.00 to 18.00.

Two Pines

The Maritime Pine (Pinus pinaster) is planted often between the Sweet Chestnuts on more or less acid soil, or in single-species plantations. But here we consider the two species of Pine also commonly found on calcareous soil, in Oak and Hornbeam forests. They are originally also cultivated species, but they behave like wild trees and grow spontaneously in many places. Now they start flowering, and are easy to distinguish by the form of their male catkins. Yes, this yellow powdery stuff that makes your car look dirty is Pine pollen!



The male catkins of the European Black Pine (Pinus nigra) are rather large and form a crown at the base of the newly developing branches. In this image you see them just before dispersal of the pollen above last year's long green  needles.













The Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) has smaller catkins and those form a kind of cylinder around a new twig. The orange protection sheath that covered young catkins and twig is still visible.














And the female catkins? During summer they will develop into pine cones, as you can see already. Here you see those of an European Black Pine.