Purple Dragon

Near rivers in Dordogne the soil is often marshy and unfit for agriculture. Farmers planted poplars, to dry out the soil and have some revenue from the fast-growing wood. So, along the Dordogne and the Vézère in some places you find big poplar plantations, the trees planted in neat rows. In this rather monotonous landscape you nevertheless can find a lot of wild plants. If the maintenance is not too scrupulous, even bushes and trees of other species start to grow. Here, the wood floor is carpeted with Purple Dragon (Lamium maculatum), a perennial plant with square stems and very green leaves that can cover very quickly a large surface.

It flowers nearly twelve months a year, at least when winter is mild and summer not too dry. Sometimes the leaves are dappled, the lower lip of the flower always is.

Soft Shieldfern

The fronds of many ferns keep green nearly all winter, sometimes even until spring. But to find this species in full splendour you 'll have to hurry because in a few weeks its fronds will be gone. This magnificent Soft Shieldfern (Polystichum setiferum) grows in a dark valley, not far from a small spring.

Its long fronds are supple and soft when touched. The frond is bipinnate, divided in small pinnae that are divided again in smaller pinnules. The pinnules are toothed and every tooth has a long soft point. In the image here below, taken in summer, a young fern is shown. The fronds are divided only once, and the pointed tooth on the pinnae are visible. (Or should you call them pinnules?). Characteristic for this species is the larger basal part of the pinna, like the thumb of a mitten.

 

Woodland Calamint

Here, two or three years ago a stand of hornbeams was cut down. The bracken ferns are still there, but in place of the trees a perfumed tapestry of purple flowers has developed.

The Woodland Calamint (Calamintha menthifolia) likes to grow on the verge of a wood where it finds a bit more sunlight as under the trees. It has a good smell, a bit like mint.

The leaves are also a bit like those of some mint species. Here, a young bug tries to hide itself under one of them.

Autumn is warm and sunny this year and the Woodland calamint does not yet stop making new flowers.

Bastard Toadflax

A very small plant is hidden in short dry grass. Bastard toadflax (Thesium humifusum) is only a few centimeters high and nearly invisible except for some miniature flowers like tiny white stars.

If you really search for it between the tangle of grass and mosses you'll find a pivotal root from which radiate several flowering stems. The yellow-green leaves and stems are a bit rounded, like those of a succulent plant (but probably you need a magnifying glass to see this).

Bull Thistle

End of season.

The remaining flowers of af Bull Thistle (Cirsium vulgare).

Carline Thistle

In a dry calcareous meadow or an open space in an oak wood you can find a small thistle with candelabra-like branches.

It is the Carline Thistle (Carlina vulgaris.

Late in summer spider webs covered this meadow, also the Carline Thistle.

The thin leaves are prickly and are covered with white hairs. The flower heads with many tubular flowers are surrounded by pale yellow bracts, shimmering like fresh straw.

Even after flowering it is beautiful. Until far into winter the bracts are visible on the plant, so it looks like it keeps on flowering. During rain they close, and when it is dry again they open up, liberating the seeds with parachute-like plumes to disperse.

Oregano

Oregano (Origanum vulgare) smells really good. In fact, you can use it as a kitchen herb, like its cultivated cousin.

Like mint, basil and many other perfumed and edible plants, Oregano belongs to the Lamiaceae family. All Lamiaceae have opposed leaves, rectangular stems and bisymmetrical flowers.

Oregano is very common. In some places the flowers of a dirty pink colour form big patches, like here along a path.