Green-Winged Orchid

A very common orchid in Perigord. You can find the Green-Winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio) in meadows, lawns, on roadsides... And no, it has no green wings, maybe some small greenish stripes on its sepals.

Every year you are happy to see it again. Here in the last rays of an April sun in a dry limestone field.

Dog's Mercury

Dog's Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) grows under trees and can cover a lot of surface. It is one of those plants you don't remember because it seems to have nothing special to draw your attention. Just some nondescript green.

Beginning of March the first stalks emerge. Here you can already see the flower buds.

Now it is in full bloom. The flowers are very tiny and green. The plant above has only male flowers, like most plants, incidentally. A young grashopper tries to hide itself behind one of the flowering stalks.


Plants with female flowers are less common.

Here is one. It has already little globular fruits. Yes, they look like Spurge fruits. In fact, Dog's Mercury is, like Spurges, an Euphorbiaceae.

King Cup

Hello, it's me!

I am the King Cup (Caltha palustris).

Because spring came back, I also came back.

The King Cup likes to have wet feet. In swampy places on fertile soil it can appear in large amounts. Like here in an Alder wood where the branches of a small stream penetrate everywhere. The flowering is abundant while it lasts, only a few weeks.

Yes, it looks like a big buttercup. Both belong to the same family of Ranunculaceae.

Sweet Violet

The first warm and sunny Sunday in March, and there is a soft smell like honey in the air. No mistake, little Sweet Violets (Viola odorata) communicate their presence.

In general they are blue...

 ...but exceptions do exist.

Blue, white or pink, they are all PERFUMED !

March moon

Common Gorse

Common Gorse (Ulex europaeus) flowers all year round. That is, in Dordogne it thinks the summers too hot and too dry, so it is especially in winter you can find it in flower. In freezing weather when it is really too cold the flowers wilt for a while, but snow is not really a problem, it just goes on flowering.

This year there has not been any snow. Too bad!

When in full bloom the flowers of Common Gorse are very yellow and conspicuous compared to the duller winter colours of other plants. Buds, and also petals,are slightly downy.

Common Gorse loves the edge of chestnut woods, roe deer also. Maybe that's why it has those long thorns. If not, roe deer in search of fresh green would eat all of it.

Early Sandgrass

A very tiny annual grass is already in flower. It is Early Sandgrass (Mibora minima).

Those first flowering stalks are only a few centimetres high. To compensate they are with many, thousands of small Early Sandgrasses grow in this fallow corn field. At once a green veil covers the grey earth.

In a few weeks we'll find here giant plants of fifteen centimetres. Many white anthers emerge from wine-red spikelets. After flowering the field turns red because of those spikelets. And soon it will be all over, the Early sandgrass dies before summer begins.