Creeping Thistle

A July morning, just after sunrise, in a fallow field.






The first sun rays lighten up the stalks of all plants here. Most of them are Creeping Thistle (Cirsium arvense) with its white silky heads, and there is also Common Andryala (Andryala integrifolia) with its much smaller yellow flowerheads, still closed at this time of the day.






Some weeks ago it was like this, the Thistles still in full bloom with lilac flowers, and here and there an Andryala. Creeping Thistle is a perennial plant and it can appear in large amounts when circumstances are what they should be. A good soil, not much competition from other plants, laboured but not too recently so last year's plants can develop and spread.





At the lower part of the stem prickly leaves make you don(t want to touch the Creeping Thistle, but upwards the oval flowerheads sit on stems without any thorns. Insects love them. Most common thistle species belong to two genera, Carduus and Cirsium. Species from the first genus have simple pappus hairs without ramifications on their fruits, the pappus hairs of the last genus are like a feather, with ramifications. Well, it is a detail and not easy to see.







Now flowering is over, and the fruits are nearly ripe and ready to fly away.

Bird's Foot Trefoil

If you make a walk in summer you cannot avoid meeting Bird's Foot Trefoil ( (Lotus corniculatus).

 
Here, besides a path between fields left fallow this year it grows abundantly.

 
Hundreds of flowerheads with  butterfly-shaped flowers grow here.

During the day the flowers are turned upwards, but when night falls, they fold downwards. Here, early in the morning when there are still dewdrops around, they are asleep. As the fly seems to be also, it does not look that much awake.

 
Bird's Foot Tréfoil is very variable. There are plants with oval leaves and more or less horizontal branches, and other plants with straight leaves and vertical stems.

There are nearly always some orange flowers between the yellow ones.

 

Now the fruits are developing. They are long straight cylindrical pods, yes, a bit like bird's feet, including nails!

Common Twayblade

Somewhere in a deciduous wood, wet and very green after lots of rain, some plants with each a pair of nearly white leaves grow. Common Twayblade (Neottia ovata) is already at the end of its flowering season, and the plants take back the chlorophyl from the leaves to the roots to keep it in stock for next year.

In spring new leaves appear.

Two leaves not yet unfurled emerge.

A floral stark comes out, buds begin to open and you can see the first flowers. They are green with a long lower lip. Yes, Common Twayblade is an orchid.

Under the perianth with its forked lip the beginning of a fruit can be seen.

Here a cluster of Twayblades in full bloom. The species is widely found in the region. It grows often in large amounts in woods and brushes. If it grows in dryer and more exposed spots, as in an open space in a wood or a at the edge of it, they are mostly les numerous.

Amethyst Broomrape

The same meadow in full bloom, the background of the picture of the post below. Between yellow Horseshoe Vetch flower a new Broomrape has emerged besides a new leaf of its host.

Amethyst Broomrape (Orobanche amethystea) parasitises Field Eryngo (Eryngium campestre).

Fairy Flax

In a meadow full of flowers there are very little white flowers amidst the yellow Horseshoe Vetches (Hippocrepis comosa).






Fairy Flax (Linum catharticum) is a real flax with thin stalks ans narrow opposite leaves. It is common in this kind of meadow, especially on limestone soil, and it flowers nearly all summer.





Before flowering the flower stems are turned downwards. They turn upwards again when the flower opens.






You have to kneel down and use a magnifying glass to see its details, but when you do this, you see it is really a beauty.






The fruit is a nearly round capsule that opens into five carpels releasing the seeds. It looks exactly like the fruits of other, larger, Flaxes.

Bee Orchid

Ophryses are Bee Orchids that use a ruse to attract bees and other insects for pollinisation. The flower is built in such a way it looks like a female insect on a flower or leaf, and it gives off apheromone smell. Its lip is brownish, mostly with contrasting lines and spots, and its sepals are green or coloured like a flower.






See here the Bee Orchid (Ophrys apifera). This name is confusing, the word 'Bee Orchid' can refer to the genus Ophrys as well as to the species Bee Orchid. Here the species is meant. In Dordogne, this is the last-flowering Bee Orchid (genus). Now it is in full bloom. You see three pink sepals, and sitting on them, the 'insect' suggested by the lip, with left and right hairy protrusions for 'arms'. Two small petals stand for 'antennae' (even if they look more like little ears, but insects do not think the way we do). The green-yellow part in the midst of the flower is its gynostemium, the column incorporating stamen and style that is typical for Orchids.

The bud above is opening and the dark lip is already visible. The bud is upside-down and while opening it turns in the right sense.







Here a lateral view. The lip is ready to receive an insect in its arms. Two pollinia are visible, small clubs with yellow pollen on thin stalks. One is still hidden inside the gynostemium, the other already came out. At the basis of the clubs there is some glue, and when a bee lands on the lip and moves around the clubs glue themselves on the head of the insect. They are still there when the bee visits another Bee Orchid. When a pollinium turns towards the stigma of the same flower, also autofertilisation can happen.

Complicated but apparently it works.






In this meadow you can be happy!

Slender Broomrape

Broomrapes have no chlorophyl and are parasites on other plants. They grow on their host's roots and in spring their stalks appear beside their host. It does not need leaves so it has none, at most there are some small scales. In Dordogne there are about ten different species. Slender Broomrape (Orobanche gracilis) is colourful compared to most other Broomrapes.

It can grow on several leguminose plants. In the pictures leaves and flowers of Horseshoe Vetch are visible. No, the pine cone is only to show how tiny it is.

Slender Broomrape flowers the first days of May, and you do not find it often, even if the plants it can parasitize are very common.

It is easy to distinguish Slender Broomrape from other Broomrapes, the inside of the corolla is a brilliant glistening red, contrasting with the yellow stigma. On the outside there are yellow glandulous hairs (many Broomrapes have glandulous hairs here.)