Wild Carrot

Forgotten to mow... In this dry meadow Wild Carrots (Daucus carota) abound. Sometimes they grow as high as your shoulders. There is a vague smell of carrots, but the roots are yellowish white and inedible.


The yellow dots are Hawkweed Oxtongue (Picris hieracioides).













 




An umbel against a gloomy August sky shows the characteristic build of all Apiaceae. At the root of the umbel is a ring of small ramified bracts. Several dozen stalks carry smaller umbels, each with its own ring of bracts and a posy of tiny white flowers on stalks. The beginnings of fruits are visible as dark dots in the flowers.








In the centre, just above the stem, is a darker spot. In about half of all Wild carrots there are umbels with one ore more wine red central flowers.


Normally these flowers are uncompletely formed, but here above is one who even carries stamen.

River Water-Crowfoot

At the end of May the Dordogne was covered with millions of small white flowers from River Water-Crowfoot (Ranunculus fluitans). In shallow places it is rooted in the river bottom and the long smooth stems reach the surface. Often they are uprooted by the current and taken downstream.
 

After the heavy rain in the first week of June the water level has risen and the River Water-Crowfoot all but disappeared.















But now, after a few weeks of sunshine, the Dordogne has calmed down, and here it is again!


To the enjoyment of this Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx spelendens), a damselfly. She is laying her eggs between the submerged stems.
















Plenty of swans find plenty to eat in the clumps of River water crowfoot. Here a couple is resting after feeding.

Yellow Goat's Beard

Only on sunny mornings the flowers of Yellow Goat's Beard (Tragopogon pratensis) do open.


Here is one with some visitors.



















Like other members of the family of Asteraceae, the Yellow Goat's Beard produces seeds with a fluffy umbrella to be carried away on the wind. The flowerheads have changed now into fuzzy tennis balls.














They are so large you can distinguish the small features of each umbrella. It has a seed for a handle, and the ribs are woven together with thin, spiderweb-like tissue.

Pyramidal Orchid

The Pyramidal Orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis) is a species common to be found in Perigord. When they start flowering in may the flower heads are triangular in shape, but now, in June, they grow longer and longer.


They grow on roadsides and in hay meadows, and when you mow the grass the cut stalks give a sweet fragrance to the mown grass.

Field Poppy

The seeds of Field Poppy (Papaver rhoeas) need a loose soil to germinate. That's why they grow in cereal fields plowed last winter or early in spring.



The seeds can lay dormant for years in the soil, to explode into flower when circumstances are favorable.

Purple Orchid

All Purple Orchid (Orchis purpurea) flowers resemble puppets with dark red hats and all have reddish specks on white, but ...


...some prefer ample dresses,

 ...or wide pants with an ethnic pattern,

...while others prefer long, tapering sleeves,

...or hairy purple polkadots.

 Who's trying to tell you plants are not trendy?

Common Whitlow-Grass

This miniature plant, the Common Whitlow-Grass (Erophila verna) is not a grass but a member of the Brassicaceae, or Crucifer-family. Mustard and Cuckoo-flowers, other crucifers, are giants compared to it. It is even smaller than a normal-sized pine-cone, as you see in the picture below.



Even if it is easy to overlook, the Common Whitlow-Grass is not difficult to find. Just put your nose to the ground in a dry place at a roadside, or in the center of a sandy path, and more often than not there are thousands of it.