White frost

First rays of morning sun after a cold night.


An umbel of Burnet saxifrage (Pimpinella saxifraga) is covered in hoar frost.

Stinking hellebore

In a wood grows this strange protuberance, a sudden patch of color amidst dark green palmate leaves from last season.

It is the new sprout of a Stinking hellebore (Helleborus foetidus). Yes, it does stink, you'll discover the smell when you rub a leaf between your hands.

In February or March the sprout will have developed into a flowering stem with green, bell-shaped flowers. Not unlike the cultivated Christmas roses that are supposed to flower around Chrismas (but alas, not always do ...). It is from the same family.

Autumn colours

Trees change their colours now.

 



















Chlorophyll produces energy in a plant and gives it its green summer colour. When after summer there is less light and the days and nights get colder, cork cells form in the veins of leaves. Thus the transport of nutrients and water in the leaf is interrupted and it cannot make any more new chlorophyll. When there is no more chlorophyll in stock because it is all used up, the leaf loses its green colour. Other pigments, especially carotenoids who are yellow or orange, become visible. They have been there all summer, but only now you can see their colour.



 Some leaves of an Norway maple (Acer platanoides) are fallen in a shallow stream. In the green leaf below chlorophyll is still visible between the veins, elsewhere other pigments are dominating.













The changes in the metabolism in the leaf, diminishing light, and the fall in temperatures provoke chemical processes which result in other sets of pigments.


Here, in a Blackberry bush (Rubus fruticosus), red anthocyanids have emerged with the first frost.

Autumn flowers

Here are two tiny plants flowering now.

The Autumn squill (Scilla autumnalis) likes its surroundings dry and with only sparse vegetation. It is not common in the Dordogne, so you are not likely to stumble upon it. Moreover, it is very small, a big specimen may measure 10 cm. And only during two weeks it is in flower, and after this it is nearly invisible. Like other Squills that flower in spring it is a bulb, the greater part of the year subterranean. If you really really look for them you'll be able to find, after flowering, some grey-green, millimetre-wide leaves.


This year it was late, may be because of this summer's dry weather.
















Normally you find end of august, beginning of september, hundreds of small Spiral orchids (Spiranthes spiralis). At least if you look in poor, dry, calcareous meadows with sparse vegetation, an environment that is not very common. But this year I found only two flowering stalks, also much later than usual.


This is a portrait of the first one.



















A hundred meter further on was the second one. From this one here some flowers in detail. You can see it is a real miniature orchid. The blue in the background comes from a stone.

Three creepers

Glowing red leaves of creepers are now to be seen: Parthenocissus are climbing walls and hanging from trees. They are, like the grape-vine, from the family of Vitaceae but their small blue-black raisins are not edible. Basically, they come in three kinds.


The first one is the False Virginia-Creeper (Parthenocissus inserta). If you find a creeper outside a garden, probably it is this one. It garlands, and sometimes overgrows completely, trees. The leaves, now turning into flaming red, are divided into five separate leaves.












The real Virginia-Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) has about the same leaves but grows on walls, mostly cultivated. On this picture, taken when it snowed last winter, you see the small suction-pads it uses to attach itself to a surface.











Those two species have their origins in North-America, the next one, despite its name, comes from Asia.


It is inaptly called Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata). Not only it is not from Boston, also it is not an ivy. And where its scientific name suggests leaves with three points, they quite often have five or more. On this spring picture you see the young, undivided leaves which still have red rims.

Common Juniper

On hazy mornings in September the Common Junipers (Juniperus communis) are disguised as Christmas trees ahead of time. They are covered with spider webs, made visible by morning dew. The spiders like the Junipers because many small insects find enough to eat there. The berries are also edible for us, they have a particular flavour and a strong, sweet-bitter taste. Delicious in sauerkraut. (Yes, also the berries give their name to the dutch beverage 'jenever', which became 'gin' in english, but in modern jenevers nearly no juniper berry is to be found!)



Here is a female Juniper with ripe berries between the spider webs. They need nearly two year to ripen and turn into this blue colour.
















In april-mai the Juniper flowers. Here are some branches of a male bush, just starting to flower. Junipers have wind pollination, when you touch them the pollen disperses like a cloud of smoke.

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.