Stiff Hedgenettle

In the last rays of the evening sun, on a dry grassy hillside.

The Stiff Hedgenettle (Stachys recta) is a member of the Lamiaceae family thart grows in meadows and fields on calcareous soil. Like most plants of this family it has an angular stem en opposed leaves.

If you look from nearby, you can see its little flowers have an intricate design, creamy white with a pattern of dark red stripes and dots. The stamina under the upper lip spread like open arms to receive pollinisating insects.

Mountain Germander

This very low bush grows on a stony and dry hillside at ground level.

The branches of Mountain Germander (Teucrium montanum) are like glued to the soil.

In June it flowers with clumps of creamy-coloured flowers, Like other germenders they have a big lower lip, but no upper lip. The stamina jut out from the flower.

A tragedy

In most flowers, pollen is a kind of fine dust. If an insect comes along it will be powdered by it, and thus it can carry it to another flower to pollinize it.

In orchids you can find in every flower two polliniums shaped like little clubs. On one side of each pollinium there is pollen, on the other side a kind of glue. When an insect visits the flower, the pollinium detaches itself from the flower and sticks to the insect's head. Right on spot. The insects continues with one or two protrusions on its head. When it forages on another flower, the end of the club with pollen touches its stigma and it will be pollinized. If everything goes well.

See here a small butterfly, a Meadow Fritillary (Mellicta parthenoides) on a Pyramidal orchid (Orchis pyramidalis) in soft evening light. Yes, it is beautiful!

But it does not move at all! Is it asleep? No, it is exhausted, maybe starving amidst flowers full of nectar.

After a while it starts to move a bit and it tries to enter its proboscis in a flower. The nectar is hidden deep in a long and narrow spur. He can't get in, there are obstacles on its proboscis, it has become too large to be used.


Orchid polliniums are sticking on the proboscis and make it impossible to put it into the spur and get to the nectar. In the pictures they are visible like small yellow and violet objects.

The butterfly tries to get rid of the polliniums, it rubs one of its legs against them. In vain, the glue is too strong.

 Another try. No, it does not work.

It has no more energy to go on. It can't even fold its proboscis in the right way. Is it going to survive? No, if the glue does not unstick, this butterfly will die from hunger, thirst and exhaustion.

You can not help it with tweezers, it is too delicate. And you can't take wild butterflies to the vet. No, impossible.

Snake Tongue Orchid

This flesh-coloured orchid grows in a poor meadow.

The Snake Tongue Orchid (Serapias vomeracea) has chlorophyll but its green colour is nearly invisible, there are many red pigments, in the flower as well as in other parts of the plant. The lip, of the same colour, is very hairy, this seems attractive to insects.

Fly Orchid

Flies are everywhere!

The Fly Orchid (Ophrys insectifera) makes flowers that look indeed very much like a fly. This year this small orchid flowers in abundance. And no, the young grasshoppers in the picture are not flowers.

Two plants associated with cereals

In this rye field the farmer has forgotten to apply weedkiller on the edges. This suits the wild flowers well! Carrot Burr-parsley (Caucalis platycarpos) is a small plant that nearly became extinct in Perigord. Only in some forgotten corners it survives. Now it is in flower, and soon the fruits with many tiny spines will ripen. (See also here).

It is very well possible to miss Carrot Burr-parsley, but it is impossible not to see Greater Venus's Looking-glass (Legousia speculum-veneris) that grows in the same place. It is too blue!

Here above, early in the morning, the flowere are not yet open.

When the sun rises in the sky the blue stars open up completely.

Common Bugleweed

It is time to get out the lawn mower, but, well! The grass grows, but also lots of flowers. Common Bugleweed (Ajuga reptans) colonized the lawn. Every angular and rigid stalk carries tens of little blue flowers.

The blue is accentuated by dark bracts below every ring of flowers.

Seen from nearby it is really hairy! In every flower grow four stamina, a pair of long ones and a pair of short ones. Yellow anthers hover above the flowers. Irresistible for pollinating insects.