Burr Cucumber

Burr Cucumber (Sicyos angulata) is an invasive plant that loves summer sun and humidity, two things abundantly available on the Dordogne river banks. This plant from North America can be found in the West of Aquitaine since about fifty years and, following the rivers, it makes progress in the East. Slowly, in 2010 it had not yet arrived in Bergerac. But now there are also Burr Cucumbers in Coux et Bigaroque and maybe also further away.

It is a kind of monster, its creepers can reach more than 8 meters away. It covers the river banks and their vegetation, and it climbs...

... and climbs. In fact, it thrives like a cucumber or a pumpkin on the compost heap. As it should be for a member of the Cucurbitaceae family.

Until now there has not been a little morning frost this year, so Burr Cucumber goes on flowering.

It is not easy to find beauty in it, it is a messy plant, with its unkempt creepers and disheveled leaves that grow in any direction. But this is also a question of taste, is n't it?

The star-like fruits are festive, anyhow, like too-early christmas tree baubles.

In spite of its name the fruits do not look at all like cucumbers, nor are they edible. By contrast the leaves resemble much the leaves of a kitchen cucumber plant.

Common Michaelmas Daisy

Like dirty snow too early in the year. The banks of the Dordogne are covered in a mass of tiny white flowers. Common Michaelmas Daisy (Symphyotrichum x salignum) is an American and it looks like it is happy to be in France.

It colonizes the banks of rivers. It takes only a few years to cover a whole surface with dense and chaotic vegetation, by means of its rhizomes that go everywhere. An invasive species is supposed to make life difficult for indigenous species, thus Common Michaelmas Daisy is considered to be an invasive. Since 200 years it lives in France, but only recently it spreads really fast. Why? Maybe because the long and warm autumns of the last few years helped it grow and flower during a long time? Should you call it a pest? That would be exaggerated, or?

Large stalks stand up or lay down, here they are draped over a dead branch. They carry loose clusters of composite flowers.

 Ligulate flowers are whitish with often a tinge of pale lilac, and the tubular flowers, nearly invisible in the image, are yellow. The stem is more or less hairy.

In the background you see the trunks of some Ash-leaved Maples (Acer negundo), a very common tree in the river woodlands of the Dordogne. This one is also an invasive species of northamerican origins.

Field Maple

Leaves are turning into gold.

Hera a leaf of a Field Maple (Acer campestre). This tree is easy to find in the wild but it is also often planted. A row of Field Maple make a good hedge and protect against windy weather and it is easy to trim. It is not a difficult tree, it grows on nearly all kinds of soils (maybe with a slight preference for limestone) and supports very well dry summers.

Here it is embellished with spider webs and lichens.

The fruits are called samaras and they are typical for maples. They grow in pairs, every samara carries a wing, and when they fall down together they turn and wheel like little helicopters.

Some branches with summer leaves.

Floating Primrose-willow

It is supposed to be a really intrusive invasive plant, but, no matter, Floating Primrose-willow (Ludwigia peploides subsp. montevidensis) is pretty to look at.

At the end of summer, yes, until in October, it shows off ist yellow flowers. It grows in water or at in places where land and water touch. Here and there it form dense mats of vegetation on the banks of the Dordogne river or even in the water where there is not much current.

Rosettes of leaves detach themselves from the mother plant and float down the river to new spots.

Autumn Squill

On this roadside colours have changed. It is no longer sallow grey and dry yellow.
Many tiny blue stalks appear from the morning fog.

 

Those are Autumn Squills (Scilla autumnalis) and, never seen before, this year there are so many of them they nearly cover the soil. And they are big, most plants have a dozen of flowers or more. Well, big...

You would not think plants like those dry summers. But maybe, in this case, the underground bulbs took some strenght from abundant and long-lasting spring showers? In summer Autumn Squill has no leaves or stems above ground, so possibly it did not suffer thet much from hot sunshine and drought.

A little white plant between hundreds of blue flowers. Why not?
  

The flowers are still closed, waiting for the sun coming through. In an hour they wil open up like little stars, and it will be more easy to see they are real squills.

There are not only Autumn Squils here. Carline Thistle (Carlina vulgaris) and a tiny Rough Marsh Mallow (Althaea hirsuta) are dried out completely and veiled by spider webs. They also are part of the flora of calcareous meadows.

Hop Trefoil

Like everywhere in Dordogne clovers abound. There are about twenty different species, white, pink or yellow. Hop Trefoil (Trifolium campestre) is very common and like all clovers it leaves consist of three leaflets stipulated at its base. It flowers in May and June, and if the summer is not too harsh and dry it will linger on.

Not this summer. It was rather hot and there was virtually no rain in three months. No problem, most plants in this kind of meadow do survive very well and have a full life cycle, flower, and produce  seeds, before the beginning of the dry season. 

See here the result. A meadow in tints of brown and grey from dried and sun-scorched plants. Yes, there is beauty in it, let's admit it...
The scorching changed the colour of the heads of Hop Trefoil, but not their shape. The Hop Trefoil flower heads are round and brown. The fruits are ripe now, but completely hidden in the dead flowers, like with other clovers the petals stay on the plant after flowering.

Some months ago. The banner - the largest petal of the butterfly-shaped flower - is folded backwards and downwards

Harebell

Little blue flowers grow between the taller grasses on a roadside. Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) begins to flower at the end of summer and goes on until the first frost. It grows nearly everywhere and the hot and dry August weather does not bother it at all.

Its thin stems carry little blue bells, opening like a five-pointed star.

The english name is easy to understand, they are just the right size for a hare who wants to take home a bunch of flowers to put in a vase. But why the scientific name 'rotundifolia'? There are not many leaves and those you can find are long and slender, not round at all.

You have to go back some weeks. At ground level you find a small plant with round, or nearly round, leaves, young leaves, and all kind of shapes in between. When the Harebell begins to make new sprouts, it starts with roundish leaves. When the season goes on, it makes leaves of a more oval shape. And the newest leaves are outright longish. When at last the first flowers develop, the round leaves have all but disappeared.