Settle Wildflowers - Day 100 - Happy Christmas - Red 21, White 21 - Herb Robert, Red Dead Nettle, Goat Willow & Hairy Tare

Happy Christmas.

Christmas Day .

Day 100 and the Last Day of the Settle Wildflower Blog.   Pheeww!

- for this year...

Yet still more species are appearing.

Thank  you all for following.

Thank you for your greetings when our physical walks around Settle cross.

I thought by December  the Lockdowns would have ceased.

Who knows what will happen in January?

Looking back - I enjoyed 

• the relative peace on the roads, especially in April and May.. it was heaven!!
  
  
• discovering new corners of the area in the two mile radius of Langcliffe and of Settle.  I am still discovering more hidden jewels.
  
  
• keying out "Garden Escapes" - plants that I would have ignored before, that I would not have considered wild.  It is important that we record them so that we can have a record to see if any are spreading and becoming wild.

288 species of Wildflower have been recorded.  That leaves 12 short of 300.  There are three "Missing Days" to complete from Summer, from when I was finding and photographing flowers faster than I could write about them..  I  hope to find days in January to complete these. Then there will be 300 species.

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Christmas Day -Today's species: (Photographed on 20 and 24 and 25 December):

Herb Robert, Red Dead Nettle, & Hairy Tare - (late flowerers)
   and Goat Willow (super early)

I have been "saving" Herb Robert for months, specially for today. Bright crimson and jolly.

I know there are always a few Herb Roberts left in December. It is joined by two other species on my walk on 20th Dec (still out now) - I also photographed all three in  summer:

Herb Robert, Red Dead Nettle, & Hairy Tare

Herb Robert Geranium robertianum

On Christmas Day, after singing carols round the Langcliffe Fountain, then attending Service at Settle Methodist Church I went up the street above the market pace to look for the Red Dead nettle (see lower) at the same place I found more Herb Robert

 

Red Dead Nettle - Lamium purpureum

This grows on Constitution Hill, quite a way up from the Coop.

I saw it when we played carols last Tuesday and I walked that way round to try and generate some heat... but I didn't have my camera then.. I return on Christmas Day

View standing at the Red Dead-Nettle Site

View from the Red Dead Nettle Site

  

See how the fruit have four lobes like a hot cross bun
- this is a feature of the dead-nettle family

Hairy Tare: Vicia hirsuta

Photographed on 20 Dec (and still there on 24th)

 And Guess what - 

this is a new BSBI record for Hectad SD86 !!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently it used to be a cornfield weed in the 19th C. But no cornfields around here, at least, not now.

It is growing in the same place that I discovered it exactly six months ago on 25th June - I remember that hot day and walk by the river - 

I was on a pink (red) run then -  so left this white flower.. did not realise it would take a whole 6 months to get there.

25 June 2020

25 June 2020

Hairy Tare - Vicia hirsuta - 25 June 2020 - growing beside wall with the lichen Caloplaca crenularia - medium grey areolate thallus with bright dark orange/brick red apothecia. 

Hairy Tare - Vicia hirsuta - 25 June 2020 

A sign of the spring to come:

On 24 December  I saw some Hazel Catkins- almost out: (But then I did record Hazel fully out/over back in April)

Goat Willow - Salix caprea

On 20 December I photographed the Goat Willow tree in Ashfield Car Park - with the Pussy Willow Catkins just starting to show:

Goat Willow on the left, Settle Social Club in the centre and "Weeping Ash" on the right

The leaves on the ground - big and wide and slightly woolly underneath show it is Goat Willow

What is hiding on the twig, under the bud?

Ah look closely - Aphids

Aphids with their parthenogenic young - 

Christmas Day - Goat Willow on Left

Christmas Day Goat Willow Catkin.
Willow buds just have one leaf scale.

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Below are pictures I took on the morning of the 24th - in Langcliffe churchyard and just outside.

 the bright sun shining horizontally toward the walls makes for bright colours.

No time to write about them now.

Maybe I will have to write a post 100b

Ah there are just TOO many delightful plants and lichens and animals!!!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Click here for the  Settle Lockdown Wildflower Walks