Globe-Flower Wood 2 April

Poppy Wood or Globe-Flower Wood is triangle of wood that is situated where the road from Settle divides and you go left for Arncliffe and right to Malham.

Grass and crops do not grow between October and April because the temperature is too cold - It needs to be above 6 degrees.

But at the beginning of April there are signs of life.

There are no flowers in bloom in the reserve,  but on the verge just outside there are a few Colts-foot heads. When you look close you can see they are made up of tiny five petalled flowers.




Someone had left three sandbags on the verge. Had they dropped off a lorry? It was two Sundays that we had torrential rain, and they may have been needed somewhere then.

I looked at the Lichens on the wall
There is more obvious lichen cover on the west side than on the south facing wall.

Solonspora candicans
The thallus is very VERY white and thick and placodioid at the edge. It has back discs in the apothecia and a white rim.

This orange furry material is an alga, not a lichen. It is Trentepohlia aurea  It looks a bit like a Nationa Geographic fleece.