Globeflowers, Trollius Europaeus After weeks of rain the last week in May is hot and sunny. Sunlight through yellow flowers, a meadow of buttercups and dandelion flowers and seed-heads. Oak catkins are almost hidden in clusters of new leaves. Purple catkins on alder show best in winter when the trees are thick with catkins and bare of foliage. By the time alder catkins flower the tree is in leaf.
Alder grow all along the River Kent, up into Kentmere. Sometimes they are memorably sculptural. First, an alder with a thick, thick bole. Then a tree with six columnar trunks. The morning is so lovely we sit on the river bank, contemplative. In the stillness, clouds of tiny insects show diaphanous over the sunlit river. Beneath the alder on the farther bank there are yellow flowers in dappled sunlight and shade. Welsh poppies and buttercups. Sunlight bounces off golden globes. Surely, there are globeflowers. If only I could wade the river's deep and rocky pools to come closer. Through binoculars I study those lovely flowers which I haven't seen for a year or two. There are flowers and seed-heads and these clusters of green follicles are definitive.
Along the river bank trees interweave. We follow tree flowers back to source to match flower and fruit to tree bark. And in editing images I tease out my subject to free it from the tangle of the wild.
Wych elm has clusters of seeds forming from green flowers and branches hang over the river. A peaceful and beautiful day.
Along the river bank trees interweave. We follow tree flowers back to source to match flower and fruit to tree bark. And in editing images I tease out my subject to free it from the tangle of the wild.
Wych elm has clusters of seeds forming from green flowers and branches hang over the river. A peaceful and beautiful day.
On radio 4's Today Programme Nick Robinson is in Matterdale on writer James Rebanks' farm. There are globeflowers in his meadows. Globeflowers which used to be widespread and are now rare.
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