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Scout Scar flora: frog orchid, squinancywort and compositae

25/6/2017

1 Comment

 
PictureSquinancywort, Asperula cynanchica
 New flowers come thick and fast on the limestone of Scout Scar. An invigorating  wind  sets the tall flowers of the escarpment dancing and white clouds scud across the sky.  Along the path close to the cliff-edge are the flowers of squinancywort. Pale and tiny, they're easily overlooked.  In late June,  frog orchid appear. They're one of the rarer flowers here, an inconspicuous olive colour in the short grass.  Look closer, and they are rich and subtle. 
Today, Kendal Mountain Rescue are training and they prepare to enact a cliff-face rescue.  Sometimes they're called out to rescue over-inquisitive spaniels.


Click on images to enlarge and read captions.
The tall, dancing yellow flowers of the escarpment are compositae, a complex group that includes hawkbit, hawksbeard, hawkweed.  Today, my purpose is to show the beauty of massed flowers in the landscape, and to secure images whose detail I can reveal later.  Macro photographs,  then zoom-in close. I reckon that squinancywort thumbnail will be a revelation to many familiar with Scout Scar escarpment because you need to be on your knees to the flower to see it,  often kneeling on sharp fragments of limestone clitter.  Reverence for Nature and for art. I did think, fleetingly, of offering to be a mountain rescue 'body' to see the cliff-face flora in close-up.
Few walkers stop to look at frog orchid growing in the short grass  beside the path to Scout Scar escarpment.  At first glance they are unspectacular.  As usual, I show the orchid as it  first appeared to me. Nature isn't tidy and  that first shot can show a tangle of vegetation.  Subsequent images close in on the flower to give detail, to reveal how lovely they are.
In presenting a close-up of a flower I'm aware the image might puzzle because that isn't what a walker will see.  Squinancywort is a tiny flower, easily confused with the various bedstraws found here.  To me, that's the fascination- seeing so much more on a computer screen.
To the party from Harrogate, it was good to meet you and I hope you enjoy these images taken on a beautiful day on Scout Scar. Two previous blogs show the dropwort now in flower. And a recent Leighton Moss blog gives meadowsweet as a comparison.
1 Comment
Fiona Holman
21/8/2017 05:25:04 pm

I like this photo of asperula showing the tiny flower to best advantage

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    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books)

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