23 April 2012

Woodland bluebells

Bluebells in Ashridge Woods, Buckinghamshire.

We planted bluebells in our woods when we moved into our house.  Over the years, they have spread... a little.  It boggles my mind to think how many years must have passed for the bluebells to carpet the forest floors of Britain.

The only woodland floral spectacle I have seen to rival that in the photo is the profusion of blue-eyed-Marys that grace the woods in Kentucky in April each year.

Photo from a nice gallery at the Telegraph.

9 comments:

  1. You haven't seen wildflowers until you have seen Texas in March and April

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    1. The ones I remember seeing when I lived in Texas were mostly in the fields and on the roadsides (props to Lady Bird), but perhaps the woods were equally impressive.

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    2. I haven't been in the E. Tx. woods during wildflower season but the best displays I've seen are in the Hill Country north and west of Austin and San Antonio all the way down to the coast and the Rio Grande valley. We had virtually no flowers last year because of the drought but luckily this year the rains came and the displays were gorgeous.

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  2. Yep...I'm quite familiar with the "carpeting" effect of blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia verna), especially at Raven Run Nature Sanctuary. I used to work there, and it certainly was an event when they bloomed! People would come from all around to see them.
    However, I always preferred Miami mist (Phacelia purshii). The flowers look like lavender snowflakes up close, with their delicately fringed petal edges. From afar, they do appear like drifts of tinted mist blanketing the ground of open woodlands and moist meadow edges. Not really sure about the "Miami" part, though!

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    1. Well... I'm an old Raven Run enthusiast - from the time when it was first being developed, with just a shabby old barn to house a few exhibits, and no real parking except on the side of the dirt road. I think I hiked every inch of every trail in every season except winter (and a lot of off-trail exploration as well, especially in the ravines, following some of the streams upstream even out of the park). I have thousands of photos, starting in about 1979. My goal was to get a photo of every wildflower in Raven Run; I don't know whether I succeeded. My personal favorites were the bent trillium and the wild hyacinth.

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    2. Heh, I bet we know a lot of the same people! The funny thing is that the shabby old barn remained the nature center right up until I moved away, picture of Ronald Reagan pinned to the wall and everything. They finished a new nature center just a couple years ago. Did they have that rabid-looking stuffed raccoon even back then? It was there when I was a small child, and as an adult I was always having to explain to people that it wasn't an albino, just bleached from age.

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    3. The "nature center" thirty years ago was, one might say, forgettable, and I seem to have succeeded in doing so. But I'm sure the place was run with virtually no budget in those days. One nice thing before it was "discovered" by more people was that I could take a lunch in a fanny pack and get on a trail and not see anyone for hours. Fond memories. I think you're lucky to have had a chance to work there.

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  3. It's a 'rule of thumb' in England that a woodland with a carpet of bluebells has been left undisturbed for at least 100 years to accomplish.

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  4. Seeing this took me instantly back to the spring of 1973. We stayed overnight just outside the airport in Luxembourg City. Having a morning to kill, we spotted woods across the 2-lane road and went to have a walk. As we entered the woods it was exactly like this. It was a very enchanting morning, to say the least.

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