Thank you to everyone who took part in the first #wildflowerhour challenge to find blooms by the roadside. The panoply of colour that you tweeted last night shows that you don’t need to drive to a nature reserve to find treasure at your feet.
Some particular highlights:
Pineapple Weed, Matricaria discoidea, is a wonderful little plant that you’ll start finding everywhere as soon as you look. It is a member of the Asteraceae family, and looks like a daisy that has lost all its petals. Pick its conical receptacle – which looks a bit like a pineapple – and squeeze it to release the amazing pineapple scent. A brilliant wild flower for getting children excited about botany.
Cotton Thistle, Onopordum acanthium, was introduced in the Iron Age, and grows very tall indeed. It is a roadside giant.
Our next challenge for #wildflowerhour on 16 July will be published on here later today. Look out! And here are all the tweets from this week’s challenge:
