#68 - Teasel

Teasels inhabit the landscape of my childhood. I remember them growing in the fields around Northamptonshire and in dried flower arrangements. They always seemed strangely magical, otherworldly. Visiting my parents in Herefordshire, I saw a magnificent thicket of them in a field.

#67 - Late Yarrow

My 'Concise British Flora in Colour' states that Yarrow flowers between June and August but on the hills in our park there is still quite a bit of it even as we near November. I was delighted to read that in some parts of America it is called 'plumajillo', Spanish for 'little feather', because of it's delicate, fern-like leaves.

#66 - Clover

I love clover flowers, they remind me of my back garden when I was a small child. Graduating from white to mauve, through variously deepening shades until you see this vibrant purple flower-head. I was thinking of field of lavender fading into the distance.

#65 - Beech Leaves

Really, I just wanted to showcase these two gorgeous little copper leaves, then I got distracted by the colours of the other leaves in the beech hedge by the car park. It was a very windy day and my leaves kept blowing away, hence the slightly haphazard arrangement; in the end, my seven year old came and acted as a windbreak and we got a picture before the delightfully burnished top leaves whisked joyfully away again. 

#64 - Blackthorn

Out of the city today, visiting friends. Our sloes have all been eaten but just a few miles away the hedges are still blue with them. The leaves are being whirled away by the Autumn winds and in some places the twigs are covered in delicate fronds of silver and gold lichen.

#63 - Blown Dandelion Clocks

My three year old loves blowing dandelion clocks and when I noticed the lovely silvery green of the empty head I managed to prise the one she was clutching out of her chubby fist and she helped me find some others to match it. 

#62 - Buttercups on Still Water

I think this is the Creeping Buttercup, it doesn't grow naturally in water but when there has been heavy rain a pool appears between two hills in our park - hidden away from the path it lies calmly in  the cup of the land with the grasses and wild flowers which normally grow there floating dreamily in the fallen rain.