Hello Folks! Flowers not only decorate our meadows, our woodlands, our roadsides with splashes of colour, but they also provide food and shelter for a whole host of insects. We have only to look at UK flowers to appreciate their beauty, their scent, their diversity.Each Monday for 12 weeks I will be posting a little teaser for you. Without looking in books or on the internet (i.e - no cheating), see if you can identify the UK flower. On Wednesday, so as long as no-one has guessed it, I will post one clue. On Friday I will post the answer along with some additional information for your interest.Keep a note of each species, as I will be asking which is the odd one out at the end of the quiz.MYSTERY FLOWER QUIZ#11As a plant, I'm a real slippery customer.
Congratulations to all of you who guessed Common Eelgrass (Zostera marina). First a bit about the clues: 'As a plant, I'm a real slippery customer.' Plant refers to grass, slippery customer refers to eels as they are, well...slippery. The second clue: 'As a wreck' is an anagram of Seawrack, which is another name for Common eelgrass.
A member of the Zosteraceae family, Common eelgrass are aquatic plants that you might find along the coastline, in lagoons, bays and beaches. With a long stem and hair-like leaves, Common eelgrass form an important part of the coastal ecosystem by being beneficial for other species. For example, they provide shelter for spawning Pacific herring and even when dead and washed ashore, provide homes for many flies and beetles.
A picture of Common eelgrass can be found here.
Did you know?: Common eelgrass are monoecious, .i.e. they can have both male and female flowers.
Keep an eye out for next week’s mystery flower.
Take care,
Claire
Well done Germain and TJ!!
Last one next week already!
"All weeds are flowers, once you get to know them" (Eeyore)
My photos on Flickr
well blow me down with a feather, I am stunned. Since we went off tangent (very slighty) I thought I would add a photo from today of wracking. This is local farmers collecting wrack off the beach that has washed up from the autumn storms. It is a mixture of seaweeds, mainly kelp and bladderwrack which will now be spread on the potato fields and left until January when it is ploughed in. If you watch the fields over the winter you can spot Wagtails and Rock pipits enjoying the insects that the weed attracts
Caroline in Jersey
Cin J
Eelgrass was the first thing that came to mind but I rather rejected it because it was a marine plant and I didn't think of it as a flowering plant. Well done Marjus for linking Sea Wrack with Eelgrass. That was a new one to me.
Great photo, Germain. Good to see a natural resource being used. I'll bet it makes an excellent fertiliser and soil conditioner.
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Tony
My Flickr Photostream
Unknown said:Well done Marjus for linking Sea Wrack with Eelgrass.
And you can taste the difference! new potatoes grown in fields that have had seaweed on are just the best :)
I can imagine. And you don't have to add salt to the cooking water. LOL. Would these be the Jersey Royals which we eagerly await for in the Spring?
Ooh yes, I love new potatoes from Jersey! Perhaps this is why!!
well done Marjus. TJ And Germain, I lost it lol
Just wasn't convinced it was the same plant
Ray
a good laugh is better than a tonic