Twelve flowers to spot at Conwy in August

In June and July, I wrote blogs highlighting some of the flowers that you might expect to see over the coming weeks. They've proved a bit of a hit, so here is the latest instalment, featuring a dozen plants you can see here this month. A good number of the July flowers are still in bloom, so look out for those too, but most of the June flowers have finished for the year.

Doing this has been good for me too. I don't really know a huge amount about botany (they don't have wings, do they?), but this summer I have made a much greater effort to notice what's around the reserve trails, and inspired by our Bioblitz event early in July, have been snapping pictures of some of the species I don't recognise. Amazingly, I've added four species to the reserve's plant list in recent weeks, and have a couple of others in the offing, waiting for confirmation by the vice-county plant recorder.

Hemp agrimony

Thanks to Libet, one of our volunteers, for identifying this one. I can only find it in one place, growing in a damp ditch next to the path on the way to the Tal-y-fan Hide. It was its leaves that gave it away - they look like hemp leaves, though its not related. Its tiny pink flowers give it the old English name of 'Raspberries and cream', and it's loved by bees and butterflies.

Common fleabane

This is another plant that loves damp areas, and it grows in profusion at the west end of the Ganol Trail, exactly the same areas that marsh orchids flower in June. Its scent is, apparently, repellant to insects, hence its name - the flowers were brought into houses in order to keep fleas out of the furnishings and blankets.

Common knapweed

Superficially, knapweed looks like a thistle, but it doesn't have sharp, thorny leaves. It's a great source of quality nectar for insects, and at the end of the season, its seeds provide food for birds. It has a long association with romance: eligible women would wear an unopened floret in their blouse, and when it started to open, it would indicate that the man of her dreams was near.

Common toadflax

The densely-packed flowers of the toadflax (closely related to the garden plant, snapdragon) grow along the estuary bank, presumably their seeds having been washed there from farther up the Conwy Valley. The dark yellow centres with pale yellow petals give it the traditional English name 'Butter and eggs', and it was for a long time used as a medicinal plant to relieve a variety of ailments.

Tall melilot

This is another flower that grows in abundance along the estuary bank. It was introduced to Britain from the near continent, initially as a fodder crop, but it soon became a 'weed' of disturbed ground and roadside verges.

Water figwort

Look out for this understated flower, with a square stem, growing out of the shallow lagoon next to the boardwalk. It provides nectar for bumblebees, and is pollinated by wasps. Look out too for a pale caterpillar, the figwort sawfly, which eats the water figwort's leaves.

 

Common ragwort

Is there a flower about which there is more misinformation than common ragwort? Farmers and horse-owners will, rightly, point out that this is a highly-poisonous plant. But... horses avoid standing stems of ragwort unless there really is no other food in a field. Common ragwort is really a problem when it is cut with a hay or silage crop and ponies don't see it in their winter fodder. So, with the agreement of our grazier, we leave it standing, as it's a superb flower for many insects - look out for the black-and-orange striped caterpillars of the cinnabar moth. We only remove it where it could seed to neighbouring land that holds horses or where it is going to dominate our grassland at the expense of other flowers. Several species of ragwort occur here, with Oxford ragwort also abundant.

Spear thistle

There are several species of thistle on the reserve, but spear thistle is the one that everyone thinks of as 'a thistle', and its the species adopted as one of the emblems of Scotland. Like the similar knapweed, it is attractive to pollinating insects, especially bumblebees and burnet moths, and its seeds attract flocks of goldfinches later in the year.

Red bartsia

This low-growing plant does well in nutrient-poor soil, such as at Conwy nature reserve. It thrives by being hemi-parasitic, like yellow rattle, gaining its nutrients from the roots of grasses. That way it helps to suppress the grass, enabling other wild flowers to thrive. Look out for it at the southern end of the reserve, beside the trails from Carneddau Hide around to the estuary, wherever the vegetation is sparse.

Greater reedmace

Very distinctive, with its sausage-shaped seed heads, greater reedmace grows in the Bridge Pond and some of the temporary pools around the Grey Heron trail. It is often called a 'bulrush', though a true bulrush is another species entirely (Scirpus lacustris) - the confusion seems to have been caused by painters of nineteenth-century Sunday School books, which show reedmace associated with the Old Testament story of Moses. The rhizomes (similar to roots) are edible, and there is evidence of them being ground down on milling stones 30,000 years ago.

Chicory

This species is new to the reserve this year, presumably their seeds having been washed here from farther up the valley by high tides. Chicory is a member of the dandelion family (look at the similar stem leaves) and has long been cultivated and used as a food, its leaves as salad and its roots ground down to mix with hot water as a coffee substitute.

Field scabious

Look out for the lilac-coloured flowers alongside the footpath just south of the Bridge Pond, where the grassland is more open. The flower heads led to the old English name of 'Lady's pincushion'. The stem is rough and hairy (as you can see in the photo), and it was formerly used to treat itches, mange and scabies - from which it gets its common name.