2019 review – part 2

We only added four new flowering plants to our species lists in 2019. . .

Bristly oxtongue (Picris echioides)

Pulmonaria officinalis

A new species for the park’s lists, found in the Blackthorn Tunnel last week. The plant was not in flower but the leaves are unmistakeable: Pulmonaria officinalis, lungwort.

This is common fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica); it is a plant that grows all over the place but nobody ever seems to know its name. As the park’s summer wildflowers go to seed, the fleabane is a welcome splash of colour beside the paths.

This is wild teasel (Dipsacus fullonum), sometimes called the common teasel, photographed in Lambrok Meadow next to Lambrok Stream.

Selfheal

Here is another member of the Lamiaceae family: Prunella vulgaris, commonly known as selfheal or all-heal. Like the other Lamiaceae that we have looked at, red dead nettle and ground ivy, it has the characteristic two lipped zygomorphic flower and a square stem.

The 1959 Injurious Weeds Act does not just apply to ragwort. It names four more species as well: broad leaved dock, creeping thistle, curled dock, and the spear thistle . The park has all of them.

This is Stachys sylvatica, commonly known as hedge nettle, hedge stachys or hedge woundwort. It is growing at the far end of Lambrok Meadow.