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Flora (photo album 3) 

There's a map and list of wild plants that may be found around Stratford sub Castle on the Botany webpage..

View more 'Nature  images in one of these photo albums:

  Flora & Fauna (photo album 1)  + Fauna (photo album 2) +  Flora with a View  +   Fungi & Slime Mould + Devenish Nature Reserve

Black Medick, Medicago lupulina

Black Medick, Medicago lupulina

Growing by the Avon across from Castle Keep. Above ground it is a food source for the common blue butterfly caterpillar. Below ground, as a Pea family plant, it has nitrogen-fixing bacteria in its roots. KMOC Sept 2024

Orange balsam Impatiens capensis

Orange balsam Impatiens capensis

Orange balsam Impatiens capensis has arrived in the Stratford nature reserve, across the river. down Mill Lane. Though it has pretty flowers it is an unwelcome invasive annual weed of damp areas, almost as bad as its more notorious cousin Himalayan balsam Impatiens glandulifera. KMOC August 2024

Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris.

Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris.

This very tall specimen at the left of picture is over 7 ft high. Mill Lane. Image KMOC July 2024

Water Speedwell

Water Speedwell

Blue or blue-pink hybrid Veronica anagallis-aquatica. Mill Lane bridge. Image KMOC 30 June 2024

verge of road to Little Durnford

verge of road to Little Durnford

Hedge bedstraw, knapweed, bird's foot trefoil. Image: KMOC June 2024

Viburnum opulus - guelder rose

Viburnum opulus - guelder rose

In the hedgerow near Little Durnford. Raw berries can be toxic but cooked are sometimes used for jams and jellies. Image: Rosemary Winson 30 July 2023

Pyramidal Orchid

Pyramidal Orchid

In the churchyard. June 2023. Image: Kerry O'Connor

May Blossom

May Blossom

May Blossom. The Big Top of the Circus in Hudson's Field and the Cathedral spire. May 2023 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Sanicle

Sanicle

The inconspicuous Sanicle growing along footpath SW of Old Sarum. May 2023 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Linseed & Rape

Linseed & Rape

Ukraine flag in Linseed and Rape. North of Old Sarum. May 2023 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Star of Bethlehem

Star of Bethlehem

Star of Bethlehem is growing in the roadside verge opposite Tybalt. (Old Sarum View is in the background.) It has six white petals or more accurately tepals, each with a green stripe on the underside. Every part of the plant is poisonous to cats, dogs, horses and humans. Image: Kerry O'Connor 14 May 2023.

Wild damson

Wild damson

Prunus domestica, a non-native member of the Rosaceae family, closely related to sloes and greengages. Gradidge Lane. 20 Aug 2022. Image: Rosemary Winson

HEMLOCK Conium maculatum

HEMLOCK Conium maculatum

This umbellifer growing well over 8 feet tall and now in flower in the roadside verge between Avon Cottage and Carriers Crossing, is hemlock. Best avoided! Purple blotches on the stem give it the epithet 'maculatum' or spotted (cf Lords and Ladies further down this page). Eating half a dozen leaves can kill within a few hours, even eating animals that have grazed it can kill. It is more poisonous in spring than summer. Image: Kerry O'Connor May 2022

Soapwort Wild Type

Soapwort Wild Type

Image 1 of 3 Many hedgerow flowers have finished by late July and August, making Soapwort a welcome bloom, opening late in the season and late in the day. The leaves and roots contain saponins and can be used as a soap, as used traditionally on the Turin Shroud. The clump growing across the road from the school was featured on this site two years ago, (click to reveal a link). kmoc August 2021

Soapwort Bouncing Bett Garden Variety

Soapwort Bouncing Bett Garden Variety

Image 2 of 3 These by Castle Cottage have a double set of petals. They are a mutation, the plant develops an extra set of petals instead of male parts, it then is selected by horticulturists who like the double head. This is Bouncing Bett, the garden variety of Soapwort and without male parts is sterile. This doesn’t bother the plant as it spreads by rhizomes, but can only do so locally, whereas the wild type can produce seeds too. kmoc August 2021

Soapworts - spot the difference

Soapworts - spot the difference

Image 3 of 3 Look carefully, the flowers opposite the school (image lower right) clearly have five petals and stamens protruding (five maturing one day, then a second tranche of five the next). Those by Castle Cottage (image left) have a double set of petals. One of the wild type flowers photographed by the school has six petals just to confuse things. kmoc August 2021

Common Spotted Orchid

Common Spotted Orchid

Dactylorhiza fuschii in the Orchid Bottom wildlife meadow at the Devenish Wiltshire Wildlife Trust Reserve. In the background are Yellow Rattle, Ribwort Plantain and Yorkshire Fog. June 2021 kmoc

Sainfoin

Sainfoin

Sainfoin means healthy hay, it is a legume that can kill worms in the guts of grazing stock (Onobrychis viciifolia). Shepherd’s Cottage, north of Old Sarum June 2021 kmoc

Cowslips

Cowslips

Cowslips, Primula veris, like chalk but here beneath Old Sarum are growing on an old landfill site within the Avon Valley Nature Reserve. Daisy, Bellis perennis, flowers (bottom left) close at night and open in the morning, they are like the "day's eye" hence the name.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower..........*

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower..........*

Who would have thought that this hollow shell of a willow trunk stump was capable of life, but new shoots spring from it near the Ashley Road playground. (*Dylan Thomas) kmoc May 2021

Striped hedge

Striped hedge

Blackthorn produces blossom before its leaves and is named for its darker bark. Hawthorn produces leaves before its blossom and is named for its fruits, the haws. Both are used in hedging as they can be pleached. Where used together they can give, for a few weeks in spring, green and white striped hedges. Stratford Road. Kerry O'Connor. April 2021

Dog's Mercury

Dog's Mercury

This whole carpet of Dog’s mercury (Mercuralis perennis) alongside the Avenue to Keeper’s Cottage is comprised of male plants. It is a spurge and is poisonous. March 2021 Image: Kerry O’Connor

Dog's Mercury Close up

Dog's Mercury Close up

March 2021 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Lords and Ladies

Lords and Ladies

Nine out of ten Lords and Ladies plants are “immaculate”, without spots or blemishes on their leaves, inherited dominantly, as the plant on the left here on The Avenue to Keeper’s Cottage. But is the minority WITH the spots on the leaves, inherited recessively, as here on the right that give this lily its specific epithet Arum maculatum. March 2021 Image: Kerry O’Connor

Glory of the Snow

Glory of the Snow

(Chionodoxa, a section of Scilla, probably luciliae) in bloom in mid-March on a bank south of Salterton. 15 March 2021 Image: Kerry O'Connor

A lone, early, Spanish bluebell

A lone, early, Spanish bluebell

Hyacinthoides hispanica, is flowering at the gateway to the gas substation on Gradidge Lane. Perhaps it arrived in some fly-tipped garden waste and has confused a microclimate warmed by the gas station and sheltered by the old pit with some Iberian idyll. 14 March 2021 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Winter Heliotrope (Petasites fragrans)

Winter Heliotrope (Petasites fragrans)

There's a bank of Winter Heliotrope (Petasites fragrans) at the end of Mill Lane and the footpath from it to the bridge. It can be distinguished from the related Butterbur by flowering now and not in spring. (1 of 2) Image: Kerry O'Connor December 2020

Winter Heliotrope (Petasites fragrans)

Winter Heliotrope (Petasites fragrans)

They don’t spread by fertile seeds, rhizomes creep underground often along river or road banks. There aren’t many sunny hours now either and the flowers follow what sun there is, giving it the name Heliotrope. (2 of 2) Image: Kerry O'Connor December 2020

Cyclamen (Sowbread)

Cyclamen (Sowbread)

In dappled autumn sunlight in St Lawrence graveyard (both pink & white flowers). Image: Kerry O'Connor September 2020

Spindle (Euonymus europaea)

Spindle (Euonymus europaea)

Unspectacular tiny white flowers turn into attractive pink fruit capsules containing bright orange seeds. Image 3 of 3: Rosemary Winson 24 Aug 2020

Spindle tree (Euonymus europaea)

Spindle tree (Euonymus europaea)

In the past the spindle wood was used to make spindles for spinning and holding wool (hence its common name), also used for skewers, toothpicks, pegs, and knitting needles. Image 2 of 3: Rosemary Winson 24 Aug 2020

Gradidge Lane spindle trees

Gradidge Lane spindle trees

Spindle (Euonymus europaea) is a native deciduous tree, often an indicator of Ancient Woodland but these specimens were planted fairly recently. Image 1 of 3: Rosemary Winson 24 Aug 2020

Robin's Pincushion

Robin's Pincushion

Robin's Pincushion is chemically induced on the dog rose, Rosa canina, and contains many larvae, each wintering in its own chamber, of the Bedeguar Gall Wasp, Diplolepis rosae. The adults, 99% females, emerge in the spring. Stratford Nature Reserve, Sept 2019. Image: Kerry O'Connor

Redleg

Redleg

Redleg or Redshank, Persicaria maculosa, has red lower stems and dark chevrons on the leaves. By the footbridge over the Avon, Sept 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Knotgrass

Knotgrass

Knotgrass, Polygonum aviculare, is not grass. It is a weed but it is not knotweed. (Is that not clear?) Stratford Nature Reserve, Sept 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

White Bryony

White Bryony

White Bryony, Bryonia dioica, though related to the cucumber, is poisonous. The southern slopes of Old Sarum, Sept 2019. Image: Kerry O'Connor

Turnip, Brassica rapa

Turnip, Brassica rapa

Turnip, Brassica rapa, footpath to allotments, Aug 2019 . Turnips have been cultivated for 4000 years. Image: Kerry O'Connor

Bitter Vetchling Lathyrus linifolius

Bitter Vetchling Lathyrus linifolius

Bitter Vetchling, Lathyrus linifolius. Avon Valley Nature reserve Aug 2019. The tubers were eaten in Scotland before potatoes and are supposed to reduce hunger. It is related to the sweet pea. Image: Kerry O'Connor

Horse Mint, Mentha longiflolia

Horse Mint, Mentha longiflolia

Horse mint, Mentha longifolia, road to Little Durnford Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Fat Hen, Chenopodium album

Fat Hen, Chenopodium album

Fat Hen, Chenopodium album, footpath up to Devizes Road, Cathedral on horizon, Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Fleabane

Fleabane

Fleabane, Pulicaria dysenterica, Mill Lane, Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Shepherd's Purse and Pineapple weed

Shepherd's Purse and Pineapple weed

Shepherd's Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris, with heart shaped seed pods and Pineapple weed, Matricaria discoidea, with yellow green flowers devoid of petals (crush and sniff to see why pineapple weed) near Avon Farm. Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Wild parsnip, Pastinaca sativa,

Wild parsnip, Pastinaca sativa,

Wild parsnip, Pastinaca sativa, eastern approach to Old Sarum. Aug 2019. Image: Kerry O'Connor

Vervain, Verbena officinalis,

Vervain, Verbena officinalis,

Vervain, Verbena officinalis, on Gradidge Lane Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Red Bartsia

Red Bartsia

The semi-parasitic Red Bartsia, Odontites vernus, near footbridge across the Avon Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris

Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris

Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris, on eastern slopes of Old Sarum with cathedral spire on horizon, August 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Marsh Woundwort, Stachys palustris

Marsh Woundwort, Stachys palustris

Marsh Woundwort, Stachys palustris, on the village side of footbridge over Avon. Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

Lesser Burdock, Arctium minus. (1)

Lesser Burdock, Arctium minus. (1)

Lesser Burdock, Arctium minus. With leaves like velvet (VELour), seeds with hooks (CROchets) it inspired a Swiss engineer to invent and name Velcro. Near Avon Farm. Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor

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