Bonfire Moss

Bonfire Moss

Bonfire Moss (Funaria hygrometrica) looking cheerful made up for the lack of wildflowers in flower that were findable on my #NewYearPlantHunt (see more under that hashtag on Twitter) for the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) on the first two days of the year.

spruce seedling where it's not wanted

In the middle of this bonfire site I discovered another baby spruce tree. Sorry, dude, but you have to go! Norway and Sitka Spruce fans, don't worry, there are gazillions just up the hill. That's why we keep getting seedlings in the Boggy Brae garden, even though The New Sylva claims that Norway Spruce "rarely produces viable seed in Britain". It seems to around here! Judging by the number of Norway Spruce cones I find, I think the seedlings are that species rather than Sitka.







Here is my 2016 New Year Plant Hunt list:
Bramble (just one)
Common Gorse
Common Cat's-ear (2 miserable-looking specimens)
Daisy (1)
Dandelion (1, not in the least bit chirpy like they are in the spring!)

Boggy Brae dandelion from last April

People in southern English counties are finding long lists of New Year flowering wild plants. Here we still have proper winters! It's not so much a temperature thing, though there is that as well of course, as a light thing up here, I reckon.

A New Year walk in search of wild flowers

Reflections in a puddle

Blogger has decided to put what was to have been my last picture in first place. It does this sometimes; no idea why. Since it is today's favourite, I'm leaving it where it is. The beginning of the blog post is below!

The new year began cold enough for a little frost, and hazy.

I decided to go for a wander in search of flowering plants for the New Year Plant Hunt of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI). There is not much in flower here at the moment but what isn't flowering is important too in these recordings.

I found Common Gorse, one bunch of Bramble flowers, and two sorry-looking specimens of Common Cat's-ear.

Common Gorse

Bramble

Common Cat's-ear

In the wooded parts of where I walked, the leaves of Wood Sorrel were noticeable, but no flowers. I saw a few Lesser Celandine plants among the dead bracken; again, no flowers yet.

Leaves of Lesser Celandine
bright green against the bracken

A few haws remain of the hawthorns

Fallen larch twig with holly

Ivy

At the bottom of the field on my way home, I found some dead telegraph poles. A couple of years ago electricity cables were put underground. It has saved the electricity companies having to get teams out in ferocious winter weather to reconnect people's power supplies when the lines got blown down or when trees fell on them. This used to happen a lot. In the first years or so of living here we experienced more power cuts during bad weather than we'd collectively experienced in our entire lives before that.

Wandering back along the lane, I enjoyed reflections and worm casts in puddles. See above!