Jack Go To Bed At Noon
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl
Oh they're pretty. Will they grow up to be huge hosta-eating snails though..?
ReplyDeleteVery cute..... but also grrr snails :)
ReplyDeleteCJ - I'm intrigued by them. They look very much like the tiny freshwater snails I'm used to seeing when I do stream survey work. But which of the familiar ones in the garden do they grow up to be? I'm sure they'll like my hostas though!
ReplyDeleteGaz - yes they are! But half an hour later they'd disappeared :/
They certainly are different from the baby snails in my garden, which have pretty flat shells. Perhaps you're about to become a site of special scientific interest!
ReplyDeleteWhy do babies of any species look so cute?
ReplyDeleteWhat was their fate?
Did they live to see another day or did you despatch them?
Helen - we nearly moved to North Wales a few years ago and the house I liked the look of did have a SSSI in its garden!
ReplyDeleteDobby - they simply crawled away! I'm trying to find out what they were because they're unlike the usual garden snails we see and they look much more like freshwater snails.