Tuesday 19 May 2009

Dogs and Jennies

Lovely to get out for a walk again this morning after a couple of days being more or less 'grounded' by the weather. We managed a fairly long walk around Shipley Park this morning before the showers returned and the title of today's blog entry should give a clue to some of the flowers in evidence this morning. Firstly we passed several large Dogwood shrubs growing near to the old American Adventure Theme Park entrance.

This particular Dogwood is the Siberian, White, or Red-Barked Dogwood (Cornus alba). The masses of small, white flowers forming flower heads known as cymes.

Further along the walk we found these Dog Roses just beginning to bloom.

These Dog Roses (Rosa canina) are actually one of 20 or 30 different sub-species all generically called Dog Roses. The pale pink and white flowers are well known to most of us as part of the typical English hedgerow. As are the red fruits which follow them in the Autumn known as Rose Hips.

Lastly, as we returned home, we found this attractive little flower growing - or should I say scrambling - along the side of the footpath.

These bright yellow blooms belong to an easily overlooked plant called Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia). Also called Moneywort, Herb Twopence and Twopenny grass, it is sometime cultivated as a garden plant as it is an excellent ground cover plant.

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