Pretty in Pink

Two rather pretty, tall and slender plants from Shipley Park this morning. Firstly, another familiar wayside plant. Indeed, this one is probably one of the most familiar summer flowers to us all. Rosebay Willowherb (Epilobium angustifolium).

Also known as Fireweed because it is usually the first plant to recolonise land which has been stripped bare by forest fires. Extremely common on nearly all disturbed and waste land the pink to purplish flowers appear in conical flower spikes before great quantities of fluffy, downy seeds appear and spread everywhere in the wind.

Secondly we have a less familiar plant of damp ground and watersides, Hemp-Agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum).

A tall plant, growing up to about 4ft and topped with dense heads of flowers which are pale pink in bud and open to form feathery, frothy heads of pinkish-white flowers. This is another plant which produces fluffy seeds distributed on the wind.