Archive for the 'Flowers' Category
Rottingdean Sea-Lavender
This flower is now looking its best…. despite its name this is a native of Sicily, but has become established at Rottingdean… and recently at Rye Harbour, just seaward of the red roofed hut near the river mouth.
Smooth Tare
Sea Pea
Today’s dull lighting was good for photographing the first Sea Pea flowers to appear this year. The yesterday’s rain should be good for the shingle plants after a long period of drought. A good area to see them is on the seaward side of the road 100m west of Ternery Pool, but please be careful - they do not like trampling!
and the Sea Kale is looking great…
Yellow Horned Poppy
Devil’s Claws
… is just one of the 70+ common names for Lotus corniculatus, a very common flower of the RX area that is now in flower and should continue into September. It is an important foodplant for many insects, including the Common Blue butterfly.
Sea Kale week
The coming week will be the best for seeing Sea Kale in bloom, with the enormous domes of white flowers dominating the shingle shoreline. So if you want to see or smell (of honey) this spectacle you know what to do… this photo was taken this morning (for photos of white flowers bright sun is useless, choose overcast or hazy sun and try to pick a calm day our weather station on the website will help).
Tiny blue flowers
A couple of our smallest blue flowers are in bloom now, both growing on dry, short grassland at Rye Harbour. Early Forget-me-not in the photo below is next to a Rabbit dropping for scale.
Even smaller is Wall Speedwell…
More early flowers
Sea Buckthorn
There are extensive areas of this shrub (Hippophae rhamnoides) on the dunes at Camber. It is thought that it was originally planted there to stabilise the sand (although it is a native to some parts of Britain). The berries are very tasty, rich in vitamin C and much sought after elsewhere in the world (click here), but I rarely hear of people eating them in Britain. I have eaten them much earlier in the year, but there are still masses on the bushes and today they were being eaten by a flock of about 100 mixed crows…

