Meaadow saxifrage, hiding in plain sight

 

This very attractive little flower is meadow saxifrage Saxifraga granulata. It’s a species of meadows and pastures and it has been in continuous decline for decades, thanks to the ‘improvement’ of old grasslands with fertilisers and selective herbicides, which favour grasses and lead to a decline in wild flower diversity.

I had never seen meadow saxifrage until I moved to the north east, where many of the unimproved meadows still survive. There are a few in Teesdale where it grows in great profusion. It flowers in early spring, before many of its competitors hit their stride, but its season is short and it becomes harder to spot when other hay meadow wildflowers grow taller.

It tends to grow in dense groups in the grass because it produces clusters of tiny buds called bulbils (the granules that the specific name granulata refers to) when the flowers and foliage die down in July, so when they sprout next year a whole group of plants grow up where only one existed before. The bulbils are also carried around in mud on the feet of cattle, which unwittingly plant it in their footsteps.

I was delighted to find these plants at Wolsingham in Weardale last week, just a few miles from home, in a corner of a meadow I must have walked through hundreds of times over the last fifty years, without ever noticing them before.

There’s always something new to find, even in places you think you know like the back of your hand ……