This is Grass-of-Parnassus Parnassia palustris, a delightful little flower that's very locally distributed here in North-East England and now much harder to find than it once was. These flowers were photographed in boggy grassland beside a moorland stream near Alston in the North Pennines. The spherical flower buds, which look like a white pearl set in a green clasp, open to reveal a ring of five yellowish-green fan-shaped structures ending in globules, positioned between the stamens and the petals. These structures are staminodes – modified stamens that fool insects in search of a meal. To a hover fly at least, they look like glistening drops of nectar but the flower produces no nectar at all, relying on this deception to attract pollinators. Despite its name, Grass-of-Parnassus is not related to grasses at all; it’s a member of the saxifrage family.
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This is a beautiful flower, Phil. Lovely pictures, too.
ReplyDeleteA clever plant; and that first picture is a stunner. It looks so delicate.
ReplyDeleteHi Emma, this is another flower that I remember from Brooke Bond tea card collecting - I'd never seen it until I moved to the North East 35 years ago..
ReplyDeleteHi Keith,isn't it amazing how some of the most delicate wild flowers grow in challenging situations? This one thrives in moorland areas and in sand dunes..
ReplyDeleteI also found this lovely plant on the 23rd Aug (after a 3 weeks search) in some old limestone hushings in a wild uncultivated valley in N.E. Lancashire about 3 miles from Nelson. I've just revisited the site and I estimated that there was about 300 to 400 flowers scattered along the valley side.
ReplyDeleteHi David, Wherever it grows it does seem to have a very local distribution - I've only ever found it in a handful of locations around here. I did once grow it from seed that I got from a Dutch botanic garden - the seeds are tiny but germinate quickly and the plants grew and flowered well in pots, but I lost them when I tried to grow them in the garden. The plants in the photographs are in short grassland nera a rapidly eroding stream bank, so I don't think they have a long-term future.
ReplyDeleteHi Phil
ReplyDeleteI am very interested in the hoverfly in the photo - I live in Australia and we have a very similar creature which I was brought up to belive was a native bee!!!
I have posted a photo at http://deborahlloyd.blogspot.com/
and would be interested in your comments
Cheers Deborah
Hi Deborah, you insect looks virtually identical to my hoverfly, except that maybe the yellow markings are a little darker ... but perhaps that's the effect of Australian sunshine..
ReplyDelete