Globe flower and meadow saxifrage

 Teesdale is a favourite destination for botanists in spring, principally because it is home to the stunning blue flowers of spring gentian Gentiana verna, which is usually at its best in the first two weeks of May. But the dale is full of botanical treasures, including the beautiful globe flower Trollius europaeus (below). Last week we found it in a place where we've never seen it before, on the bank of the river Tees downstream from Egglestone abbey bridge.

This has also been a wonderful late spring for meadow saxifrage Saxifraga granulosa (below). While not nationally rare, it is a declining species. We found one meadow absolutely full of its elegant white flowers, which remind me of the finest porcelain. Meadow saxifrage reproduces by seed and also by tiny vegetative buds called bulbils, at the base of the leaves. I suspect that one of the reasons why the plant sometimes reaches high densities in meadows is that the bulbils are transported and dispersed on mud on the hooves of livestock, that traditionally graze the 'aftermath' in hay meadows after the hay has been cut. 

A fraught wolf spider courtship

  A pair of wolf spiders courting in the garden, with the male (in the foreground) frantically signalling his amorous intentions to her with his palps, moving closer a millimetre at a time. She is ultra-aggressive and lunges at him, so he dashes for safety. During a long, hot afternoon they repeat the performance many times, but I never witness a successful mating. But it happens, because .....

..... a few days later, here is a female wolf spider basking in the sunshine on a rock, carrying a silken cocoon of eggs under the tip of her abdomen.

Ladybird defenders of my blackcurrant crop

 Every year in late spring the blackcurrant bushes in my garden are plagued by aphids that multiply unnoticed under the leaves, until they began to curl. That's usually the time that ladybirds, those useful aphid predators, begin to congregate on the bushes. It's probably the ladybird larvae that are the most effective predators, rather than the adults, so it will be a while before they appear, but these three ladybird species were feeding on the bushes yesterday. They are all very small, about half the size of the most common, most familiar 6-spot species.

2-spot ladybird

10-spot ladybird

14-spot ladybird

Wind pollinated trees and hay fever

 As winter draws to a close I always look forward to the first hazel catkins, that signal a change in the seasons ......... but then, when spring finally does arrive, I remember that I suffer from hay fever. The early-flowering trees are wind-pollinated, producing vast clouds of sneeze-inducing pollen. 

Wind pollination is a chancy business and once the pollen is released it's rapidly diluted in the air, so the chances of an individual pollen grain landing on a female flower stigma, leading to the formation of a seed, decreases exponentially with the distance between then. So the only way to improve the odds is for trees to release great quantities of pollen

Male catkins of hazel.

Tiny, female stigmas of hazel

Male flowers of ash, about to open

Ash flowers, fully expanded

Silver birch male catkins, a major contributor to hay fever

Silver bird male catkins

Elm flowers. Before Dutch elm disease arrived, the bare crowns of mature elm trees were covered in a purple haze of flowers, a magnificent sight, now just a memory.

Most wind-pollinated trees produce their flowers on bare twigs, unencumbered by foliage that might hinder pollen release, but beech is an exception. It may be that beech bud burst is delayed because its foliage is very sensitive to late frosts. 

Evergreen coniferous trees like Scots pine tend to produce their male, pollen producing cones on the tips of their branches, well clear of the foliage, where pollen is easily carried away by the wind.