Bumblebees bathing in meadowsweet pollen

 

It’s the flowering season for fragrant meadowsweet Filipendula ulmaria, the ‘Queen of the Meadows’, here in Durham - and bumblebees go wild for it. Crawling over the flowerheads, buzzing as they go, the vibration releases a shower of pollen that sticks to their fur, ready for combing off into the pollen baskets on their hind legs.

Fully-loaded pollen baskets, ready to carry back to their brood in the nest.

In July, meadowsweet is one of the best bee-friendly pollen-providers for a wildlife garden.

 

Scratch and Sniff Botany

The Weardale Way footpath that runs from St.John’s Chapel to Cowshill passes through some delightful riverside locations, including this bridge over the river Wear at West Blackdene (bottom photo), with an interesting riverbank flora along the way. Meadowsweet Filipendula ulmaria is in full bloom now. I can never pass this plant without crushing a leaf between finger and thumb – the sap has the distinctive antiseptic aroma of a healing ointment called Germolene (can you still get it?), which was the standard treatment for grazed knees when I was a kid. I probably reeked of the stuff through my formative tree-climbing years. The scent is strongest in the young foliage of meadowsweet, particularly in spring. The other wonderful aroma that we encountered along this walk was the fragrance of fragrant orchid Gymnadenia conopsea. Most orchids lack a distinctive scent – they put all of their energies into elaborate flower structures instead – but this is a species that you could identify with your eyes shut after just one sniff. The scent seems to attract long-tongued bees and butterflies that extract nectar from those long nectar spurs behind the flower. These were particularly fine specimens – probably the tallest that I’ve ever encountered.