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. 

Bluebells and Globeflowers in Teesdale

Today's Guardian Country Diary is an account of a walk that follows the river Tees upstream, between Middleton-in-Teesdale and Bowlees.

















Along the route the footpath passes through some beautiful old meadows, with shallow fast-flowing shallow streams like this that flow down from the fells into the river in the bottom of the valley.

This is one of the umbellifers that's common in the old, flower-rich grassland: pignut Conopodium majus. There's archaeological evidence that its underground tubers were once an important food source during the Bronze Age and those who have tried them report that they taste like Brazil nuts although, given the poisonous nature of many umbellifers, this isn't something that anyone should try unless they are absolutely certain of the identification. Many of the plant poisonings that are reported, including fatal ones, are the result of mistaken identification of umbellifers - usually water dropwort species which also have roots that resemble carrots.

If you travel from sea level at the coast up into the Pennines you can walk back through the seasons in County Durham.  Because of the late spring and the altitude, there was a fine display of bluebells along the footpath (which is part of the Pennine Way), even though they had long since faded away at Hawthorn Dene on the coast, which we'd visited recently. 

The smell of the bluebells, confined between the dry stone walls early in the morning on a windless day, was glorious.

The steep banks of the Tees host fine displays of bluebells amongst the ferns, with...........

.... some fine specimens of early purple orchids amongst them.

Bluebells are most familiar as woodland plants but one of the features of the meadows here is that they are sometimes full of bluebells too - a reminder that this cultivated land was once woodland and that some of the fields here have not been ploughed in recent memory. Double-click this image for a larger one, which shows the bluebells more clearly.

Bird cherry is a tree with a predominantly northern distribution and this year its floral display has been magnificent. It's usually a small hedgerow tree and large, well proportioned specimens like these two are uncommon.

Bird cherry blossom complements Teesdale's white painted farms perfectly.

When the footpath descended to the edge of the Tees we found these globe flowers, known to earlier generations of Teesdale folk as 'double-dumplings' . They are much larger relatives of the buttercup, with incurved yellow petals and sepals, so that they resemble art deco lamps. These days they are mostly confined to the riverbank, but they used to be common in wetter areas in old unimproved meadows, growing alongside meadowsweet, ragged robin and melancholy thistle.

Teesdale in early June.........

In early June the meadows in the middle part of the dale, around Middleton-in-Teesdale, are full of buttercups, while...

... the hawthorn blossom beside the riverbank footpaths is just past its peak.

In the middle of the river this fledgling dipper has been parked on a stone by its parents that are away collecting food, though it looks like it could feed itself.

This young rabbit was using a coltsfoot leaf for cover but ....

... it would have done better to run for the dense stand of butterbur leaves that could hide a hundred rabbits.

Upstream of Middleton-in-Teesdale, on the way to Bowlees, there are globe flowers blooming on the riverbank, alongside the white umbels of pignut.

You can hear a spotted flycatcher's beak snap shut when it catches a fly ..... and there are plenty of those around, including .....

... dungflies that are plentiful wherever there is livestock grazing in the fields and ....

..... empid flies that use nectaries of wood crane'sbill flowers are fuel stations.

The wet weather hasn't been kind to bees and this little solitary bees resting on an oak leaf looked bedraggled. Can anyone help with an ID? 

Hay rattle is coming into bloom in the hay meadows .....

..... and mountain pansy Viola lutea is flowering well. The epithet lutea means yellow but pure yellow pansies are in the minority - most have variable amounts of purple in their petals and this has a hint of it in the petal tips.

Double Dumplings

Teesdale is famous for its flora, notably its spring gentians (see earlier post), and after the gentians have faded they are followed by a host of other rare or uncommon species that makes the dale a favourite destination for botanists. Just now the globe flowers Trollius europaeus are at their best, in bloom all along the Tees downstream from High Force (bottom picture). The flowers of these relatives of the buttercup, about the size of a golf ball, form a sphere of petals with a gap just large enough for flies to crawl in and pollinate the flowers. This was once a much more widespread species in wet pastures, until eliminated by the application of fertilisers that favoured grasses at the expense of flowering herbs. I’m told that locally they are traditionally known as ‘double dumplings’, although I have to confess that I’ve never heard anyone actually call them that. I first learned to identify wild flowers in the early 1960s by collecting the tea cards with illustrations by Charles Tunnicliffe, that used to be between the wrappers of Brooke Bond PG Tips tea. Globe flower was the only card I needed to complete the set of 50 British wild flowers and despite imploring every member of the family to drink as much tea as possible I never found it. It was 1975 before I actually got to see the real flower in Teesdale, and it's good to report that they are still thriving where I first saw them.