Weardale in early summer: St. John's Chapel

Weardale is at its most beautiful in June.  These are a few photographs taken recently around the village of St. John's Chapel, in the middle of the dale.

Burnet rose, the most fragrant of all the native wild roses.

A single wood cranesbill plant in a sea of buttercups.

Meadows full of buttercups, seen from Chapel fell

A froth of cow parsley flowers along roadsides and around the edge of fields.

Hawthorn in bloom along the footpath beside the river Wear

Hawthorn still blooming beside Harthope burn. Water levels are low after a very dry spring.

Glorious hay meadows

Lady's mantle and wood cranesbill

Meadow foxtail grass in flower

Pignut's lacy umbels

Lambs fattening

Wood cranesbill

Emblems of summer

There are plenty of emblematic species that mark the transition from winter into spring – violets, primroses, wood anemones, etc. But which are the wild flowers that mark the fuzzier boundary between the end of spring and the beginning of summer? There’s an official date on the calendar but for me the botanical signal comes when the first wild roses open (top picture) in the hedgerow and the roadsides are fringed with the frothy blossom of cow parsley (bottom pictures). Anyone got any alternative suggestions?