The delighful if misnamed Lungwort (Pulmonaira)

Sometimes delightful gems get overlooked or remain unseen simply because they are either too small, tucked away somewhere out of sight even if sometimes "out of sight" is in plain sight just not in a place where one would normally look or expect to see a plant.

Lungwort (Pulmonaria obscura) by Woodland Road in Bristol

I only discovered this little patch of plants which I had never seen before, because I'd been taking photos of the Daffodils on Woodland Road opposite the Biological Sciences Building after which I was going to the Fort Royal Gardens to see if there had been any developments in the flora and fauna.
Then as I walked along the high brick retaining wall a flash of colour caught the corner of my eye and I stopped, craned my neck and saw that there were these delicate looking pink, blue and lavender flowers sitting right up on the top under some shrubs.

Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) by Woodland Road in Bristol

  

The wall was too high for me to get up on and I did not gain more attention from the security guard who was watching me as he smoked a cigarette, so I stood on my tip toes and held the camera up hoping to get a decent shot. Somehow I sort of managed to get these without the security guard crossing the road to investigate my bizarre activity.

Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) by Woodland Road in Bristol

I do not think the security officer could see the flowers from where he was. So as far as he was concerned I was taking photos of random weeds and dirt. Maybe its silly but, I always feel self concious taking photographs of plants and flowers in the street. In gardens it is not so bad because there are sometimes other people doing the same thing, although I have yet to see anyone get up close and personal with the flowers to take macros or desperately try and focus and snap the bees before they buzz off to another flowers.

Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) by Woodland Road in Bristol

Additional Information:

Binomial Name: Pulmonaria officinalis and Pulmonaria obscura

Common names: Lungwort, Soldiers and Sailors, Spotted Dog, Mary and Joseph, Adam and Eve, Jerusalem cowslip, Bethlehem Sage (English); Longkrud (Dutch); Pulmonaria (French); Lungenkräuter (German); Pulmonaria (Italian); Pulmonaria (Portuguese); Pulmonaria (Spanish); 

Taxonomy:Kingdom: Plantae –  Angiosperms - Eudicots –  Asterids –  Order: ? – Family: Boraginaceae –  Subfamily: Boraginioideae – Genus: Pulmonaria – Species: P. officinamis, longifolia

Etymology: Pulmonaria is from the Latin pulmo (lung). In accordance with beliefs in sympathetic magic the spotted leaves were considered to resemble and symbolize diseased lungs and were used in the treatment of pulmonary infections

References:

Royal Horticultural Society entry for LINK

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/plantselector/plant?plantid=5525

Name LINK

Wikipedia entry for Pulmnonaria LINK

Name LINK

Wikipedia entry for Pulmnonaria officinalis LINK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonaria_officinalis

C. R. Birkinshaw and M. N. Sanford, “Pulmonaria obscura Dumort. (Boraginaceae) in Suffolk” in Watsonia Journal of the Botanical Society of the British Isles Volume 21, 1996, p169-178.

Mary Keen “How to Grow: pulmonaria”, The  Telegraph,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/howtogrow/3299102/How-to-grow-pulmonaria.html

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

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Cherry Blossoms in the Fort Royal Gardens

There is at least one Cherry tree in the Fort Royal Gardens. Well it is more like a couple of tall trees with masses of small pink flowers not far from the rear exit of the Fort Royal Gardens.

If you are walking along the path heading from the rear exit towards the pond you will see them on the left hand side. they are pretty hard to miss as you can see. Unfortunately, on the day I took these photos although it was a sunny day the blue skies were in the wrong place so all I have is delicate pink with rose hearts on white skies. Hopefully the next time I go through they will still be blooming and I will have clear blue skies to have as a background because that is stunning as I can tell having seen it when I did not have a camera on me.

The other one is a small tree with mid sized size flowers hidden behind some pines that provide a screen between the path that runs behind the pond and the pond itself.

 In the photo above you can see how sunny it was from how bright the walls of Fort Royal House is. Actually, I must admit I am not sure if these trees are Cherry trees or not but the flowers resemble cherry blossoms to me. So if I am wrong please let me know what they are.

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

Fort Royal Gardens Pond in Spring

I visited the Fort Royal Gardens again recently on a weekend and although the pond is still dismal it had a visitor.

the Daffodils on the hill were still happily flaunting their colours although the crocuses have faded and gone.

Here (above)  you can see the paving stone path that runs along the edge of the pond and reconects with the gravel path that runs behind the pond.




Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

Flowers by the Pond in Fort Royal Gardens

It pays to revisit gardens like the Fort Royal Gardens because any gardener worth his or her salt will take advantage of different growing and flowering periods. As some flowers fade and die down or go dormant others come to life and strut their stuff.

In this case the Daffodils were still around when the Muscari popped up to compliment the Daffodils' brilliant yellows with their bluest of blues and dazzle everyone.

Muscari and Daffodils

I went around the other side of the pond just in case anything interesting had come up and sure enough I found these 

 At first I thought they might be Muscari but on closer examination I realised that they had to be some other plant.

 

Then there were these Pale Yellow Primroses with bright yellow centres and some blue flowers which in other shots my camera rendered lavender.

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/
· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/