It’s that time of year when the hedges are abundant with beautiful flowers. We recommend the best way of really enjoying the bounty is to take a walk along the many tiny country lanes and footpaths. You may be familiar with many of these flowers, but hopefully this short guide will help you name ones you don’t know. It is far from comprehensive; but there are many excellent field guides to extend your knowledge. We recommend Marjorie Blamey’s Wild Flowers by Colour, which can be ordered from your local bookshop.
Guests at Railholiday in St Germans may like to take a stroll through our ten acres of woodland (pictured above). You should be able to see many of the flowers listed there. For coastal flowers we recommend heading to Portwrinkle and taking a walk along the coast path towards Rame Head, or catching the ferry from Plymouth to Cremyll and exploring the nature reserve at Penlee Battery. Guests at Harvey in Hayle need only to walk to the beach and along the towans, or head to one of the three Cornwall Wildlife Trust nature reserves within easy walking distance: St Erth Pits, Loggan’s Moor or Upton Towans.
We hope you enjoy this short film, and find the photos helpful.
Among the many wild flowers are a group called umbellifers. Umbellifers have an umbrella like structure holding tiny flowers on the end of each spoke. There are several common umbellifers to look out for, some of which are highly poisonous. Another group to look out for is members of the mint family, which includes the nettles. All flowers in this group have a square stem. Brassicas are another common family; their flowers usually have four petals. Nitrogen fixing legumes include clover and vetch, while the members of the plantain family (no relative of the fruit) are very varied and include snapdragons and foxgloves.
White flowers:
Cow Parsley – this is a member of the umbellifer family. Cow parsley has finely laced leaves.
Hogweed comes a little later than cow parsley, and has a thick stem, large flat serrated leaves and white flowers.
Water Hemlock – at its peak in June. Likes watery places and is very poisonous. It has large round white umbellifer flower heads. Also known as fool’s parsley, it was once a common cause of poisoning among country people. Usually it has purplish red colouration on the stems.
Stitchwort – white open flowers on delicate stems.
Wild Garlic, or Ransoms – a useful food plant, these pretty white clocks cloak the ground from April above wide leaves. This is not to be confused with Three Cornered Leek, which has thin leaves and bell shaped flowers. Three cornered leek is an invasive plant and should be pulled up and eaten at every opportunity.
Dog Daisies – large daisies that quickly cover areas of waste ground.
Sea Cabbage – very distinctly of the brassica family, with white flowers and a distinctly cabbage smell.
Wild Carrot – an umbellifer commonly found in coastal areas. When pollinated its flower curves into a tight ball.
Dead Nettle – a nettle with no sting. Like stinging nettles, its leaves are slightly hairy. As a member of the mint family, it has a square stem.
Sea Campion – pretty white flowers on short stems on dense vegetation. Usually found beside cliff paths.
Hedge Garlic, Jack-by-the-hedge or Garlic Mustard – upright plant with serrated leaves. This is a member of the cabbage family and has tasty mustard flavoured leaves that I like to use in salads.
Yellow flowers
Celandine – the same glossy yellow as buttercup, but Celandine flowers much earlier and has thinner petals and deep green heart shaped leaves.
Buttercup – There are two types of buttercup, one creeping with dark green serrated leaves, and one much taller that is commonly found in fields.
Ragwort – the food source of the cinnabar moth, ragwort is a valuable pollinator plant that flowers from June. Ragwort has bad press because it is poisonous to horses and cows. However this is only a problem once the plant has been cut and either found its way into hay or been left cut in a hedgerow. When it is alive and growing in hedges or fields animals will avoid it.
Dandelion – this needs no introduction, other than to say dandelion leaves are very nutritious, though they can be rather bitter. In a foraging life they might be considered a superhero, rather than a pernicious weed. And the pollinators love them.
Hawkbits – dandelion type flowers on tall stems, much loved by pollinators. There are so many types that without a detailed flower guide it is difficult to tell them apart, so I tend to clump them all under the same name.
Cowslip – relatively uncommon in Cornwall, this field flower is a member of the primula family and holds clusters of small yellow flowers on a sturdy stem.
Mullein – quite foxglove like in its presentation, mullein throws up tall yellow flower spikes above a rosette of velvety grey leaves.
Herb Bennet, or wood avens – this small yellow flower is a wild geum, and self seeds freely in semi-shaded places.
Tormentil – usually found on moorland, this tiny yellow flower has four petals.
Green flowers
Navelwort, or pennywort – this fleshy succulent tastes like cucumber. Its name is inspired by the dimple in the centre of the leaf, that looks like a tummy-button. In May it shoots up little pale green foxglove like flowers.
Dog’s Mercury – A poisonous woodland plant, this perennial carpets the understory of shady places. In spring and early summer it sends out racemes of tiny green flowers.
Alexanders – a common coastal plant. Alexanders were brought over by the Romans as a food plant and have leaves that are a glossy green and yellow-green flowers that are very tasty in salads.
Pink, purple and red flowers
Red campion – pretty cerise coloured flowers that will often be in bloom from March until November. They are at their peak at the moment. You may also come across the occasional white campion.
Herb Robert – a wild geranium and a common weed often found in flowerbeds, it smells very distinctive when pulled up by its shallow roots.
Thrift – a cliff flower – pretty pink pompoms in dense clusters.
Lady’s Smock, also known as Cuckoo Flower, Milkmaids and Mayflower – a meadow flower, one of the earliest to come out. It is a pale pink colour.
Foxgloves – tall purple pink flowers, often in colonies. Foxglove seeds can survive for over a century in dormancy, waiting for the right conditions. We once made a track through our woods, and the following year it was absolutely covered in foxgloves, that had taken advantage of the increase in sunlight and the disturbed bare soil.
Honesty – heart shaped leaves and beautiful purple flowers make way for shiny seed pod carcasses that look like shiny pennies in the autumn. Honesty, like Hedge Garlic and Lady’s Smock, is a member of the cabbage family, and has similar features, including four petalled flowers and serrated-edge heart shaped leaves.
Clover – another member of the legume family that is a valuable nitrogen fixer, clover can be seen in meadow land. It can be white or pink, and its sweet flowers are much loved by bees.
Mallow – large multi stemmed plant, common on the coast, that can become a small bush with pink flowers much loved by bees.
Red, pink and white valerian – this grows freely in sunny Cornish and Devon hedgerows, particularly on dry walls, and is much loved by pollinators.
Blue flowers
Vetch – this purple scrambling flower of the pea family can be found in hedges and grasslands and is distinctive by its curling tendrils and leaves that are like folded ovals and sit opposite each other. Later it sets black seed pods. There are around 240 variants of vetches, including some with small pink flowers. Like other members of the legume family, it is a useful nitrogen fixing plant.
Bird’s Eye Speedwell, or Germander Speedwell – Another member of the plantain family, this pretty flower can be found in grasslands and open places.
Bugle – a dense, spreading ground cover plant happy in both shady and open places. A member of the mint family, it is also known less commonly as St Lawrence plant.
Bluebell – dropping racemes of indigo flowers on one side of the stem. These are different from the invasive cultivated Spanish bluebell, which is larger, more grey in colour, and has more open flowers that protrude from all sides of the stem.
Ivy Leaved Toadflax – found in walls, this tiny snapdragon is a member of the plantain family, that includes foxgloves and yellow toadflax, which is also found in hedgerows in the summer. It is unrelated to the fruit of the same name!
Green Alkanet – a borage like indigo blue flower on a sturdy hairy leaved and stemmed plant. Traditionally used in dyes, hence the name.
Brown flowers
Sorrel – reddish brown thin racemes of flowers. More delicate than dock, that is the same family, sorrel’s leaves are useful in salad and have a sour lemony flavour.
Plantain – there are two common types, greater plantain, with thick wide leaves, and ribbed plantain with thinner ribbed leaves. Both are great for playing plantain conker fights with.
