Tuesday 30 June 2009

End of June flowers









The temperature is almost a high as it is in London at the moment (Paleochora today, 30th June, max 28.5 degrees; west London max 30.2 degrees) but there's more flowers here than there are at the Met.Office station at Heathrow!








1 comment:

Jenny Neal said...

The flowers in descending order are:

Photo 1: Lythrum junceum
There are four species of Lythrum, (Family: Lythraceae), the most common of which is the Mediterranean Lythrum junceum, (the pink flowers), a tall, sprawling perennial plant. This plant is usually found growing in wet places such as streams, ditches and springs.

Botanists who are interested in rushes and sedges will probably identify the plant to the left of Lythrum junceum which is Juncus acutus, Sharp Rush.

Photo 2: The yellow flowers in this photo are Spartium junceum, Spanish Broom. I had to enlarge this photo to identify this plant. Spanish Broom is a large, spineless shrub that can grow as high as 3 metres, occasionally more with numerous cylindrical, bluish-green, rush-like stems. The narrow simple leaves are sparse and hardly noticeable, the green stems taking the role of food production.

The other dominant plant in this photograph, no flowers just leaves, are Pistacia lentiscus, Mastic Tree, a small evergreen tree or shrub usually. However, it can grow into a very large and sprawling bush in the wild.

Photo 3: Phlomis or Jerusalem Sage.
Three species of Jerusalem Sage grow in Crete, growing in woodland clearings, scrub, phrygana and rocky places up to 1750 m, almost only on calcareous substrates. Phlomis resembles Salvia, (most familiar and well known Salvia is Sage), with green-grey foliage but Phlomis lacks the aroma of Salvia.

Photo 4: Echium italicum (subsp. biebersteinii in Crete).
The pale-lilac flowers of this incredible pyramidal plant seen here in full flower. There are two plants in this photograph. The stamens are long and protrude from the flower. This plant can be seen growing on and around the local area behind the old olive oil factory and along the Azogires village roadsides.