The riches of spring

April 30, 2022 Leave a Comment

After having spent the majority of the morning going through my recent images of spring wildflowers, trying to firmly identify each of them, I can tell you without a doubt that I would have never amounted to anything as a botanist. I’ve been using three books and two computer apps, and I’m still not completely sure I’ve got all of these right. There are so many, many different varieties of plants and flowers, multiple common names for each plant, and sometimes more than one scientific name. Once I think I’ve pinned down the genus (always capitalized), I sometimes search in vain for the correct species in my various books — they’re good books, but they can’t possibly include every single flower — after which there’s always the specific variety to consider.

Foothill Checkermallow (Sidalcea calycosa), Phoenix Park

I’ve included scientific names here in the hope it will save me doing these searches all over again next year. I can see how it might be fun tracking down all this information; but when I sat down at 9 o’clock this morning to create a blog post, I had no idea I would still be working on it at 2 p.m. Nope, I’m no botanist. But the flowers are beautiful and irresistible! (Please don’t forget — you can click on any photo to enlarge it!)