Buttercups and Hawthorn

After a long break, I'm well overdue picking up this blog again. 'Lockdown' has provided an opportunity over recent weeks to explore familiar sites and routes in closer detail, and I have been pleased to find plants not noticed before. Some plants have probably only been missed in previous years because the last time I walked that way they were obscured by other vegetation. The positive of lockdown botanising is that you walk the same routes over and over again as the season changes.

I have collected more photos along the way than I've yet found the energy to turn into blogs. So to get me started again, I am going to try and post regular snippets rather than try to be more ambitious.

First up are two attractive forms of native plants found yesterday. One is a truly wild, while the other will be of planted origin.

The former is this stunning form of Bulbous Buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus) found in a pasture near Scholey Hill (VC63). Three plants mixed with others of typical flower colour. This seems comparable with (but isn't) the cultivar known as 'F.M. Burton.'

Next up at Oulton (VC63) was this hawthorn (Crataegus x media 'Punicea') in a hedgerow between two arable fields. It is supposedly a form of this native hybrid (its nothing like Midland Hawthorn C. laevigata, despite some references stating this) but if so its seems to be much closer to Common Hawthorn (C. monogyna). I did find one photo online that suggests that it might occasionally produce two styles rather than the usual one, but as per Stace this is not 100% reliable for the hybrid. I also note that Sell & Murrell list it under Common Hawthorn, so it seems the species affinities are yet to be adequately resolved.