Wildflowers

The natural flora of the town

Midsummer is possibly the best time to find wildflowers around town, and they can be found in many places

Pellitory of the Wall is a common plant, much overlooked and ruthlessly sprayed with weedkiller, yet it survives in out of the way places, usually of course near walls, in walls or on walls! The tiny flowers are really interesting to look at through a magnifying glass, but otherwise you’d hardly notice them

The iconic field poppy grows where the authorities have sprayed weedkiller. In much the same way as poppies flower in the shell craters of war zones they germinate in the face of the chemical onslaught. But they also do well if you simply scatter a pinch of seeds along a paved path, so if you find a ripe seed pod collect some seed and sprinkle them somewhere else!

Lady’s smock, or Cuckoo flower, may have finished by midsummer, the flowers all now pollinated. It is a common plant of the wet meadows along the Kennet, by riversides, in any damp grassland spared the mowers for a few months.