Goat's-beard
Hurrah for Goat's-beard (Tragopogon pratensis), that most eccentrick of wildflowers. Its common name is 'Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon' due to its habit of only opening its flowers during the morning.
It has dandelion-like flowers framed within long spiky bracts, but to actually see one in flower requires exact timing. If you go out too early in the morning, the flowers are still shut up. ('Bugger off, we're not up yet.') If you go out at lunchtime, the flowers have shut up again, like a shopkeeper who has despaired of customers. Some days the flowers fail to open at all. I have ridden past clumps of Goat's-beard at midmorning, and the flowers have still been closed.
Perhaps the flowers hastily close up when they hear anyone coming. Perhaps you can only come across them by stealth.
But even with the flowers folded, it does have lovely Art Nouveau onion-dome heads.
But the really special thing about Goat's-beard is its seedhead, much larger than a dandelion clock - a smoky sphere, ethereal in appearance, ephemeral in existence.
Today's excuse for Poor Photography: the seedhead of Goat's-beard is too otherworldly for mortal cameras to focus upon.
Edited 1st July to add more pictures. Many thanks to C. for the loan of her magic camera.
And even a close-up!
It has dandelion-like flowers framed within long spiky bracts, but to actually see one in flower requires exact timing. If you go out too early in the morning, the flowers are still shut up. ('Bugger off, we're not up yet.') If you go out at lunchtime, the flowers have shut up again, like a shopkeeper who has despaired of customers. Some days the flowers fail to open at all. I have ridden past clumps of Goat's-beard at midmorning, and the flowers have still been closed.
Perhaps the flowers hastily close up when they hear anyone coming. Perhaps you can only come across them by stealth.
But even with the flowers folded, it does have lovely Art Nouveau onion-dome heads.
But the really special thing about Goat's-beard is its seedhead, much larger than a dandelion clock - a smoky sphere, ethereal in appearance, ephemeral in existence.
Today's excuse for Poor Photography: the seedhead of Goat's-beard is too otherworldly for mortal cameras to focus upon.
Edited 1st July to add more pictures. Many thanks to C. for the loan of her magic camera.
And even a close-up!