On my visits to the lake, most of my photography is focused (sorry couldn’t resist that) on birds and the landscapes/’lakescapes’. However away from the lake I’m a regular photographer of plants and for the last two and half years I have been publishing them on Facebook every week on what I’ve come to call ‘Flowerday Friday’.
It’s therefore not surprising that at the lake I do take some shots of the flowers and flora. I love the way that at different times certain colours seem to dominate (though I’ll be the first to admit the periods aren’t really totally distinct.)
The most striking is probably the ‘yellow’ period when the irises light up the banks.
Then there is a white period when the multiply-named bindweed flowers along with other white blooms. The bindweed is a flower of many names as it is also known as Rutland beauty, bugle vine, heavenly trumpets, bellbind and my favourite “granny-pop-out-of-bed”. Its scientific name is Calystegia sepium.
Currently I think we are in the pinky, purple period when the Purple Loosestrife comes to the fore
The Loosestrife and other pinkish-purple flowers and grasses are complemented by the more subtle tones of what I discovered is water mint.
Now many years ago when I started working in advertising one of my accounts was Trebor so not surprisingly I learnt a little about mint – peppermint, spearmint, lemonmint (and even that rarer variety Extra Strong Mints) and my discovery of another mint piqued my curiosity so I went to find more.
It turns out that there are actually about 14 or 15 species or hybrids of mint growing in the UK, most of which have very aromatic leaves.
Those in the known – plant specialists – describe it as a highly aromatic herbaceous perennial with dark green leaves and rounded terminal spikes of tiny, pinkish-purple flowers in summer that is found not surprisingly in wet places such as ponds, streams, rivers, dykes, damp woodlands, fens and marshes.
I can also add water mint to my ‘foraging’ list as it can be used in the same as other mints to make jellies, syrups, salads and of course tea. Whether scientifically proven it is claimed that water mint can be used to treat digestive upsets, headaches, and oral hygiene problems
It is not just something humans like, it is very attractive to a variety of insects including bees, butterflies, and hoverflies. It is also liked by amphibians including newts.
And a factoid I didn’t know was that water mint hybridises easily with other mints, and a cross of water mint and spearmint produces peppermint.
The flower heads appear from Summer to Autumn, are spherical in shape (“globose” – a term I hadn’t previously heard), and emerge from the leaf nodes and there is also what is known as a terminal flower head (another term I hadn’t heard before). It is these flower heads that contain the profusion of small pink-lilac flowers that I photographed and liked so much.
Looking into the origin of its botantical name - Mentha aquatica - a story relating to attractiveness emerges. It seems that in Greek mythology, the nymph Minthe tried to seduce Hades, but Hades' Queen Persephone was on to her and turned Minthe into a sweet-smelling plant. Minthe's name is the origin of Mentha. The particular species name is more obvious “Aquatica”, is of Latin origin and means "belonging to the water”
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To me though they will now be known as the Purple Season Seductresses.
So while it's not Friday I hoped you enjoyed the flowers… and below the wonderful effect of the eaten away Red Alder leaves
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