Wild flowers 2012

Right, I have been trying where possible to take nice aesthetically pleasing pictures of all the wild flowers I see this year.
At this point 17/4 I have photographed over 40 species. Here are some of my highlights...... (and lowlights!)

 Coltsfoot...really early and a beautiful colour in the winter sunshine!!! I always look out for it on the duel carriageway near Wimland road, this search can become quite an obsession for me, and when I see the first yellow flowers I know spring is on the way.
It has strange scaly stems and buds, and the leaves only appear after flowering. This specimen was especially perfect!

 This is ladies smock AKA cuckoo flower, milkmaids and various other colloquial charming names. I think Ladies smock must be my most favourite early spring flower of all time, I don't know what it is I find so attractive about it, but it is possibly the wonderful delicate pale mauve flowers and the way it foams and froths along the roadside verges just like lace on a ladies smock! perfection!!

Wood sorrel, so delicate and charming and so beautiful! I love this plant too because it looks so fragile and has beautiful heart shaped clover leaves. I had to take this shot in the shade to show up the delicate purple veins in the flower.

This is barren strawberry, so called I guess as it never has strawberry fruit (probably because it isn't a strawberry at all). This tiny plant can often be missed, but it is well worth looking for, I love the way the 5petals and sepals form perfect symmetry. 

Hairy violet. I had to go to Mill Hill to find these growing on the chalk grassland, but I really think it was worth the effort as they are stunning.

Speedwell, another often overlooked little plant. I like these asymmetric pictures, I think they have a much more 'arty' feel to them.

Wild strawberry, the real thing this time, tiny like the barren strawberry, but totally different in close up. I love the stamens, they look like little ping pong bats!!!

Primroses bring back memories of my childhood when we would go to Wimland hill and pick bunches and bunches of sweet smelling primroses, all neatly tied in posies edged with leaves. I still remember the smell.... and even today when I smell primrose plants I am 8 years old again!!! Thank goodness the practice of 'primrosing' has long since died out and the poor plants have had a chance to recover and spread again.

This picture is of a primrose plant growing in the roadside verge, just how I always remember them.

Garlic mustard or Jack-by-the-hedge, a small often overlooked plant but important to me as it is one f the food plants of the Orange tip butterfly a real favourite of mine.