On the verge

When I went shopping in the middle of the week,  instead of flitting up the M6 I took the scenic route from Greenholme to Shap. And, luckily, I had the little Fuji camera in my handbag, because the grass verges beside the motorway bridges were a gleaming tapestry of purple and gold. Positively Assyrian.

If you've ever thought that "anything that isn't growing in a tub or a garden bed, and anything other than clipped grass in the lawn, is a weed" then you should have another look at the wonders of Britain's grassland.

I parked the car and I swear I didn't walk more than 100 yards from it but I found over 3 dozen flowering plants:

Yellow ones

A little bushy clump of tormentil

Yellow pea
Bird's foot trefoil
Yellow rattle
Cat's ear
Meadow buttercup
Creeping buttercup
Tormentil
Crosswort
John Go-To-Bed-At-Noon   (and he had)

Green to yellow

Lady's mantle

Water avens occasionally throws double
flowers but those rarely
have any reproductive parts

Yellow to pink

Water avens - several showing a little aberration that it throws occasionally, double flowers

 

Pink

Ragged robin
Red clover

Eyebright is said to get its name
from its medicinal properties

White

White clover
Eyebright
Cow parsley
Pignut
Daisy
Ox-eye daisy
Yarrow
Mouse-ear chickweed (the smaller one)
Not to mention the rowan and the hawthorn bushes.

Northern Marsh Orchids

Purple

Marsh orchid (magnificent big fat spikes of them)
Wood cranesbill
Bush vetch

Blue

Germander speedwell

Brownish and rusty

Ribwort plantain
Sorrel dock



And that's just the things that were flowering. July will bring us the lavender and white heath orchids and the foamy cream of meadowsweet; thistles of the creeping, musk, marsh, spear and melancholy species; and the bristly brown-and-purple shaving brushes of knapweed.

Green is also a colour

Don't forget the flowering grasses - they are nearly up into your face!

Grasses

Timothy
Cocksfoot
Sweet vernal
Crested dogstail
Yorkshire fog
False brome
Red fescue

A little way along the verge from my house I also found the small Quaking grass, with pendulous flowers on stems like thin wire.

Even a thistle or a nettle has a use: sheep, cattle and horses eat the flowers of thistles (sometimes more), and the nettle has a history varying from cloth and rope to soup and beer, as well as being an ingredient in "dock pudding" and, of course, a feasting place for butterfly caterpillars.
 
One of the few benefits of Council budget cuts is that they don't send men round quite so often with mowing machines. Look at the glory they have left for us.