DISTURBED FLOWERS

By this I don’t mean they need psychiatric help! Rather, this is a note about the fascinating flowers you can find on waste and disturbed ground. These plants have various survival strategies such as resistance to trampling, fast growth from seed to maturity, ability to survive drought and to grow in hard, hostile ground. Many are hemicryptophytes, that is they have perennating buds at the surface of the ground where they grow, thus protecting their buds by their leaves or the bases of their stems.

Some of these plants have extraordinary colonisation and survival strategies: perhaps the most famous, or rather infamous, is the rhizomatous perennial Japanese knotweed (above). This is, of course, not native to the UK (it is indigenous to East Asia) but has become a nuisance as an invasive species way beyond its native range. It is attractive, and was introduced as an ornamental in Victorian times (its young shoots are also edible and prized as a delicacy by some) but it escaped into the wild where it was first recorded in 1886. Its strong-growing rhizomatous thickets can damage road surfaces, concrete and brick structures, although its destructive powers have been rather over-hyped in the popular press. In its native range, though, it is able to grow on scree and lava fields, which abilities can make it problematic near buildings, so it has been listed under section 14(2) of  the Wildlife and Countryside Act, making it an offence to plant or otherwise cause to grow it in the wild in Britain[1].

Here is a short list of examples of the plants you can easily find on waste ground, paths, stoned surfaces and land regularly disturbed by people and occasional vehicles: creeping and spear thistles, common nettle, broad-leaved and ribwort plantains, silverweed, pineappleweed, dandelions, petty spurge, annual and rough meadow-grasses, common couch, fat-hen, common and spear-leaved oraches, creeping buttercup, groundsel, prickly and smooth sow-thistles, common chickweed, black medick, mayweeds, mugwort, creeping bent, false oat-grass, Yorkshire-fog, American willowherb, white clover, broad-leaved dock, yarrow, bramble, common ragwort, hogweed, perennial rye-grass, scarlet pimpernel, common field-speedwell, common poppy, cleavers, dove’s-foot and cut-leaved crane’s-bills, smooth and prickly hawk’s-beards.

There are many, many more than this list. Some have interesting and attractive flowers whilst the blooms of others, such as grasses and plantains, are fascinating rather than beautiful. Several are despised by gardeners as troublesome weeds, but I have to say that I admire any plant that can persist in such difficult conditions. There are several mosses and lichens that also grow in such places but a discussion of those will have to await another day.

Here are some photographs of a few flowers of waste and disturbed ground you should be able to find.

Can you identify all these? (They are not all at the same scale.)

Betts Ecology have many paths and similar well-trodden disturbed substrata on our sites and of course such habitats are ubiquitous in Britain. The plants that colonise them are fascinating, though, and it is worth looking more closely at them as you walk along, to begin to understand how they grow so successfully where they do.

 © Betts Ecology

[1] Our Fact Sheet N^o 29 tells you more about Japanese knotweed if you are interested (please email for a copy).