The Festival of Tiny Flowers 🌼🌸🌺

Whilst more people than ever were enjoying the music and activities of this year’s Freedom Community Festival, we were seeking out tiny wild flowers popping up along the busy pathways. And, we found some beautiful ones 😍

Shepherd’s Purse has tiny white flowers which, unusually, flower all year round, providing much needed nectar for pollinators. They have distinctive heart-shaped seed pods which are copper in colour like little penny coins.

A man passing by said: “it’s amazing you found that tiny flower with all this going on!” But, when you re-connect with nature you can’t help but notice 👀

Bird’s-eye or Common Field Speedwell, Veronica persica, has a beautiful blue flower with a white centre, which attracts bees.🐝🐝🐝

Lysimachia arvensis, syn. Anagallis arvensis, the Scarlet Pimpernel can also be blue in colour. As yet, we have not found one, but these little red ones are a lovely find. This flower was used to represent the fictional hero, of the same name, who rescued aristocrats from death in the French Revolution.

Creeping Cinquefoil has naturalised well and is appreciated for its ability to form dense ground cover and prevent soil erosion, creating habitats for insects. Potentilla, the Latin genus name, means powerful, despite its small size, it is a reference to the apparent medicinal value of plants in this genus.

Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill, Geranium molle, a pretty little pink flower, which interestingly has a double hyphenated name and two apostrophes (if you appreciate your English 😉). This plant has rounded leaves usually 5-7 with 3 upper lobes – quite different from our next Geranium family example.

Geranium dissectum, has quite different leaves from the G. molle. These are long and ‘cut’ like, hence the name.

All year round food for pollinators and all year beauty for us 💚

All these tiny wildflowers at your feet, often overlooked, often underappreciated are vital for all life on this planet, so let’s all do a little more to rewild our world 👍