UK: may flowers, moths, and gall wasps

[spiralsheep]

- May flowers (but no mayflowers) and the lifecycles of lepidoptera and gall wasps: details in rollovers or click through to flickr.

Garden tiger moth, Arctia caja.



Horse chestnut tree flowers, Aesculus hippocastanum, and horse chestnut leaf-miner moth, Cameraria ohridella. :-(





True blue alkanet, Pentaglottis sempervirens.



Bushy wild forget-me-nots, Myosotis ? probably sylvatica, for comparison with the following close-up image of their relative small flowered forget-me-not, Myosotis stricta, seen in extreme close-up hiding down amongst the grass in the second cap.





Dandelions, ? who knows which species (not me) ?, because in their place they’re beautiful.



Oak apple galls, caused by a gall wasp, Biorhiza pallida, sharing a tree with currant galls, caused by a gall wasp, Andricus quercusbaccarum, seen in close-up in the second cap.





Wild rose hips hanging on from last year.

Comments

[lavendertook]

Awesome close-ups ! That blue on the alkanets is so striking. Oh, and that's a horse chestnut--thank you for identifying the tree in front of my town youth center for me. Love the little wildflowers you have to look close for.

[spiralsheep]

Thank you! Every year I get a shock when I see how blue the alkanet flowers are. One of it's close relatives, also green leaves with (less) blue flowers, is called dyer's bugloss because it makes red dye. Weird.

At least two wholly disparate species of tree are called horse chestnut over here. The ones I capped are the oldest introduced species and the most common. The others have red/pink flowers on similarly shaped spikes but the individual blossoms are a completely different shape.

The small flowered forget-me-nots are so delicate and pretty but I had my face in the grass for that cap and they were still facing down away from me, heh.

[foxfirefey]

who is a fuzzy little caterpillar YOU ARE YES YOU!

[spiralsheep]

Spiky punk baby moth!

[shirebound]

Ooooh, the horse chestnut tree flowers are just gorgeous.

[spiralsheep]

A large tree full of those flowers is a spectacle not to be missed but then, if one leans in and looks closely, the individual flower spikes and even the individual flowers on those spikes are just as flamboyantly marvellous. :-)

[calissa]

These are lovely! Thank you for sharing. Also, thank you for stating the country in the title--it can be really confusing to work out sometimes!

[spiralsheep]

You're welcome! I don't always remember to state the location in the title but it's always in my tags here and on flickr (if you can find the tags in whichever layout you use, heh). :-)