The flora of PĂ©rigord in South-West France is abundant and diverse. In this blog you can find, in pictures, brief encounters with several hundreds of wild flowers and plants as they grow here in French Perigord. Following the seasons other species are added. An index of scientific and English names you find below on the right.

Corine Oosterlee is a botanist and photographer and she offers guided Botanical Walks and other activities around plants and vegetation in nature in Perigord. Do you want to know more? On www.baladebotanique.fr you can find more information. For Corine's photography see www.corineoosterlee.com. Both websites also in English.

Enjoy!




February 28, 2018

Dandelion


In well-protected spot the first dandelions (Taraxacum sp.) show their yellow faces.








A ray of sunshine makes it happen, even if it is cold.






Here they brighten up an old open-air washing place.

Dandelions are not specuies like other plants. It is difficult to decide of which species the genus Taraxacum is made. Often Dandelions reproduce in an agamosperm way, this means that new plants grow from seeds that come from unfertilized oocytes, so they are clones from a mother plant. It can be that a whole population is descended from a single plant, so it is rather an asexual line than a species. If we considered every line as a species, there would be hundreds or even thousands of dandelion species. Another complication: some plants show sexual reproduction and it is possible to find hybrids next to lines.

For practical reasons, lines that resemble each other are grouped into sections.





Big chance the flowers in this picture are Taraxacum fasciatum, a line that is part of the  Ruderalia, the most common section in Dordogne.






Blow!






If you look from nearby, you see the spiny tops of the seeds. Their colour varies with line/species.