level seven
Registered user
I posted this in the Flowers etc section but I know not a lot of people look there so I thought I'd repeat it here. I know many of you have wide natural history interests apart from birds.
Last Wednesday, on a beautiful spring-like morning, I joined a botanical group I'm a member of to look for snowdrops in north-east Northumberland. Led by a recently retired professor of botany at Newcastle University, we were particularly looking for yellow snowdrops.
These have white petals, but the ovary and petal markings are yellow rather than the usual green. Apparently such plants are all but unknown in the wild anywhere in the world apart from this area of Northumberland. Here they're found in a fairly constant ratio of about 1 plant in 500. The characteristic is inherited through the female line and also, unusually, not via the DNA.
Apart from the interest of these, we saw huge drifts of snowdrops in a couple of woods, many more than I've ever seen before in one place. I'll certainly be going back again next year.
Last Wednesday, on a beautiful spring-like morning, I joined a botanical group I'm a member of to look for snowdrops in north-east Northumberland. Led by a recently retired professor of botany at Newcastle University, we were particularly looking for yellow snowdrops.
These have white petals, but the ovary and petal markings are yellow rather than the usual green. Apparently such plants are all but unknown in the wild anywhere in the world apart from this area of Northumberland. Here they're found in a fairly constant ratio of about 1 plant in 500. The characteristic is inherited through the female line and also, unusually, not via the DNA.
Apart from the interest of these, we saw huge drifts of snowdrops in a couple of woods, many more than I've ever seen before in one place. I'll certainly be going back again next year.