Leaving the house after an evening meal is not easy nowadays. I would much rather collapse in a heap on a sofa and wait for a cat to come and sit on me but when my sister suggested that we go for a family wildflower walk to see what we could see in the fields that surround Malmesbury, I called upon my emergency energy reserves and off we went.
What a good idea it turned out to be and what beauties we found! My eight and five year old daughters kept records of the flowers that we saw and by the end of our walk we had filled pages and pages. We found over 40 different species of flowering plants. Favourites included flag irises, campion, rose bay willow herb, geraniums, clovers, hemlock but the star flower that lit up a overcast evening was the sighting of several stunning bee orchids (Orphys apifera) in the nature reserve.
The girls enjoyed the competition of writing down plants before the other one. The grown
-up girls enjoyed the evening leg stretch and the chance to swot-up on our wild flower knowledge. My mother found a pretty burgundy flowered plant that she recognised but couldn’t name. After much googling we hit the target and identified Hedge Woundwort. Quite possibly my new favourite wild flower and one that I hope I will never forget…..until next years wildflower walk with my favourite females.
