This one of the Cow parsley,  Anthriscus sylvatica, was recently done for FOR in Sweden.  It accompanied a large sheet of sketches of the same plant.  To learn more about Cow parsley, and how to identify it, check out my blog.

There’s also a Youtube film that accompanies this blog; please find a link at the end of this blog, or click here to access it.

You’ll notice that this habit sketch is less accurate than many of my illustrations.  This goes with the territory.  There’s only so much detail you can cram into a 20cm tall illustration of an entire plant, and individual petals and leaf veins don’t get a look in.  However, if you want to show a whole plant, rather than one portion of it, then a habit sketch is the best way to do this.  Alternatively, you can use a much larger format and work on a plant portrait which will be more accurate and less impressionistic.

Completed habit sketch of the Cow parsley

Habit sketch:  Pencil rough

The first thing to do when confronted with a habit sketch is to learn as much as you can about the plant.  I gather lots of specimens, and consult various botany books.  these include A Flora of the British Isles by Clapham Tutin and Moore, The Wildflowers of the British Isles by Garrard and Streeter, the pen and ink drawings of Stella Ross-Craig, Collins Flower guide by David Streeter, and (in this case) the BSBI Handbook: Umbellifers of the British Isles.

Once the plant and botanical information is collated, I draw up a pencil rough that shows each important element to its best advantage.  I use mechanical Pentel P205 pencils with an H or HB 0.5mm lead.  I draw directly onto my watercolour paper, in this case hotpress Fluid 100 by Global Arts.

One of the reasons why I use Fluid 100 is because it’s quite good at allowing you to erase your pencil lines after you’ve painted on top of them.  Various papers will, or won’t be good for this.  The way I paint means that it’s important that a paper will give up the graphite but not the paint pigments once I’ve completed an illustration.

Cow parsley pencil rough (with basal rosette and stem details)

Are leaves alternate or opposite?  Are upper leaves noticeably different from lower ones?  is there a basal rosette of leaves?  How are the flowers carried on the stems?  What does the root do?  All this information needs to be given by the illustration.

Habit sketch: Leaves

Once the client has approved the roughs, you can start adding colour.  I begin with the leaves, outlining them in green.  Winsor and Newton are my favourite watercolours, and I use pans topped up with tube colours.  I mix sap green, some cobalt blue, and a bit of cadmium yellow light together.  I keep the paint quite thick and dry at this point.  Carefully, using my trusty Series 7 sable brush (size 1), I follow the pencil lines of the leaf edges.  This approach is the same as I use when painting ferns and bracken.

Outlining the leaves

I observe my plant carefully, and add some variation to the green hue.  The central leaf is a little paler and brighter green than the others – I add yellow to the mix and outline it with this new colour.

Different greens are used to outline the leaves

Habit sketch: Top washes on leaves

Once these initial lines are dry, I add water to the greens to make them lighter and more dilute.  Then, using the same brush, I pop blobs of this watery green onto the leaves.  I love the crisp edges watercolour gives if you allow very wet paint to dry, and this is the effect I’m after here.

Watery green top wash is applied very wet

Because of the midrib veins and the way the leaves are structured, you’ll often see one side of a leaflet is darker than the other.  This needs to be included in the habit sketch.  You can either do this by going over the darker, shaded side with two layers of top-wash; or you can use a different and brighter colour for the top-wash on the lighter side of the leaflet.

Putting the first wash onto only one side of each leaflet

In this case I’ve done both.  I added some yellow to the top-wash, and covered the entire leaflet with this mix.  (I’d made sure the first and darker wash was completely dry first.)  Allow the paint to dry completely.

Two different colours of top-wash used on the leaflets

Habit sketch: Painting the stems

I actively enjoy painting stems because it’s so easy.  Mix up the right colour (as always, check with the plants in front of you.  It’s so important to keep referring to the plants you’re illustrating if you want to get details such as form and colour right).  This is a sap green plus a little yellow ochre, perhaps a touch of blue, and plenty of a clear bright yellow such as Cadmium light.

Then just outline the stems, following the pencil lines.  You can apply a little more pressure to one side of the stem than to the other.  This helps suggest a light source, and shadow.  Traditionally in botanical illustration, the light source comes from the top left, so the heavier lines are to the right of each stem.

You can also add ridges, furrows, or textures with simple lines if that’s appropriate for the species you’re working with.  With Cow parsley, the stems are ridged, prominently so towards the base of the plant.

Outlining the stems

Once the illustration is completely dry, dilute the colour you used for the stems with plenty of water.  Then simply put this watery wash over your stems and allow it to dry.

Putting a watery top-wash onto the main stem

Habit sketch: Painting the flowers

With habit sketches, the precision and detail of each flower is compromised in an effort to represent the entire plant.  So there are no individual petals to portray, just the frothy mass of flowers that constitute each umbel (or flowering head).

Illustrating white flowers is really hard – you need to show their form without making them look like they’re another colour.  For more on this subject, check out my blog or my Youtube film.  In this case, the shadows cast by each umbel are going to be key, and will be what we use to represent some tonal depth.  As with the leaves and stems, out light source is from the top left; so the shadows will fall from the right hand side of each umbel.

To ensure the flowers look clean and white, I mix a light blue.  Cerulean blue is light and bright enough.  Dilute it to a very pale tone, then pick out the shadows with the tip of your brush.

Adding shadow to the flowers

I work from the top of the plant downwards.  this helps me avoid resting my hand in wet paint and smearing the illustration.  Series 7 brushes are expensive, but they justify their cost by holding their tips.  When you’re applying tiny amounts of pale paint to the nooks and crannies of an illustration, the accuracy you can get from your tools is really important.  For more on my choice of paintbrushes, click here.

Applying blue to show shadow in the central flowers

Habit sketch: The root

The root tends to be included in a habit sketch, specially if it’s an important diagnostic feature of the species.  Please note that it’s illegal to uproot flowers in the wild – I happen to have cow parsley growing in my Aunt’s garden, and she was happy for me to unearth a few plants to get at the roots.

Illustrating these tap roots couldn’t be easier. In exactly the same way as you tackled the stems, outline the root.  I mixed some Vandyke brown with yellow ochre.  Remember to pick out the texture and root hairs, too.  Once dry, dilute the mixed colour and pop the watery top wash over the whole root.  Done.

Putting a top-wash on the Cow parsley taproot

Habit sketch: Adding shadows

Now the illustration is more or less complete, it needs shadows to bring it to life.  I favour a mix of purple and cobalt blue, sometimes with a dash of Vandyke brown.  Using this, and being really careful not to go too dark too fast, I pick out the darkest shadows.

This is an important stage.  Judicious application of shadows can help clarify muddy or messy areas of a sketch.

Adding shadows to clarify a leaf’s structure

I always put shadows below each flowering head, and frequently pick out the tips of leaves to help the eye find the edges of the illustration.

Again, because the scale of the illustration shows an entire plant, you’ll find it hard to accurately represent the shadow details on each portion of each leaf.  This is one of the drawbacks of a habit sketch.  I often find myself trying to pull in more detail than is possible.  there has to be an element of “giving the impression” of a plant when it comes to habit sketches.  I’ll admit to struggling with this looseness at times.

Fixing mistakes

Inevitably, sometimes when we paint we make mistakes.  Quite often I’ll think that a stem I painted is too wide, or perhaps a top-wash has overflowed an edge.  There’s no need to despair.

Using white gouache to fix mistakes

I use Winsor and Newton white gouache, permanent white, to fix my mistakes.  I use it really thick, straight from the tube or mixed with a tiny amount of water.  It helps sharpen up messy edges, or will hide a mistake.  It should be noted that using this is fine for your own work and for work that’s going to be reproduced (it doesn’t show up on scans); however, if you plan on selling your original artwork then the use of white gouache is frowned on.

Conclusion

And that’s it!  The illustration is finished.

Last step is to erase the underlying pencil lines.  If you’ve got a good hot press paper, you should be able to do this without damaging any of the paint (no, I don’t understand why this works either).  I’d suggest going easy on the rubbing out around the flowers as the only marks suggesting them are the pale blue shadows and the pencil.  A tougher approach can be used on the stems and leaves and root.

Hopefully, this illustration immediately suggests an entire Cow parsley plant growing in the wild.  Habit sketches tend to accompany much more detailed botanical illustrations which help clarify exact structures of stem, root, leaf, fruits, and flowers.  I find them pretty hard to illustrate, but exceptionally useful when it comes to identifying wild flowers in the field.

And now, I hope, you’ll have some idea of how to go about creating your own illustration of an entire plant; your very own habit sketch.

Completed habit sketch of Cow parsley with paint box

To see a real-time film of me completing this illustration and discussing the process, please check out the film below.  Thanks.

The post Habit sketch of Cow parsley: step by step appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Sketchbook studies

All the botanical illustrations I do for FOR are in a sketchbook format.  I love working this way; it gives me the opportunity to include tons of details alongside a larger illustration of the whole plant.  Over the years I’ve figured out what elements I need to include for each plant, so can figure out the composition before getting started.  In general, details of flowers, fruits seeds, roots, and a cross section of the stem is needed.  These elements need to be accompanied by a habit sketch, a full colour image that shows the entire plant growing, and close ups of any unusual characteristics that the plant may have.  I always include written notes, as much to jog my own memory as to help the viewer.

Cow Parsley Sketchbook study Anthriscus sylvestris

Another appealing thing about the sketchbook studies is that you can leave parts of the illustration unfinished.  This gives me the opportunity to get into really intense detail on things like an individual leaf, or one bract.  The pressure to have the entire drawing completed in full colour is gone, which makes the process more relaxing.

Cow Parsley in the spring

For those of you who have been in the British countryside in early June, you’ll already know all about the Cow parsley.  If frothes up along hedgerows, spilling tiny white flowers out into rarely-used roads and paths.  At the same time, the May blossom is out, so you often have the wonderful sight of lots of white blossom curving down from the shrubs and trees, being met by the Cow parsley flowers growing upward from margins of fields and lanes.  It’s very beautiful.

Drawing the Cow Parsley

Umbellifers, like Cow parsley, are a real challenge to draw.  I’m sure I’ve moaned about the challenges before in blogs on Hogweeds.  The problem is that the plant is often really tall and leaves spread widely from the stem.  However, each element of the plant is tiny.  The flowering heads are made from hundreds of tiny individual flowers.  the outermost ones are zygomorphic, meaning their outermost petals are a different shape to those of the internal flowers.  The leaves are divided, or pinnate.  Sometimes divided several times over, as with the Cow parsley.  This results in very beautiful and feathery leaves.  But combining the size with the detail is very difficult, hence my aversion to all members of the Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae) family.  I love the way they look.  I live in fear of being asked to illustrate them!

This commission came in at the height of Cow parsley season.  I spent a morning gathering perfect plants, taking photos, and considering the best approach to the illustration.  Once home, I pinned an entire plant up against the trampoline in the garden, with a sheet behind.  I always take photos at the same time, sadly plants don’t live forever and some wither within hours of being picked.

Cow parsley set up to draw in the garden

Cow Parsley: Flowering times and leaves

Identifying Cow parsley is easy, mainly because of when it flowers.  It’s the earliest of these white-flowered umbellifers to bloom, especially in the southern UK.  And it’s certainly the most common.  Look for it from early April through June; by July all you’ll see is some basal leaf rosettes and seed-heads.

Cow parsley sketchbook study done back in 2015

The leaves set the plant apart from other common and similar species, such as Hogweeds.  They are 2-3 pinnate, which means they’re divided into leaflets, then each of these leaflets is sub divided.  It gives them a feathery, fern-like appearance. They tend to be a muted spring green, although can be tinged red or yellow when stressed by drought.

Cow parsley leaf variety and plant overview to show difference between small upper and large lower leaves

Leaves either grow from a basal rosette at the bottom of the plant, or alternately up the stem.  Lower leaves are borne on long, broad stalks, higher up the plant the leaves have far shorter and thinner petioles.  The big basal leaves can be up to 30cm, with individual divided lobes measuring 10 – 30mm

Cow parsley: Stems

Stems are gently ridged, and hollow.  They don’t have blotches of colour like some other Apiaceae species.  The stems can grow from 50 – 150cm, making this quite a tall plant.  Stems tend to be slightly downy at the top, and hairless down by the base of the plant.

Cow parsley stems

Cow parsley: Flowers

The frothy flowering heads of this plant family are umbels; these are lots of little groups of flowers carried on stalks or rays.  Each umbel has 6 – 12 of these rays which are about 2cm long.  The arrangement of flowers has males in the centre and hermaphrodite flowers around the margins.  Unless you’re inclined to get your hand lens out, this won’t be immediately obvious, although you’ll certainly see a difference in size between the inside and margin flowers.

Cow parsley flowers and detail of a small umbel seen from above

Each flower has 5 white petals and is 3 – 5 mm across. A whole umbel measures 10 – 60cm, but there’s plenty of variety.

There are no bracts right below the flowers, but some appear lower down.  Sepals are there but are so tiny as to be inconspicuous.  There are 5 stamen and 2 thin stigma.

The outermost flowers are zygomorphic which means their petals are of different sizes.

Cow parsley: Fruit

Fruit are 6-9mm long and carried in pairs.  They start green and become brown at maturity.  Each one has a short beak-like tip.

Cow parsley seeds

Conclusion

Why do I love Cow parsley so much?  Well, it’s a combination of factors.  The delicacy of the frond-like leaves is visually very pleasing.  The mass of scented flowers smell of the countryside.  And the way Cow parsley lines lanes and hedges is a harbinger of warmer days, and long golden hours spent revelling in an English summertime.  So, for all of these reasons, and despite the issues with detail and scale, I’m happy to go on learning and drawing this gorgeous plant.

Illustration completed for FSC guide to Flowers of Walks & Waysides

Please see my step by step Youtube film below

The post Cow Parsley: All about an Umbellifer appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

This blog sets out to share what these distinctions are.

Similarities

These plants are both large members of the Apiaceae, or carrot family.  They have big lobed, dissected leaves, and a froth of tiny white flowers borne at the top pf their thick, ridged and hollow stems.  Leaves are opposite, and there tend to be more toward the base of the plant.  There’s wide variation in leaf shape for both plants.

The flowers are in terminal clusters known as umbels. Each individual flower is tiny, with five petals.  Outermost flowers have elongate petals which point away form the flower cluster.

There are about 50 different hogweeds in the Apiaceae family, and these ones are of interest because of their status as invasives.

Cow Parsley Anthriscus sylvestris (Another Apiaceae, not a hogweed)

Cow-parsley is another plant in this family which includes carrot, celery, hemlock, fennel, chervril, pignut, and even sea holly.  Both our hogweeds are perennials, which means they live more than two years, and both are troublesome invasive species in Scandinavia.

Size

The easiest way to tell these two similar plants apart is with a ruler!  Giant hogweed is significantly taller than Persian hogweed; its average height is around 3.5 m.  It’s been known to grow up to 5.5 metres tall!

Giant hogweed

Persian hogweed is by no means tiny, it averages 1 to 2 metres in height, with maximum height around 3 m.

Below is a scale illustration to give some sense of this difference, showing a grown man of 180 cm.

Comparison of the size of the Giant hogweed (on the left) and Persian hogweed (on the right)

Leaves: Giant Hogweed

As soon as we start talking about the differences between leaf shape we get into tricky territory.  I was commissioned to do these illustrations in winter, so was relying heavily on photos and other illustrations.  What I would have given for actual leaves from these plants!

Size plays a role here.  The Giant hogweed leaves can measure up to 3 m long, and be 1.7 m wide.  Although large, those of the Persian hogweed are smaller.

Leaflets are borne in opposite pairs with one terminal leaf (pinnate) and each leaf tends to have three to five leaflets.

There’s masses of variation in Giant hogweed leaves.  Younger ones can be pinnate or almost round.  Larger ones vary considerably in size and shape, depending on environmental conditions.

Variety in shape of young Giant hogweed leaves

Giant hogweed leaves feel spikier than those of the Persian species, and have more acute tips to the leaf lobes.  They are densely hairy below, and glabrous above.  Leaves are sharply dissected, and the lobes are long and narrow.  The literature suggests that the teeth of the leaves have more or less concave sides.  As with the young leaves, there’s a lot of variation in leaf shape.

Variety of mature leaf shapes of Giant hogweed

Leaves: Persian Hogweed

Persian hogweed leaves feel a little softer, a little rounder.  They’re up to 2 m long.  The lobes are broad and short, and tend to have blunter tips than those of the Giant hogweed.

There are two to four pairs of serrated leaflets per leaf.

Leaves are hairy below and glabrous above.  The teeth are said to have more or less convex sides.  Once more, there’s a whole lot of variation even between leaves on a single plant.

Variety in mature leaves of Persian hogweed

Stems: Giant hogweed

The stems of Giant hogweed are flushed crimson on the leaf petioles, and blotched red on the stems.  Sometimes these spots are raised, and in many cases have a hair or bristle growing from each one.  Stems can be large, up to 10 cm in diameter.

The stems are bristly, with a concentration of stout hairs forming a ring just below the petiole.

Detail of stems from Giant hogweed

Younger stems are also spotted dark crimson.

Giant hogweed has a distinctive pale yellow root.  I was unable to find information on the colour of the Persian hogweed root, apologies.

Detail of the root of Giant Hogweed

Stems: Persian hogweed

A major distinction between the two species (which I only learnt whilst researching this blog, alas!) is that Persian hogweed can have multiple stems.

Stems of Persian hogweed have less crimson botches, and may be only faintly flushed with red.  Most of this colouring is towards the base of the plant.  When present, the flush makes the stems appear a uniform brown colour.  Many will have purely green stems.

These stems are more sparsely hairy, and the hairs are less coarse.  The distinctive annulus of hairs below the petiole may be absent.  Width wise, Persian hogweed stems are thinner than those of the Giant species.

Persian Hogweed

Reproduction and Seeds

Both plants are perennial.  Giant hogweed lives three to five years, and is monocarpic.  This means it flowers, sets seed, then dies.  Plants are able to reproduce from three years of age.  One plant produces an average of 50, 000 seeds, each of which is viable for seven years.  Plants can produce as many as 100,000 seeds.

Persian hogweed is also able to reproduce at three years old.  Unlike the Giant hogweed, it is polycarpic which means it can set seed repeatedly.  One plant can produce 80, 000 seeds per season.

The whole Persian hogweed plant is said to smell strongly of aniseed.  Although Giant hogweed has an aromatic scent, it isn’t reminiscent of aniseed.

Persian hogweed seeds

Seeds of these plants look similar.  They’re known as schizocarp (for more on types of seed, check out my earlier blog) and have two parts.  They have papery margins and obvious oil-glands that look like dark stripes.  There are two on one side, four on the other.  In Giant hogweed these glands look club-shaped; less so in Persian hogweed.   Both seeds are quite thin, and ridged.  However, the ridges of Persian hogweed are a little more pronounced than Giant hogweed.  Giant hogweed seeds are about 1.5 cm long whereas those of the Persian hogweed are a smaller 7-8 mm.

Seedhead and single schizocarp from the Giant hogweed

It’s worth noting that the seeds of the Persian hogweed are used as a spice in Persian cooking, specifically in making Golpar.  They’re mostly sold in powdered form and have a bitter, aromatic flavour.

Flowers

This was a really tricky area to untangle, and several sources directly contradict one another when describing the overall shape of the flowering umbels of these two plants.  The National Biodiversity Data Centre Ireland claims that Giant hogweed umbels are rounder than those of Persian hogweed; whereas several other sources such as Q-bank claim the opposite.  My reliable British Flora (one by Stace; one by Clapham, Tutin and Moore) are silent on the matter.

An update to the blog:  I’ve just had information from Lars Froberg, a Swedish botanist who knows a great deal about Umbellifers.  He categorically states that the Persian Hogweed has a more domed flowering head than the Giant Hogweed.

Main or central umbel of Giant hogweed

Therefore, accept my apologies in advance if my summary below isn’t perfect.

Both these umbellifers have frothy flowering heads of tiny white flowers, each bearing five notched petals.  Each flower has five stamens, five sepals, and a pistil of two fused carpels, and two styles.  The central or main umbel has bracts which swiftly fall off, the bracteoles of secondary umbels are persistent.

Another Apiaceae species; the Sea Carrot Daucus carota gummifer

Both species flower (in Scandinavia) between July and September, although Persian hogweed will bloom a little earlier on average.

Flowers: Giant Hogweed

Giant Hogweed bears its flowers in a somewhat flattened inflorescence.  These flowering heads are broad, measuring up to 80 cm across.

There are 60 – 120 rays per inflorescence.

Giant Hogweed with an exaggeratedly flattened inflorescence

As with many Apiaceae species, the outermost flowers are zygomorphic, or differently shaped to those further within the cluster.  Their outermost petals are slightly longer than the rest, and are deeply notched.

Single exterior flower from Giant hogweed

Flowers: Persian Hogweed

The Persian hogweed has domed umbels of flowers.  As with the Giant hogweed, flowering heads can be 80 cm across.

There are 35 – 85 rays per inflorescence.

Persian hogweed with an exaggeratedly domed inflorescence

The side branches seem to matter here.  They bear flowering heads which are significantly smaller than the central umbel; this isn’t true of Giant hogweed where side branches can produce umbels almost as large as the main flowering cluster.

The external flowers are zygomorphic, in this case they have really long outer petals.  This gives the edges of the umbels a feathery look, and if you take a close look at an individual flower is really distinctive.

Putting all this information together gives you the following comparison:

Persian hogweed (on the left) and Giant hogweed (on the right).

Other similar species

Although the size of these two plants makes them instantly distinguishable from other members of the carrot-family, there can be confusion.

Repeated trampling, cutting, or grazing can reduce their final adult size.

Hogweed Heracleum sphondylium and the subspecies Heracleum sphondylium sibericum can look similar to the Giant and Persian hogweeds.  Their maximum height is 2 m, but most are 1 m or less.  Stems don’t exceed 2cm in diameter. Leaves are no longer than 60 cm and are less deeply divided than those of our hogweeds.  The flowering umbels rarely exceed 20cm.

Sosnowsky’s hogweed Heracleum sosnowskyi is another invasive in Finland, and can grow to 5 m!  It differs from the other two in having rounder leaf lobes and has 30 – 150 rays per umbel.  From the images online, it seems to have a pronounced and domed flowering head.

Hogweed Heracleum sphondylium

Saying that, there are problems with species identification, as our hogweeds have been known to cross-breed and create hybrids.

Conclusion

My main conclusion is that telling the difference between similar members of the cow-parsley family can be super-tricky, especially when references and sources disagree!

Both plants are enormous, and have these white frothy flowering heads.

Both can be killed off by repeated ploughing and cutting back, or gyphosphate pesticide.  Grazing can help eradicate them, although it makes milk taste acrid.  And interestingly, both can suffer from infestations of Celery beetle Phaedon tumidulus (celery’s another member of the Apiaceae family, so this makes sense).

Both plants are massively problematic invasive species, and are notifiable in several countries.

Differences can be found in the colouring and hairiness of the stem, the scent, and the shape of the umbels and outer flowers, and in the seeds.  The leaves are a good place to start.  Spikier and deeply serrated is likely to be Giant hogweed.  Rounder and with convex teeth and you’re probably looking at a Persian hogweed.  Or a hybrid!

Many thanks to FOR Sweden for asking for clarification from Lars Froberg; now these differences have his seal of approval I feel much more confident about the content of the blog and of my illustrations.

Resources

As a result of my struggles with this job and blog, I’ve not only ordered a copy of Tutin’s Guide to Umbellifers of the British Isles, but have also booked myself on a day-long course on identifying Apiaceae.  I’m ready to learn, and equally ready to be massively confused!

Resources used include the Encyclopedia of Life; Giant hogweed and Persian hogweed pages; and Naturespot. The National Biodiversity Data Centre Ireland had good sources of information on both Giant and Persian species.  Naturegate had good information on both species; and the Woodland trust was also useful.

For a fabulous visual comparison of hogweeds, check out the link to Q-bank.

Books included the aforementioned Stace and Clpaham, Tutin & Moore British Floras, alongside Collins Flower Guide by David Streeter.  Importantly, and especially if you read Swedish, Lars Froberg recommends looking at Flora Nordica, volume 6.  The two species are described in this volume, and he is the author of the chapter on Heracleum species.

Here’s a short film of me discussing the differences between these two species.

These original illustrations are mostly available to buy.  Have a browse in the Original unframed sketchbook illustrations and Original unframed plant illustrations section of my website, using the search facility.

For other blogs comparing invasive species (namely the Lupin and Goldenrods) check out my earlier blogs.

The post Comparing Hogweed Heracleum Species appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

What I love about these jobs is the enormous amount you learn about species you may never have noticed before.  In this blog, I’m going to showcase a few of these lovely plants, and what seaside habitats you’re likely to find them in.  To see the entire list, you’ll have to wait til the chart is published and buy a copy!

For more on Coastal Flowers, you might want to take a look at my recent blog on Halophytes (salt loving plants) and their amazing adaptations to a tough habitat.

Categorising Coastal Flowers

The flower species I illustrated are categorised according to their habitat by FSC.  Although all the habitats are near the coast, the species growing in each are quite site specific.  We have coastal flowers of cliffs, sand, mud, and shingle.

Coastal Flowers: Cliffs

I’m familiar with most of the species that appeared in this habitat because of time spent walking the coastal path in Pembrokeshire. This means that there are lots of details in my botanical sketchbooks, and this helps me to draw these plants out of season.

I’m particularly taken with the Sheep’s bit Jasione montana and have always loved Thrift Armeria maritima.

Sheep’s bit looks like scabious and is sometimes called Sheep’s bit scabious.  However, it’s a member of the Campanulaceae family, so don’t be fooled!  It has that distinctive pale blue colour which is so hard to capture in watercolour.

Sheep’s bit

This plant can be told apart from other scabious species because of its rather domed flowering head and paler hue.  It grows on cliff-top grassland and can carpet a cliff with lilac blue.  Like lots of other wild flowers, it looks amazing if you examine it under UV light. These patterns help attract pollinators whose vision includes the ultraviolet spectrum.

Thrift is another flower that can carpet a cliff-top.  It grows from rounded cushions of straggly linear leaves, and is sometimes called Sea-pink or Cliff clover.  It grows on rocky outcrops, and can look incredible when next to golden-yellow coastal lichens.

I love the delicate way the individual flowers in the flowering head overlap one another, and jostle for position.  However, getting the structure and anatomy of these right is always tricky.

As with the Sheep’s bit, Thrift is also grown as a garden plant.

Thrift

Other plants in this habitat include Buck’s horn plantain Plantago maritima and the elegant and early-flowering Spring squill Scilla verna.

Buck’s horn plantain

Spring squill

Coastal Flowers: Sand

These flowers were less known to me, although I’ve always loved Sea bindweed Calystegia soldanella and illustrate it often.

Sea Bindweed

An instantly recognizable plant is the Sea Holly, Erygium martimum.  It’s got such a distinctive colouring, all pale blues and grey-ish greens.  This colour is due to its thick waxy leaf cuticle which helps it regulate water in salty environments.  The leaf shape takes some working out, and having the network of lacy white veins against the glaucous leaf blade is really hard to illustrate.

The flowering head looks like a thistle or teasel, and produces gorgeous blue flowers.  Again, not easy to illustrate!

Sea Holly roots can grow deep, and used to be sugared and sold as sweets!

Sea Holly

Common Restharrow Ononis repens is a gorgeous little plant.  It’s low lying and forms mats across the sand, studded with bright pink flowers.  Another similar species, Spiny Restharrow, bears impressive prickles, but this species only has the occasional spine.

It’s leaves are blueish, and a little greasy to touch.  I think the gradation of pink to white on the flowers is stunning, and was really fun to illustrate.

Common Restharrow

And why is it called Restharrow?  The plant has an incredibly tough and thick mat of roots that anchor it, and these would stop a plough (or a harrow) in its tracks.

Another of the Sandy habitat flowers I loved illustrating was Sea rocket, Cakile maritimum.  There’s something very elegant about the four-petalled flowers of cruciferous plants, and this species is no exception.

Sea Rocket

Coastal Flowers: Mud

Flowers growing in the mud and estuarine habitats are all pretty new to me.  Partly cause I’ve not spent much time in salt-marshes, and partly because when I do, the flowers are often inaccessible out on the mud flats.  It was lovely to get the chance to learn more about them.

Sea aster is a daisy-like flower with pale blue flowering heads.  It grows in clumps along muddy banks of estuary and salt-marsh habitats, where the mud is a little drier.  Like some of the other coastal flowers in this blog, it is prolific and can make a muddy bay pale blue with its flowers.

Sea Aster

Danish scurvy-grass Cochlearia danica was new to me.  It’s a pretty little plant with mauve flowers and a basal rosette of sprawling leaves.  Related to the cabbage, it’s entirely edible, and very high in vitamin C.  This explains the name; sailors would eat it to ward off scurvy.

Danish Scurvy-grass

This plant (and it’s relative the Common Scurvy-grass, Cochlearia officianalis) are thriving.  Roadside verges get sprayed with salt in the winter, and this creates the perfect salt-rich habitat for these opportunistic little plants.  In fact, scurvy-grass has colonised more new habitats in the last 50 years than any other British wild plant (Plantlife).

Common Scurvy-grass

Coastal Flowers: Shingle

I recognized lots of the flowers on the shingle habitat list as I spent some years in Selsey, near Pagham Nature reserve.  The beaches are all shingle, and very beautiful too.

The hardest one to illustrate was the Sea carrot, Daucus carota gummifer. Umbeliifers are really hard to draw as there is so much detail in both the leaves and the flowering heads, and the overall shape needs to be spot-on for identification.  In fact, I’m going on a day course this year to learn more about Umbellifers and the Apiaceae.  I’m hoping it’ll help me when I next have to paint one of these beautiful plants.

Sea carrot

The flowering heads will often have just one or perhaps two isolated dark purple flowers in amongst the creamy ones.  It’s very strange, and very pretty.  In bud, these umbels look reddish, but the petals and flowers are creamish white once open.

Although the plant has leaves that smell of carrots, their roots are very different.

Sea mayweed Tripleurospermum maritimum was entirely new to me.  I’ve illustrated other mayweeds, and was keen to know how this species differed.  The main difference seems to relate to where it grows.  Mostly along the top of the drift-line, this mayweed tolerates salt levels that would kill other similar species.

Sea Mayweed

There’s lots of variation in leaf thickness and stem shape, but the plant is generally stouter than its most similar cousin, Scentless mayweed.  It has branched wiry leaves, and its stem can be flushed purple.

Other flowers in this habitat include the Sea pea Lathyrus japonicus.

Sea Pea

Conclusion

I loved this job and can’t wait for the chart featuring my illustrations of coastal flowers to be produced.  How fortunate to have a job where you do what you love, and you get to learn and assimilate new botanical facts with each new day!  As always, I’m indebted to the Naturespot, Wildflowerfinder, and Wildlife Trust websites which are treasure troves of neatly packaged, botanically accurate information.

Yellow horned-poppy

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