Scottish Thistle

Onopordum acanthium

I've been scanning back through sets of photographs taken from December to now only to have it confirmed how many garden flower photos I've taken. Why have I not taken more of the wild variety?

Now I feel I may have left it too late, as the lush beauty of the early summer flowers is almost over. Today there was this magnificent clump of Scottish Thistles growing near the lake at Cannon Hall but the majority of the thistles were our common or garden variety. On my walk I saw lots of Great and Rose Bay Willow Herb (Fireweed) and Meadow Sweet down by the water and the late flowers of the Dog Rose, there were even patches of a yellow vetch growing in one area of ground.

I do take notebook photos of flowers when we are out walking, often with a view to identifying them when I return home. Maybe it's time to equip myself with a `gorilla pod' for my walks out and to be a little more focused on taking decent photographs of some of the wild flowers in our locality.