Friday Flowers

In the red.

Musk Mallow, Malva moschata. A neater and more elegant relative of the common mallow. A perennial of slightly neglected open grasslands on well-drained soils.

It is found in hedge banks, road verges, lightly grazed pasture, meadows and waste land, flowering from June to August/September.

The flowers of Musk Mallow have a musky smell, hence the common name. They have five petals which are lobed, pale pink with fine, darker pink veins.

 The stems and the lobed leaves are hairy.

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Red Clover, Trifolium pratense. A perennial with trifoliate leaves, which belongs to the family of Leguminosae, and grows in a wide range of grasslands.

Other names for red clover are cow clover, purple clover and bee-bread.

The flowers are variable in colour, from pink to deep red.

A plant much loved by bees, and also used medicinally to treat a number of conditions, including cancer, whooping cough, respiratory problems, and skin inflammations.

Red clover also grows well in grazing land where it binds nitrogen into the soil. Planting red clover will improve the soil because the roots have special nodules that house nitrogen-fixing bacteria. These bacteria can grab nitrogen from the air in the soil and make it available to the plant. When the red clover plant decomposes it makes that nitrogen available to the soil.

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Whatever you are doing, enjoy the upcoming weekend.