Noticed this flower that I hadn't seen before on the edge of a field bordering the Serpentine Walk. From a field guide I think that it is red bartsia (
Odontites vernus) which I'd never heard of before. It is a common plant of roadside verges, waste grounds and other disturbed areas. These areas often have low-fertility soils, so red bartsia is partly parasitic, gaining extra nutrients from the roots of its nearby host grasses. As its name suggests, the whole plant is tinged with red and leafy flower spikes appear from June to September.
Linnaeus originally named the plant Bartsia odontites: the generic name after a follower of his, German physician and botanist, Johann Bartsch, and the specific name for its medicinal use in soothing toothache. Odons is the name for a tooth in Greek.
Close-up of the red bartsia tiny pink flowers. The corolla is 2 lipped. The upper lip is entire and concave. The lower lip has 3 lobes. The stamens protrude slightly from the top lip.
1 comment:
Interesting.
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