A few ferns....

Well, yet another awful rain filled week has gone by - it's been too miserable even to consider going out; any self-respecting wildlife would be well tucked up in bed! Much more of this and we wont have to worry about rain forests disappearing in South America - we'll be developing our own!! In the circumstances, I thought I would share some of the shots of ferns I have taken over time. I don't know much about ferns, mosses, liverworts etc, but I definitely want to get into them more. What I like about them is that you can normally find one in the most unlikely little nooks and crannies.

The first one here is called Wall-rue. It likes walls and limestone pavement and I took this one at one of my favourite sites in the Yorkshire Dales...Winskill Stones. This lovely area was saved from destruction as a result of a campaign by Gardener's World presenter, Geoff Hamilton (before he sadly passed away) and Plantlife, the wild plant charity (check out the website via the link on the sidebar). At one time there was massive demand from gardeners for limestone to create rockeries and sites like Winskill Stones were rapidly disappearing. Thankfully it is now a Plantlife Reserve.



This next chap is called Maidenhair Spleenwort, another one that likes walls or a rocky environment.

Next comes the lovely Hartstongue - our only fern with evergreen leaves....apparently. It seems to favour damp places - walls, woods or hedge banks.

I think this next one is a Common Polypody but I am not going to swear to it. I really need to get a good Fern book!!

Finally, I am pretty sure this one is called Hard Fern. The bottom shot shows nicely the overwintering clump of leaves, a darker grey-green colour. The light green being the new growth.

Hopefully, the rain will start to relent sooner rather than later and normal service can be resumed. My library of shots of plants and things is rapidly running out!