Joyden's Wood, May 2012.

View towards The Ship at Puddledock from Joyden's Wood, 12 May 2012.

This was a trip to Joyden's Wood, a Woodland Trust wood near Sevenoaks, with the Orpington Field Club.   This view looks open and countrified, but other edges of the wood abut suburban housing.  As well as woodland, there is a patch of heath, and the wood contains a couple of ponds.

There was a good range of flowering plants, most of them yellow, as well as a wide range of greenery and lots of invertebrates, and as with other recent trips I will split this into three posts.  But don't imagine that I ignored the leaves just because I wanted to capture the flowers.

Greater Celandine, Chelidonium majus.  Joyden's Wood, 12 May 2012.

The Greater Celandine is quite different from the Lesser Celandine that is one of our first Spring flowers.  This one is more closely related to poppies.  If you have difficulty identifying it, break off a piece of leaf, and you will see beads of bright orange-yellow sap.

In an open area, this plant was creeping and spreading.

Tormentil, Potentilla erecta.  Joyden's Wood, 12 May 2012.

This Potentilla is a relative of the so-called Barren Strawberry, which also has petals that tend to have gaps between them.  Later on, we came upon another low-growing yellow flower:

Yellow Pimpernel, Lysimachia nemorum.  Joyden's Wood, 12 May 2012.

This is botanically a Loosestrife, though it is in the same family as the more famous Scarlet Pimpernel. 

Next, the tiniest flowering plant I have seen.  It's a Thyme-leaved Speedwell, which grew in little clumps by the side of the path.  I was liiking at something else entirely when this minute specimen caught my eye.

Thyme-leaved Speedwell, Veronica serpyllifolia.  Joyden's Wood, 12 May 2012.

Just a single stem with half a dozen leaves and one flower.  Compare the sizes of the blades of grass next to it.  Not far away was a close relative, the much more robust and brightly coloured Germander Speedwell.

Germander Speedwell, Veronica chamaedrys.  Joyden's Wood, 12 May 2012.

This catches the eye much more easily, with its upright racemes of deep blue flowers.

I also got a reasonable shot of the flower of a Wood Speedwell, a plant I showed quite recently; I'll include it here so that you can compare the colours and see the general similarity of form.

Wood Speedwell, Veronica montana.  Joyden's Wood, 12 May 2012.

Last one for today.  This is a Hawthorn, and I think it is a hybrid of the Common Hawthorn, which has divided leaves and a single pip in its berry, and the Midland Hawthorn, which has rounded leaves and two or sometimes three pips.

Flowers of Crataegus x media, a hybrid between C. monogyna and C. laevigata.  Joyden's Wood, 12 May 2012.

In the flowers, each style and ovary will produce a pip.  So you can tell which species you are looking at by examining the leaves and counting the styles in the flowers.  This one has the rounded leaves of  Midland Hawthorn, and flowers with either one or two styles.  This mixed message is typical of a hybrid between the two.