Spring?

[exile]

Looks like we are in for a reminder of winter next week. That'll stunt the early sprouting bulbs.

[Polly]

Here in Berkshire the daffodils in our garden are mostly still sheathed, but primroses are open in various parts of the garden in large numbers.

Out on a walk on Sunday we passed through a small housing estate and on turning a corner were very surprised to see a front garden with fully-open daffodils en masse - such a bright sight on a miserable grey morning!

[Blaze]

Daffodils and crocuses .... and the mimosas are coming out, a beautiful sight at this time of year.

[Doug]

Real spring weather here today 19c in shade before the rain and wind arrived.
Bizarre.

[Lori]

Yes, 15 degrees today. At least it didn't rain for my 2 hours of auto-école lessons. I'm grateful for that.

[Headers]

We have bumble bees and butterflies, the grue and palombes are on the move north and the apricot trees and mimosa are starting to break bud.

[Blaze]

A bumblebee yesterday making a great deal of noise outside the window. It's wet and very windy here so everything's hiding.

[Blaze]

Love the colours of the spring flowers. It seems the yellow crocuses have reverted back to purple. It's interesting how many plants have mauve/purple as their root colour (buddleia, lilac, sweet peas etc) presumably because that's what the various colours have been developed from.

IMG_0713.jpeg

IMG_0722.jpeg

[demi]

And talking of purple, don't forget iris

[exile]

Love the colours of the spring flowers. It seems the yellow crocuses have reverted back to purple. It's interesting how many plants have mauve/purple as their root colour (buddleia, lilac, sweet peas etc) presumably because that's what the various colours have been developed from.

Many flowers have "colours" that go beyond blue and violet into the ultraviolet spectrum. We don't see them but it seems that at least some pollinating insects do. Some of these flowers display patterns that almost look like road signs - Here it is; Here is the nectar (and you can have a dob of pollen for your trouble). I am sure that tendency does not just stop at the uv/visible light boundary, so it may well be that the tendency extends into the visible blue spectrum.

Attracting pollinators obviously gives a Darwinian advantage for plants that propagate by seed.

Note however, it is not just blue flowers that have these uv visible colours. The common dandelion, yellow all over, shows a very distinctive darker centre in the uv range. Looks like a "don't bother messing about in the outer petals, the nectar is here at the centre. The link below has a picture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_coloration_in_flowers