Any wild flower experts out there? Mauve and white flowers along motorways.

[Mary Chambers]

Just think, she could more easily have been named Marge...

Perhaps that's why in the end they decided against it.....

[Lateralthinking1]

native bluebells

......are smaller and more attractive and have a far more vivid colour, with almost a haze around them. I don't know what causes that effect.

I was going to suggest either candytuft or teasels as I couldn't really picture what was being asked by the question but I would have been way off the mark.

[amateur51]

Just think, she could more easily have been named Marge...

Have a heart!

[vinteuil]

This is to thank our various experts above.

Mme V is just back from a long weekend on the Isle of Purbeck, staying with wildflower enthusiast friends. The very first thing she said on her return was - "We need to get some wildflower identification books!"

Thanks to contributors above, and the good offices of Messrs Amazon and Abe, the Vinteuil shelves* will soon be groaning with various Keble-Martin, Clapham Tutin Warburg, Francis Rose, and other Blamey & Grey Wilsons.

* I say shelves. There is no shelf space left. They will have to be added to the books piled up on the staircases...

[Richard Tarleton]

* I say shelves. There is no shelf space left. They will have to be added to the books piled up on the staircases...

It's got to the "one in, one out" stage in this house

Still on the theme of things seen at 70 mph, my record of a roadkill polecat near Sutton Scotney on the A34 has been confirmed as "highly possible" by the Mammal Society, alas the evidence too squashed to be 100% certain it wasn't a feral ferret.

I hope ferretfancy is not too upset by this. Enemyofthestoat may take a different view.

[umslopogaas]

A couple of points about floras. My sincere apologies if you are all excellent botanists, but in case not, be aware that the professional floras are quite hard to use if you dont speak the jargon of botanists, and they are not illustrated. These are Clapham Tutin and Warburg (if its still in print) and the one that is used by my botanical colleagues, which is by Stace. Unfortunately I cant remember either his initials, or the exact title.

Keble Martin is excellent and of course, you can identify your plant just by matching it to the pictures.

Another book that my botanist colleagues use a lot, and recommend, is David Streeter, C. Hart-Davies, A. Hardcastle, F. Cole and L. Harper (2009) Collins Flower Guide. This is illustrated.

[Richard Tarleton]

Good point. As an average botanist I started using Rose on the recommendation of an expert colleague, and find his combination of keys (90-odd pages of these) with good text and beautiful illustrations helpful and not too daunting. Personally I've always found Keble Martin's pages a bit crowded, but lots of people swear by him of course.

My 1981 edn of Rose has a description of goat's rue but no illustration, so still a recent arrival at that stage....

[umslopogaas]

Yes, the world does not lack illustrations of the British Flora. It is perhaps a pity that so much attention has been given to so little. I remember well the parting shot from my old university teacher of botany, Prof. E.J.H. Corner, I was lucky enough to attend his last lectures. "The British flora, my boy? Pah, sixteen hundred highly modified little weeds. Go to the tropics, my boy, that's where the real plants are."

So I did.

And he was right.

But that's another story.