old man’s beard | Dot knows! (elleturner4)

My mother, who knows I take copious amounts of photos, gave me this seed pod that she found….

Mais qu’est-ce que? Or for those of you without french (!)-But what is it?

Oh bliss, oh glory…..I’m so happy with your name oh flower seeds!

I suspected that they were iris seeds and googled as such.

Imagine my delight when I found them and their name!

Stinking Iris (Iris foetidissima for the more intellectual!)

Sadly I still have that childish sense of humour that so enjoys names of this sort.

Here’s another view…

Oooh you are pleasing to my eye!

Stinking because:

The memorable feature isn’t the flower, which is unspectacular by the standards of many irises, but the smell. If you crush the foliage between finger and thumb you release an aroma that’s reminiscent of roast beef or, perhaps more accurately, the exaggerated beefy smell of a packet of roast beef-flavoured crisps. The species is sometimes known as roast beef plant.

And there you have it!

Now for some grass seeds..

I think they are grass seeds anyway!

Here’s their insides!

How neat!

Now, I am very lucky to live next to fields that have many skylarks in them. They are quite shy birds and if they are not hiding in the field foliage, they are flying so high in the sky that they are difficult to see, though they sing the most beautiful song. Occasionally though, they congregate in trees and on my walk yesterday, in the distance ahead, I spotted them in a tree. I knew I couldn’t go to near as they would just fly off, so I took photos from where I was. Now I don’t have a super duper camera with zoom lens etc., and so these are not really clear, but, well you be the judge..