Wednesday 28 April 2010

Sand Crocus

Popped over to Dawlish Warren today hoping to see the 'Warren Sand Combo'  Sand Lizard and Sand Crocus (Romulea columne). There was a lot of high level cloud when I left Seaton and I'd hoped that it would clear up during the morning but it didn't, not really. Any sunshine was hazy and watery at best and so there were no basking Sand Lizards to be seen. I had better luck with the Sand Crocus  though, despite it allegedly only opening in full sun ( that's what the books say) it was showing very well by midday. It's a teeny weeny little thing, barely a centimetre across and barely a centimetre off the ground either, but exquisite non the less! Dawlish Warren is one of only two places it grows in mainland Britain. All very nice I know, but surely it can't be as good as the Lundy Cabbage, a plant I'm hoping to see in a couple of weeks time. I can hardly contain my excitement I can tell you!! ;-)
Can you see it?
Small but beautiful.

I also tried a couple of mega close ups

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a treasure. I've just checked and the other place it grows isn't the IoW - drat!

Robert Wein said...

Thanks for the write-up and photos. I was visiting my daughter in Luxembourg for the last two weeks and she had a wedding to go to outside of Dawlish. So I contacted a guide to take me birding and we visited the Dawlish Warren. Being a birder (as we call them in the US), he was not that interested in flowers, but we saw some people taking photos close to the ground and he mentioned the sand crocus and asked if I wanted to see it. Absolutely!!! What a delight and I did get a few pictures from afar with a 400 mm lens (for birding, not for flowers). Thanks for sharing your photos and joy.

Bob W (Reston Va, USA)