Marsh grass-of-Parnassus, and other Meijendel plants

This Dutch video is about the Kikkervalleien in Meijendel nature reserve and the plants growing there.

After the blog post about Kikkervalleien wasps, birds and fungi, this blog post will make a start about the plants on 6 September 2014.

Before we arrived at the Kikkervalleien part of Meijendel, yellow Senecio inaequidens flowers. A species originally from Africa.

And smaller white small nightshade flowers. A species originally from Argentina.

Then, another introduced species: black swallow-wort. This poisonous plant is originally from southern Europe. The Dutch royal family used to hunt pheasants in this area. They imported pheasant feed from southern Europe. Black swallow-wort seeds came along with the ‘canned hunting’ feed. Black swallow-wort displaced native sand dune plants.

After conservationists tried various methods to remove the black swallow-wort, now they have discovered something more effective: cover the black swallow-wort areas with tarpaulin. The black swallow-wort dies. And after removing the tarpaulin, the black swallow-wort won’t come back, but the native plants will.

On a Kikkervalleien footpath, three flowering plants together: fairy flax; common storksbill; and red pimpernel. As it was still rather early in the morning, the red pimpernel flowers were not open yet.

Drug eyebright flowers.

Another plant, not flowering then; only leaves: star gentian.