Ling or Calluna vulgaris is a beautiful late summer flower growing in Norwegian pine forests and in the mountains. The evergreen shrub can be over 50 years old and sometimes it cover large areas. When it is in full bloom it is just like a pink carpet covering the ground.
I always thought of orchids as an exotic flower, so I think it is fantastic that there is wild orchids to be found in Norway too. They may not be quite as beautiful as the ones you find in more tropic areas, but they are beautiful in their own way.
In the forest close to were I live you can find one of the most common orchids growing in Norway, Dactylorhiza maculata also known as heath spotted or moorland spotted orchid.
Walking in the forest is like walking in a very large art gallery except you have to find your own beautiful treasures amongst thousands of displayed items.
It is fun to follow the development of the forest plants throughout the year. I always get excited when I find the blueberry plants (Vaccinium myrtillus) displaying their light pink flowers in May. The shape of the flower is very beautiful and reminds me of a greek ancient vase.
The photos show the blueberry plant in three stages.
The latin name of this little wild flower is Violeta palustris. It is very small, but I think the pale lilac color of the petals is very delicate and make the little flower stand out from the green grass it is surrounded with.
Walking in the forest in early summer you can find a lot of beautiful flowers and one of them is the yellow Trollius europaeus. In Norway it is called “flower ball”. It mostly grows next to a water source like a little creek, a swamp or nearby a pond.
When I went for a walk looking for this yellow flower ball I found it just beside a little creek and on some of the flowers there was a little visitor, a spider. I think the spider is a raft spider (Dolomedes fimbriatus), probably a young one due to the green color of the legs.
Arctic starflower or Lysimacia europaea is a common wild flower in Norway. The Norwegian name is “star of the forest”. This beautiful flower grows all over Norway in both the forest and highlands.
I think it is a very beautiful flower and every year I take new macro-shots of it and I never get fully satisfied with the results. Below is the two best shots from this summer.
Star of the forest
woodland dressed in green moss
silent
just the sound of light wind through the trees
little white flowers on the forest floor
shines
like stars in the night
-annef-
Strange times theses days with covid-19 ruling our lives. Working remote and not seing any of our friends as often as we used to makes our life quite different from a normal everyday life. Luckily nature goes on with normal procedures like spring. This year I think I have enjoyed spring more than ever due to the situation with the earlier mentioned virus. In nature I can relax and do some of the things I love the most, like photography and walk my dog, Charlie Brown. My earlier mentioned trip to China was cancelled due to the corona-situation, så there will be no post from China. Maybe later, I am not sure because so much has changed since February.
It has been a long time since I posted and a long time since I posted macro-shots, but todays post I have a few macro shots to share together with my beloved sheltie; Charlie Brown 🙂
The first spring flower in Norway is often Anemone hepatica, it normally is blue or white but sometimes you can find pink versions too.
Anemone nemorosa comes a few weeks later than Anemone hepatica but is just as beautiful. My sheltie, Charlie, always look after squirrels when we go for forest walks.
I love summer but autumn has a special place in my heart. Autumn is the most beautiful season with vivid colors and the crispy air on a sunny September day. The forest is loaded with mushrooms and berries and the green moss ground in the forest are sprinkled with leaves in all the shades of yellow and orange.
The theme for the last photo challenge I have each month with my friend Ellen was “many” (like in “a lot of”. It is always fun to have a photo challenge together with one or more friends because different people will solve the challenge differently. I always photograph things I can see, but from time to time I get ideas to make a composition but not very often. My friend Ellen is a more creative photographer and she is very good at combining these to ways of solving the task. So in this post I got permission to show Ellens photos together with my own.
Ellens Photos
Both shots are beautiful but the one with all the books is my favorite 🙂
My photos
Our next challenge is “Architecture”. It will be interesting to see how different we are able to solve that task 🙂 Anyway this way of training our photographic skills is very inspiring.
This summer the forest is back to normal compared to last years dry summer where there were almost no flowers and no good looking mushrooms for photography. Now the forest is full of mushrooms both edible and mushrooms which is worth a shot. Last Sunday I went for a forest walk, well, the weather was not the best for photography with heavy rain and dark skies but I was determined to find some nice mushrooms for macro photography. Here are the results (these are not edible):
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