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Hepatica and willow flowers

26.04.2009 - 10:45 |  Looduskalender
Text: Vello Keppart
Photos: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis from forum
 
Goat willow, Salix caprea.
 
Spring develops, slowly but surely. In the fields the ground frost has gone and spring farming has started. Birdsong is everywhere all day, the first wave of migrating birds has filled out the ranks of the winter-stayers, and the nesting period has begun.
 

On the sunny day of April 22, aspens, goat willows and tea-leaved willows began to flower in Jõgeva. Only the violet willow (Salix daphnoides) and the sharp-leaf willow started their flowering even earlier, but these species are seldom seen in nature, mostly being planted in communities. The violet willow occurs naturally in southeast Estonia, the sharp-leaf willow on shore dunes at Peipsi and in north Estonia. Overwintered bumblebee queens can  build up their stores of energy again now. The protected bumblebees build their nests near early-flowering willows – hence the advice to keep willows in the landscape; destroying these bushes is a hard blow to bumblebees and other early spring insects. Honeybees also need the nectar from willows.

 
Bee on colt's-foot.
 
On the edges of fields and on ditch-banks the yellow flowers of the clay soil loving colt’s-foot dominate the view.
 
But in woods this is the time of liverleafs (Hepatica nobilis or Anemone hepatica). In a cool spring the woods will shimmer in blue for nearly a month, or, with summery warm days, for some weeks. Hepaticas are most common in fresh boreal forests, and broadleaf and alvar forests.
 

How should Hepaticas in parks be cared for? The leaves that grow after the flowering will reach a height of 10-20 cm. Where Hepaticas grow, the grass should not be mowed, to keep the plants from starving. Being plants that keep their green leaves over the winter, Hepaticas like to have a cover of dry leaves in winter – leave-raking should be avoided, the leaves that fall in autumn will in no way harm the flowers of broadleaf forests. Raking away leaves and dry grass however clearly damages plants and mosses in the groundcover or herbaceous layer of the forest. Grass will not grow well in the shadow of trees but the moss “lawn” flourishes. Be careful about the environmentally protected wood ants too, Hepatica seeds are spread by ants.

 
Liverleaf, Hepatica nobilis.

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