May is almost over, so there’s only a short time left to gather together your photos of wild flowers for Jude’s Garden Challenge! I already put some photos up of the bear leek growing on the island of Rügen in north Germany; now I’d like to show some more photos of wild flowers I’ve spotted growing around Europe. I don’t know the names of most of them – I should really buy a book of European plants. If anyone can label any of them, I’d love to hear what they are called. Of course I do recognize poppies, and they are among my favourite flowers. They pop up on many roadsides at this time of year (often around railway tracks for some reason), but you can also see them grown commercially for the seeds (presumably they also grow them somewhere to make codeine and morphine). In Germany, poppyseeds are called Mohn, and they are used in lots of sweet cakes, pastries and dumplings. A piece of Mohnkuchen is delicious, with an almond-like flavour, and if you ever visit Germany i’d recommend popping into a bakery to try a piece.

And here are some other flowers I’ve spotted growing wild this spring.

Buttercups

Buttercups

A lot of these white flowers around at the moment…not sure what they are called.

A kind of daisy, I think

Dandelions are the ultimate weed I suppose, but even they can be quite striking

Lots of blue flowers seem to be out at the moment

I’ve seen this in gardens (confetti bush I think it’s called), but it also seems to grow all over in Europe. I’m quite allergic to it, but i still think it’s pretty.

That’s all for the moment…if I have time before the end of May, I’ll put up some photos of South African wildflowers. There are many growing on the mountain, if you want to see some photos you can also check here.