I’m setting a little challenge today: how many of these buds can you identify? My selection contains hairy buds, arching, clustered, leafy, capped and felted ones. (I’m having to write more text than I want to here so that WordPress doesn’t ‘helpfully’ include the answers in the preview in The Reader. I think that should do it!)
I’m adding in a budless picture for those who don’t like flowers but unaccountably made their way down to here (and to further conceal the answers from everyone else).
For more lichen pictures, click here, or if you’re impatient for the answers, read on…
Answers
Bud A: Borago officinalis (Borage; Starflower)
Bud B: Papaver rhoeas (Corn poppy)
Bud C: Rosa rugosa (Rose)
Bud D: Gossypium (Cotton Plant)
Bud E: Symphytum officinale (Comfrey)
Bud F: Verbascum, possibly V. bombyciferum (Giant Silver Mullein)
Bud G: Senecio ‘Angel Wings’
Add up your score, giving yourself 1 point for each correct answer. It’s not an end of term test, so I’m not fussed whether you know the plant by its botanical name or the common name, or if you use a different folk name than the ones I’ve listed. You can even give yourself a point for knowing the plant but temporarily forgetting its name if you like.
0: Oh dear. Either I’ve made this too hard or you wouldn’t notice a bud if it pecked you on the leg.
1-3: Budding talent
4-6: Bud-tastic
7: Never mind buds – you’re in full flower!
8 or more: Hang on… you can’t count or you cheated.
Susan Rushton 
Oh dear. Only ‘budding talent’, me. And i started off so well ….
The cotton is a tricky one for northerners – the cotton grass on our moorland gives us the wrong steer – but once seen, it’s very memorable.
I should have known …
Some familiar and some not familiar here…laughed at the idea of being pecked in the leg by a bud…hope it’s not an Audrey!! 🙂
Quite – or that peck would turn out to be a mere appetiser.
A beautiful bunch of buds.
I only had a few pictures, so this is bud lite.
You could put it that way.
I’m bud tastic! Didn’t recognise cotton plant or comfrey. 😭
Comfrey grows wild round here. It isn’t widespread, but it persists. Having grown up around it, I can’t see a picture of the plant without recalling its texture.
Lovely idea! I got them all except the cotton plant…. I didn’t look at the leaves properly and thought it was a strawberry! LOL!
It does look like an eccentric strawberry, dressed up for a day at the races.
I loved this.
I’m glad!
I didn’t look at the answers but I did see your grading scale and laughed long at “pecked on the leg.” I had no idea about any of them, but I loved, loved, loved each one! There’s just something about a bud….I will study the answers and try to learn.
I ought to confess that I made the rose bud as hard as I could, knowing your expert eye might fall on these.
My “expert eye” was totally baffled by the leaves. It was still the best quiz ever! (The best quizzes are the ones you learn from.)
p.s. It took me way too long to spot that bee! I was looking for him in the chinks. I can be very good at missing the obvious.
The bee was very steady, as if it was saying ‘By all means take a picture or two if you want, but this is my stone’.
I’m a budding talent…
You certainly are!
Great fun, Susan! I got all except for the Cotton, which is not a plant I see much living up north. 😉
I have never seen it growing here either. Our moorland has expanses of what we call cotton, but it is actually a sedge.
I give you an A+ for the photos, a sharp contrast to the F I get for recognizing 0 buds. But I did see the bee right away. 🙂
You’re very kind, David. Eagerly waiting for things to flower brings a familiarity with buds, but I was surprised to discover how few pictures I take of them (and keep).
5
I did not recognize cotton or comfrey.
Not ones that grow for you, perhaps?
Cotton used to grow in Contra Costa County, and would likely grow here, but is not popular for home gardens or landscapes. I have never seen it outside of cotton fields. A neighbor grows comfrey, and I know I could also, but I am unfamiliar with it just because I have not yet bothered growing it.