Those who were on Symi over the winter tell me that the winter was the wettest they can remember. After a cloudy and cool start to my stay on the island the last few days have been sunny and increasingly warm.  The result is that flowering has been delayed but now plants are bursting into bloom all at once, catching up on a delayed start, programmed to complete the process before summer drought sets in.

Trekking around , particularly at low level, shows a huge variety of plants in flower.

This time last year a walk down the path to Pedi was rewarded with a few scattered patches of cyclamen remaining in flower.  This year there are literally tens of thousands, carpeting shady ground underneath trees, clustered at the foot of stone walls, growing out of rock crevices.

A cluster of cyclamen at the base of a stone retaining wall

In a woodland setting at the base of a tree

are white but some are deep pink

Others are white mottled with pink

Daisies of various kinds, but especially the flamboyant Crown Daisies, grow in clumps against walls, colour whole fields, with poppies adding an additional eye-catching splash of colour.

Crown Daisies, known amongst other names as ‘edible chrysanthemums, against an old wall

Closer view of Crown Daisies, some of which are entirely yellow

smaller daisies cluster tightly together

Crown Daisies fill terraced fields, splashed by poppies

A single poppy catches the eye in a dense mat of other small flowers including star clover

… or distract attention from dumped rubble

The path down the Pedi Valley to the coast has some of the most fertile soil on the island and a great variety of habitat types.  The result is a huge array of flowering plants at this time of year.

Wild lupin

Beautiful Dock

elegant flower in tight bud

….. opens out elsewhere

White Rock Rose

Tassel Hyacinth

Bermuda Buttercup, neither from Bermuda nor a buttercup

…. a double variety of the same misnomer

Looks like an orchid but is in fact Broom Rape, parasitic on the roots of other plants including Bermuda Buttercup

Spears of pale blue flowers – another form of Broom Rape

Leaf Orchid

… closer look at the flower

Blue Periwinkle

In places varieties of clover and other flowers just mass together like a rich shag-pile carpet

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