Springtime flowers: red horse chestnut

Springtime flowers: red horse chestnut

Some horse chestnuts have red flowers, rather than the usual off-white ones. They’re still arranged in candelabra.

They can sometimes be spotted, like this one, in large domestic gardens. It’s also keeping an eye out for them in parks; there’s a row of three in Bantock Park.

Springtime flowers: horse chestnut candelabra

Springtime flowers: horse chestnut candelabra

The flowers on horse chestnut trees are distinctive in growing in conical formation on stems which rise upward from the twigs of the tree. The elaborate arrangement gets the name candelabra (singular candelabrum).

Dandelion with common nettle-tap moth

Dandelion with common nettle-tap moth

A dandelion flowering by the path in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve. On the flower, a common nettle-tap moth was quite active as it probed down for nectar.