DAY 51 (26 MAY) – Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) (Zahora, Spain)
Found this attractive wildflower on the sand dunes today. Complete with cute snail. It’s part of the borage family but a bit more dramatic than a more sombre variation I posted from Hampshire.
But these are native to the UK too, and typically found on wasteland, coastal cliffs and sand dunes like these in southern Spain. I love that there are pink flowers nestling among the purple. The colour changes through the season.
The name Echium comes from ‘echis’ which is Greek for viper. Not, I was glad to discover, because vipers like to hang out beneath it but because its flower stem develops in a coiled form.
365 DAYS OF NATURE 