Thaspium trifoliatum var trifoliatum. Purple Meadow Parsnip.

Daucus carota var gummifer, Sea Carrot.

So far, only my Zizia aurea and Taenidia integerrima have bloomed. It's great to see my persistance with Yellow Pimpernel finally come to fruition. I can't find any signs of my Heart-leaved Golden Alexanders. They are nowhere near as vigorous as aurea. They obviously can't take competition while they are establishing. I'm already in native plant prison for growing Cnidium and Orlaya, so I should grow the bronze Buplureum while I wait for the burgundy Thaspium breakthrough. Some of your umbellifers are species new to me. The ultimate would be to grow our little Pepper and Salt Erigenia bulbosa. I've tried growing Perideridia and Polytaenia from seed with no success. I wonder if the seeds are viable when I recieve them. I made a point of scattering fresh seed when I sowed the Taenidia. It's not only Apiaceae that I like. I love all the Apiales. Valeriana and Aralia. Have you grown Smyrnium Rosaprimula? I joined an online British Wildflower group and the are a lot of British kindred spirit, diehard, native purist in the UK too. What's funny is that they feel the exact same way about Hog Parsley as us Americans do. I want to grow Heracleum maximum again after hearing people extoll it's delightful fragrace, and the thought of feeling dwarfed by those eNORmous umbells is so apealing. Hog Parsley is Heracleum mantegazzianum right. I think I've finally remembered how to spell mantagsgsidm.

"the(re) are a lot of British kindred spirit, diehard, native purist in the UK too."

Perhaps in the wild. But if you were to stick to natives only in your own garden you would have a pretty restricted collection and a very dull space for most of the year. Our native flora is small and many species require very specific conditions.

Is your lack of native flora because of geographic and climactic events, or a result of humans? I would think the diversity would be richer there, because the UK was the coastal area when it was connected to the rest of Europe, up til the end of the last ice age? I'm going to pay closer attention to what these wildflower people are growing. It's a group for wildflower enthusiasts, but everyone has a different perception of what constitutes a wildflower.

All of the above. Ice Ages and intensive land use for centuries. Habitat destruction is still going on. The last ice age, only 10000 years ago, covered 2/3 of the land and plants needed to recolonise afterwards.

What is the name of the group you've joined?

Grief no (to smyrnium) - horrendous spreader...but remarkable as an early coloniser of damp banks and ditches - that fresh green and shining leaves... I love wildflowers - especially when I acquired a bit of woodland, I fell right into a deeper ecological rabbithole...not that I garden there exactly, but I do record the local flora and fauna (have several copies if Keble Martin and Francis Rose (first time I have ever used a key for ID). Not really any sort of botanist though (because I am a dithery dilettante)...an unserious person, I am afraid.

But yes, our island diversity is very limited indeed because of glaciation and isolation...and again, the shaky boundaries between native and naturalised...I will say that I do think there is such a thing as a genius loci and have been trying very hard to grow plants which are fully at home with my climate, soil and general ambience - different to Floral's part of the world. Not sure what parts of the US would be similar...dry, open, huge skies, flat, yet very watery (just not from the skies). Fen, marsh, large open fields, very little industrial anything (apart from (increasingly) farming (mega farms). I no longer love my hometown (Cambridge) but it is still an undeniably beautiful place with a lot of green and no real delineation between urban and rural.

Also interested in the wildflower group you have joined but am a facebook refusnik (and shy recluse).

I also have bad feelings about any sort of plant purism and have huge reservations about the native plant movement because life does not obey categorisation and tidy boundaries. We are never going back to some prelapsarian age of pre-European purity...plus, there is a whiff of xenophobia and suspicion I find deeply uncomfortable. I get the desire to grow plants not just as aesthetic adornments because we share our world and have responsibilities to be stewards of the environment but the language of invasions, aliens, and detestation towards certain species is...horrible and makes me feel very uneasy.

Perhaps I exagerated about some of them being purists. I'm not sure what they are? They are always telling other members

that their plants aren't true wildflowers. I will have to ask them the group rules and their definition of what passes as a wildflower in Britain? There aren't many native plant purists over here. They are the ones who think people should only plant species that are native to their county, but they all break the rules and grow exotics. For the large number of natives I grow, I should have the right fo grow some exotics.

I'm more lakeside than seaside. It is pretty though. I got sea kale growing, lol.

I have had several somewhat futile attempts at growing pocket meadows with wildflowers - really hard work with very mixed results. Our local council has definitely jumped aboard with greenwashing:,no longer weeding (the less posher) parts of town, doing away with the bedding out system, no longer maintaining a lot of urban spaces at all...just sorta tendering out to some local business who puts in a dogwood and a shedload of advertising boards...sigh)..but fear it is a more cynical cost-cutting exercise rather than any great environmental awareness...and tbh, I would say they are encountering many of the issues which I also contend with (out of control thuggishness since the seasonal bed clearance has stopped and no supplementary weeding or clearing has been done in the 3 years since the beds were planted with some wildflower infused turf or other scammy venture...and nobody loves the no weeding either cos it just looks an unkempt mess so...I dunno. It's complicated. Grief, apols for punctuation-lite rambling moaning