Scruffy Dogs, Early Dogs and Common Dogs

This post is going to be another retrospective because the weather isn’t letting up and it is just too dark or to put it another way…. There are some things about today that I really want to photograph but if I wait for better light I will get much better pictures. I don’t really want to do them badly.

I thought that we could look at some Dogs.

Early spring flowers, these haven’t been seen here before because I didn’t start this blog until May. These are Violets, the Early Dog Violet and the Common Dog Violet. Guess which one appears first…

Both Violets are out in March but the Early one edges it.

This next one is a Common Dog Violet.

Superficially they look very similar and for a long time I didn’t realise that I had two different species living side by side. They are both Dog Violets.

The Common one has deeper and more pronounced veining on the lower petals and I think that this makes it the prettier of the two but there is a much quicker and easier way to tell them apart.

Both Violets have a spur at the back of the flower.

The spur of the Early Dog Violet is darker than the flower.

The spur of the Common Dog Violet is paler, almost white.  This is so easy, it is the feature that I always look for.

There is another little violet that pops up here around about the same time and that is the Sweet Violet. It doesn’t really look like the other two and comes in a variety of colours.

The Sweet Violet is so called because it is sweetly scented and the Dog Violets are Dogs because they have no scent. I find that very funny because I have known a few dogs in my life and I have always found them to be warmly scented animals. A scent that I enjoy very much, like a new puppy. It is funny to call something a Dog because it doesn’t smell 🙂 (No offence Fizz)

As for the scruffy one, don’t worry about her, she’s with me.

But it is too dark even to take her picture properly.

I have lot’s of posts that I am eager to write. There is a tree near here that I have long believed to be possessed by demons. Well it turns out that it is not Demons at all but an extraordinary type of fungus. There are also King Alfred’s Cakes growing just outside of my door and I have a need to set fire to them. Yes indeed I have got Cramp Balls. There are lots of things about but I might have to do Daffodils next if the weather doesn’t improve a bit.