Wild Flowers

A few of these deep pink flowers were alongside the path on the heath approaching Kynance Cove on The Lizard peninsula in Cornwall. One of the plants had flowers with only four petals rather than the usual five and, just for a moment, we wondered if we’d found a new site for the Guernsey Centaury (Exaculum pusillum)!

Insight into Lesser Centaury (Centaurium pulchellum): native and widespread in southern England, it is rare or absent in Scotland and Ireland.

It is a member of the gentian and centaury family, Gentianaceae, and flowers from June to September.