#milkwort

A view including a gorgeous cowslip covered field it was excellent to see the landscape carpeted with their uplifting yellow catching the sun's rays and the wind's soft caress to sparkle gold and a stunning Dingy Skipper butterfly at Magdalen Hill Down 18/04/2026.

A couple of milkworts growing in Glen Nevis in Scotland! I’m not familiar with the genus Polygala, so identifying these was tricky for me. Given their small size and opposite basal leaves, I think they’re probably Polygala serpyllifolia, heath milkwort, which is common in peat bogs, heaths, and grasslands.  Polygala serpyllifolia is very similar to Polygala vulgaris, common milkwort, which has larger flowers and alternate leaves, though, and I can’t say with 100% certainty they - and in particular the bottom plant - aren’t P. vulgaris instead. 

Interestingly, when we were researching this plant, we found that a botanist in 1854 misidentified Polygala amara subsp. amara using the name P. serpyllifolia. Our understanding of plant systematics has changed a lot since the 1800s, and all three plant names listed in the International Plant Names Index as published by poor Carl von Fischer-Ooster are no longer accepted. 

Fringed polygala! A wonderful native wildflower. Unlike most woodland spring ephemerals its flowers are an almost unnaturally bright color. I love it a lot, partly because it’s always in bloom on my birthday and partly because, well, tiny hot pink airplanes with propellers—what’s not to like?

A showy wildflower from the Milkwort family (Polygalaceae), endemic to coastal SW WA, along with 18 others of the 24 in the genus. 

It prefers to grow in non-chalky sandy soil, near seepage zones. They start flowering with spring rains, and soon produce the hairy seeds they got their genus from, but will respond to summer or autumn rain by producing more flowers above the ones that have already gone to seed. 

In sheltered areas it grows to about 150cm tall. 

Milkwort Tames the Tiger