The weather wasn't too bad. It was predominantly sunny, with scattered clouds that were subduing the sunlight only from time to time, leaving plenty of well-lit minutes in between. But the warm, humid, southern wind was relatively strong and quite annoying for macrophotography. I saw only a couple of insects crawling or flying around, and managed to photograph only one of them.
Fortunately, some interesting plants were in bloom, so I returned home with enough material for a decent, nature-themed post. This wide shot shows you a bit of the scenery, and one of those plants is posing with its flowers in the foreground. In the following photograph...
...you can take a better, more up-close look at two of those flowers. The scientific name of this plant, commonly known as the golden samphire, is Limbarda crithmoides. It is a strictly coastal plant that grows in muddy intertidal zones or in the cracks of sea rocks or even high cliffs.
These lovely purple flowers with juicy petals...
...that grow in clusters...
...is commonly known as alfalfa or lucerne. Native to warmer temperate climates, it has long been cultivated as livestock fodder, perhaps since antiquity. However, you can see it also in places where it has spread naturally without human intervention.
The scientific name of the species is Medicago sativa.
The alfalfa/lucerne shown here was growing pretty close to the sea...
...under the shrubs, only about five to ten meters from the coastal rocks.
Here you can take a look at the unpaved coastal road bordered by thorny shrubs and creepers, while in the following photograph...
...you can see a herbaceous plant that grows at the edge of that impenetrable green barrier of intertwined plants, mostly covered with thorns.
Its scientific name is Linaria vulgaris. The common name is the common toadflax.
In this coastal area near the harbor of Liznjan, I found it only in a few places where it grows sheltered from the winds by taller, sturdier vegetation.
Here you can take a better, more up-close look at the Linaria vulgaris flowers. I used the macro lens in this photograph.
Here, where I live, Linaria vulgaris is a wildflower and a weed, but today, while searching the Internet for this post, I learned that it is sometimes cultivated for cut flowers, which are long-lasting in a vase. And these flowers are also quite beautiful; I would like to add.
Smilax aspera is one of the main cohesive ingredients of the thorny, impenetrable maquis in my seaside area. It grows as a climbing plant or a shrub, or a bit of both, I guess, and can be very annoying if you find it standing in your way. Here you can see the tiny flowers of this plant. I mean, the flowers are small and inconspicuous, but they can form fairly big clusters that are kind of showy.
I find this much smaller, spherical cluster especially cute.
Here you can see the big cluster photographed in ambient light in the late afternoon.
This wide shot shows another inlet on that stretch of coastline.
And now, at the end, the only insect I found for today's post. It is a bug from the Pentatomidae family, a shield bug, in other words.
The scientific name of the species is Dryadocoris apicalis.
AND THAT'S IT, THE POST ENDS HERE. AS ALWAYS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.
The following links will take you to the sites with more information about the protagonists of today's post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_samphire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfalfa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linaria_vulgaris https://www.plantea.com.hr/tetivika/ https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/636587-Dryadocoris-apicalis
