Sisyrinchium

Back to regular monochrome. Sisyrinchium striatum adores the hot weather and soon as it feels the sun it opens its small creamy yellow flowers, closing them again a little while before dusk. The undersides of the flowers are marked with fine, straight red veins, which show very prettily when the flowers are closed. The monochrome doesn't show that so well, so I'll try to remember to do a colour photo later on. It seeds so readily that once you've got it it's always there; the only problem is to weed it out of where you don't want it. It's drought tolerant too, which is a boon. As the plants get older they get scruffier, and the border they're in benefits from fairly ruthless clearing out of older specimens in the autumn. But they're one of the loveliest and most useful summer flowers that we have - a real winner.