Spikes of yellow star flowers with woolly orange stamens rise from an iris-like fan of leaves on a peat bog, turning orange in fruit
Bog asphodel, Narthecium ossifragum.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Bog asphodel
Native · flowers Jun–Sep · peat bogs, damp heath and moor
Narthecium ossifragum — Nartheciaceae
A plant of acidic bogs, wet heaths and moors whose spikes of star-shaped, bright yellow flowers with woolly orange stamens light up the peat in summer. The whole plant turns deep orange in fruit. Its Latin species name means 'bone-breaker', from a belief that it made grazing livestock brittle-boned.
How to spot them
- ▸Pyramidal spikes of open yellow star-flowers with woolly, orange-tipped stamens, 10–40 cm tall (Wildlife Trusts)
- ▸Narrow, iris-like leaves in a flattened fan close to the ground
- ▸After flowering the stems and egg-shaped fruits turn deep orange-red
- ▸Grows on wet peat and damp heath on calcium-poor soils, often with sphagnum
- ▸Look-alike: other yellow bog flowers, such as marsh marigold or tormentil, lack the woolly stamens, the flowering spike and the fan of iris-like leaves
How to know it
Its Latin species name means 'bone-breaker', from a belief that it made grazing livestock brittle-boned
Bog asphodel — the real cause was calcium-poor pasture, not the plant.
The whole plant turns a deep reddish-orange after flowering, with egg-shaped fruits
Bog asphodel.
Spreads on wet moorland both by seed and by creeping underground rhizomes, on calcium-poor soils
Bog asphodel, per the Wildlife Trusts.
Named after a classical plant of the underworld, though it is a bog plant of the north and west, not a true one
Bog asphodel, not a true asphodel (Asphodelus).
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Nartheciaceae; not a true asphodel (Asphodelus), despite the name
- •Wildlife Trusts: flowers June to September, up to 40 cm, locally abundant in the north and west and scarcer in central and eastern regions
- •Ossifragum means 'bone-breaker': livestock grazing on calcium-poor pastures where it grew developed brittle bones, and the plant was blamed
- •The Wildlife Trusts note that the plant does not cause the brittle bones — the poor soil does
- •Turns deep orange in autumn fruit
- •Sometimes called Lancashire asphodel
- •Reproduces by creeping rhizomes as well as seed and attracts pollinating insects
- •The plant is poisonous to grazing sheep
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Bog asphodel