Are you one of those people who like to roam through forests and meadows, discovering various beautiful plants - and absolutely don't know how to tell native meadow plants apart? If this happens to you too, get yourself a good field guide that fits in your jacket pocket. The various meadow plants can be easily distinguished from one another on the basis of certain characteristics.

Identify forest and meadow plants by color

A first distinction is of course based on the color of the flowers, which is one of the most obvious plant characteristics. For this reason, numerous determination books are also structured exactly according to this basic scheme. Meadow flowers can have very different, colorful flower colors: These can be red, blue, violet, yellow, green, white, purple or pink. In addition to the color of the flowers, the individual plants also differ in terms of their flower and leaf shape, their habitat, their method of propagation, etc. With some plants you have to look very closely to be able to identify individual species correctly - this can sometimes be the case become dangerous, yarrow is confused with the highly poisonous giant hogweed.

Wild meadow flowers or reintroduced cultivated plants?

You are probably familiar with many wildflowers from your garden at home. Over the centuries, resourceful gardeners have developed very diverse and differently colored cultivars from the sometimes inconspicuous wild flowers. However, you should be careful to release such cultivars into the wild, especially in the case of rare and endangered wild plants (this includes cowslips, for example). Such a release into the wild usually only leads to the fact that the wildflowers, which are already under pressure, are pushed back even further.

Endangered meadow flowers must not be removed from the wild

A reliable identification of native meadow plants is particularly important if you want to pick a bouquet of flowers or collect seeds for your own wild meadow. Rare and endangered wild meadow flowers must not be picked or dug up under any circumstances. On the other hand, it is usually not a problem to collect the ripe seeds.

tips and tricks

There are probably several thousand different species of wild meadow flowers in Germany, which can be distinguished by their location, their flower color and shape, and other characteristics. Unless they are protected species, you can take them home and plant them in your own meadow. The best thing, however, is to leave the flowers themselves and instead just take the ripe seeds with you for sowing.

Category:

Herbs