An overlooked plant hero?

Red Bartsia with White-tailed Bumblebee

An unnoticed and unappreciated hero of the meadow? Red Bartsia is a plant I’ve ignored until today when I noticed that it is a fantastic source of nectar. Particularly now when nearly all of the plants have set seed. Even most of the Ragwort, a late source of nectar, is well past it’s best. In the image a White-tailed Bumblebee is taking full advantage of Red Bartsia flowers. It must be an easy plant for it to collect nectar from as it was very rapidly flying from plant to plant needing very little time at each. It’s also partly parasitic on grasses which is great for meadow making. The Wildlife Trust also says that’s it’s popular with Carder Bees and wasps with one solitary bee feeding only on Red Bartsia. Interestingly it wasn’t recorded on our plant species survey carried out in 2009. Now it grows in profusion. Possibly indicating the decline in soil fertility, a good thing, in the fields over the past decade plus.

Red Bartsia clearly has evolved very a successfully strategy, being close to the ground it’s likely to get missed during any hay cut or by grazing animals but as one of the few flowers with nectar at the moment is therefore actively sought out by pollinators.