Grange Community Park . . . .

. . . in Ribbleton, Preston. This is the site of the foundations of the former Ribbleton Hall, built in 1865 and demolished sometime before 1955. Typically, for a Friday afternoon, the clouds soon rolled in!

A mixture of colour before the rain . . . . .

Anybody want to buy a Fuljifilm S8100fd 10 megapixel digital camera whose Japanese designers thought it would be a brilliant idea to disable manual focussing in 'macro' mode?!!!

Sunny morning, clouding over, rain expected!

As hoped, the weather held out until mid afternoon allowing me to make a 'scheduled' (but lonely) visit to the Grange Community Park (or rather, close to it) in Ribbleton, Preston.

The name Ranunculus is Late Latin for "little frog", from rana "frog" and a diminutive ending. This probably refers to many species being found near water, like frogs. Well this Buttercup was nowhere near any water and shows the before and after condition (flower and seed head) - this is probably Ranunculus acris – Meadow Buttercup . . .
This next oddity takes me back to my school days, crawling over the sand dunes at Lytham (before anyone illegally bulldozed any away to improve the view!), during Biology field trips.

Plantego lanceolata - the name will never leave me - or Ribwort Plantain (or even English Plantain) is actually a weed - but quite pretty!

P. lanceolata is used frequently in tisanes and other herbal remedies. It is also used in many beverages (e.g. organic teas) and even tarts.

And the last in this sequence, some wild grasses . . . . .

Grange Park Community Gardens, Ribbleton