Yellow Rattle - Rhinanthus minor - Yellow Hebridean Wildflowers

Yellow Rattle - Western Isles Wildflowers

Yellow Rattle - Hebrides Wildflowers
These lovely tubelike yellow flowers display through the summer months on the machairs, meadows and roadsides. The stems can reach 2ft in height and the yellow 2 lipped flowers often have a violet tooth at the tip.

Name From the Rattling of Seeds

The name of this plant is though to have been given originally as during the summer months when a breeze occurs, you can actually hear the seeds rattling in the calyxes or brown seed capsules which occur once the flowers are finished.

This was said to indicate that the meadow was ready to be cut for hay

Stems up to 2 feet in height
The stems can grow in height up to 24 inches and have black spots on them.

We are lucky here in the Hebrides to see this flower thriving so well on the meadow like land as many persons throughout the Uk, now buy the wildflower seeds which are included in many mixed wild seed packets.

These lovely yellow wildflowers show their faces from May through to September

Pollination
The flowers are typically pollinated by bumblebees, but if they are not pollinated they can self-fertilise

 

Yellow Wildflowers - Yellow Rattle - Hebrides Flowers
Yellow Rattle
Isle of Lewis - Western Isles
Yellow Rattle - Western Isles Flora
Hebridean Yellow Wildflowers
Yellow Rattle
Yellow Rattle Hebridean Wildflowers - Western Isles Flora
Western Isles Wildflowers
Yellow Rattle
     
Yellow Rattle - Hebrides Flowers
Wildflower - Hebrides
Yellow Rattle - Western Isles
Yellow Rattle - Western Isles
Yellow Rattle
Hebrides Wild Flowers
Yellow Rattle Hebridean Wildflowers - Western Isles Flora
Western Isles Wildflowers
Yellow Rattle
     
 
Click pictures below for larger photographs
Yellow Rattle is an annual
These lovely yellow wildflowers are annuals and therefore they rely on the production of enough seeds that will be dispersed ready for the next years flowers to appear.

Flowers
Yellow rattles flowers are yellow and are a tube like shape which stick out from the green calyx. The flowers ( 13-15mm long) are 2 lipped and the upper lip often has 2 short violet teeth which you can just see in the top picture at the tips.

Yellow rattle

Yellow Rattle - Hemi Parasitic (or Partially Parasitic)
This plant is hemi parasitic in that it gets some nutrition from host plants, but yet it can also manage to survive independently as it possesses the pigment chlorophyll and a root system.

Leaves
The leaves are narrow and toothed and serrated with dark veins and are slightly hairy and are arranged opposite each other in pairs all the way up the stems

Common Names for Yellow Rattle
The yellow rattle is often also called Yellow rattle, Corn rattle,Hay rattle,Penny grass,Rattle grass

Yellow rattle
Rhinanthus minor is a flowering plant in the family Orobanchaceae, native to Europe and Western Asia. Found in moderate to low fertility grasslands particularly meadows but also roadsides, dunes, lightly grazed pastures and dry areas within fens.
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