A few years ago, we rented a holiday cottage in the countryside. In the backyard, I spotted a huge patch of flowers that attracted loads of flying insects; bees, hoverflies, butterflies… they were all drawn to the big yellow flowers of these plants.
I spent an entire afternoon there taking photos. I thought it would be amazing to have those flowers in my own garden too, so I used the Obsidentify app to find out what they were.
After I discovered it was the Telekia Speciosa, I ordered some as soon as I got home.
And now, several years later, I still enjoy these beautiful flowers every year. And I’m not the only one, because my flying friends also like them.

The Telekia speciosa (or Oxeye), is a big yellow flower that looks a bit like a wild sunflower. It grows tall, but not as tall as a sunflower. The plants grow upto about 150 centimeters. They have large leaves and thin, messy looking petals. It’s grows a season and then completely dies. But it comes back again every year. A very rewarding plant

The plant grows a stem and each stem groes sidestems that will grow flowers. That way you get a group of clustered flowers. A lovely yellow patch in a sea of large green leaves.

The flowers go through different stages. When they open up they have this beautiful bright yellow color. The center of the flower is quite flat, but in the following days this center becomes more round. After a while the flower slowly turns brown, starting from the outside. You can clearly see the different stages of the flowers in the shot above.

But then what makes this a special plant; it attracts loads and loads of insects. I think this mainly is because of its color. The yellow color really stands out.

Today I saw a lot of insects swarming around the flowers, so I decided to grab my macro gear and take some shots.
In the picture above you see a hoverfly.

And today I was extra excited because I saw a butterfly on one of the plants. To my disappointment I see less and less butterflies every year. They really have difficulties with the changing climate and the usage of pesticides. Luckily there are quite a few initiatives to reduce the use of pesticides and improve the environment for butterflies.
We have the 'tile out, plant in' initiative, where the local government stimulates residents to make their yards more green. And they also changed their 'mowing policy'. They now have an initiative called 'May don't mow'. Where the lawns aren't being mowed, so the wild flowers can grow, which benefits the insects. I hope these initiatives will help the population of butterflies increase again.
At least I'm doing my bit...

And now for the butterfly. It's one of the first butterflies I've seen this year in my backyard. It's a lovely species; a Poligonia c-album, also called the comma butterfly. It's a beautiful butterfly. I like the jagged edges on its wings. It has a nice orange color, but the outside is brown, so when it closes its wings, it looks like a dried out leaf. Quite a good camouflage.
It was quite difficult to get some sharp images of this fella because it was quite windy. These two shots were the best of this series.

I really like the shot above. This is the perfect example why bees are so important. Because they fly from flower to flower they get pollen sticking all over their bodies, which they then transfer to other flowers to fertilize them. Without bees and their pollination, a lot of plants will die.
I took this shot from behind which clearly shows how much pollen it has on its body. The body should be black with yellow stripes, but it is mostly yellow.

The insects suck up the nectar from the flowers with their long tongues. I took this picture through some of the weird, long petals of the Oxeye plant and added a bit of a vignette which makes the bee really stand out.

Finally here is a shot with the flowe itself in closeup. Even without the insects on it it is an interesting plant.
I'm happy that I accidentally came across this beautiful plant, so I could buy and grow it myself and I can enjoy it every year.

If you reached the blog until here. Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think about the pictures in the comments!

Friendlymoose

I'm an amateur photographer with a love for indoor gardening, craft beer, and cycling. As the owner of the Cycling Community and the creator of the Topcomment initiative, I focus on fostering engagement and bringing like-minded people together.
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