Field Notes Journal Entry
Towards a Flowering Typology
Not just when plants are present, but when the landscape comes into flower
From Presence to Visibility
In earlier entries in this series, I’ve been looking at how species move through the year — whether they are present or absent, constant or seasonal, and how those patterns emerge when observations are grouped by month.
Those analyses describe how species occupy the year.
The breeding classifier added something further: not just when species are present, but when they are seen with young — moments when the next generation becomes visible.
For plants, there is an analogous shift.
A plant may be present throughout the year, but only becomes conspicuous — and therefore recorded — when it flowers.
That suggests a parallel question: If these observations are grouped in the same way, do flowering records also fall into recognisable types?
A Simple Approach
The approach is the same as before, but applied to a different aspect of the data.
For each species, observations in which flowering is recorded are grouped by month. From these, two simple measures are derived:
- Total flowering records — how many observations were made
- Flowering presence — on how many days flowering was recorded
From these short sequences, a small number of features can be calculated: how many months the signal appears in, how concentrated it is, where it is centred, and whether it forms a single peak or multiple pulses.
As before, the aim is not to build a model, but to see whether the shapes already present in the data can be given names.
Patterns Begin to Emerge
When viewed across species, these flowering signals do begin to fall into recognisable forms.
A small typology emerges:
| Species | Flowering Classification |
|---|---|
| Snowdrop | Early spring ephemeral |
| Bluebell | Spring pulse |
| Garlic Mustard | Spring pulse |
| Cowslip | Spring pulse |
| Buttercup | Extended spring-summer flowering |
| Common Cleavers | Extended spring-summer flowering |
| Red Campion | Extended spring-summer flowering |
| Cow Parsley | Extended spring-summer flowering |
| Rosebay Willowherb | Summer peak |
| Cuckoo Pint | Summer peak |
| Daisy | Near-continuous flowering (spring peak) |
| Dandelion | Near-continuous flowering (spring peak) |
| Red Dead-Nettle | Near-continuous flowering (spring peak) |
| Shepherd’s Purse | Near-continuous flowering (spring peak) |
These categories are not defined in advance. They arise from the structure of the curves themselves.
Shapes of Flowering
What is striking is how different these patterns can be.
Some species show a brief and sharply defined window. Snowdrops, for example, appear early in the year, form a compact flowering period, and then disappear entirely.
Others produce a clear spring pulse — a recognisable but short-lived season of flowering that gives way quickly to summer.
A third group extends more gradually. Flowering begins in spring but continues into the summer months, forming a longer and less sharply bounded signal.
And then there are species that never quite disappear. Their curves rise and fall, but rarely reach zero. A strong seasonal peak may be present — often in spring — but flowering continues at lower levels for much of the year.
In a few cases, the signal may show more than one peak, suggesting repeated flushes or favourable conditions later in the season.
From Shape to Category
From these observations, a small set of categories can be defined:
| Classification | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Early spring ephemeral | Short, early-season flowering window |
| Spring pulse | Compact spring-centred signal |
| Extended spring-summer flowering | Broader signal extending into summer |
| Summer peak | Flowering centred on mid-summer |
| Late-season flowering | Peak later in the year |
| Near-continuous flowering | Present across most months, often with a dominant peak |
| Bimodal / recurrent flowering | Multiple peaks with clear or partial separation |
| Mixed / transitional flowering | Present but not cleanly resolved into a single pattern |
| Sparse / insufficient signal | Too few records to define a pattern |
As with the other classifiers, the categories are descriptive rather than prescriptive. They do not impose structure on the data, but reflect patterns already visible in the underlying curves.
What These Patterns Represent
It is important to be clear about what is being captured here.
These classifications are not direct descriptions of flowering biology. They do not identify the full flowering period of a species, nor the limits of its ecological range.
They describe something more immediate:
The seasonal shape of observed flowering visibility
A near-continuous pattern does not necessarily mean that a species is always in flower. It may instead reflect repeated or low-level flowering that is occasionally recorded outside the main peak.
Similarly, a compact spring pulse may reflect both biological timing and the fact that the species is most noticeable — and therefore most often recorded — during that period.
In that sense, the patterns are shaped not only by plant biology, but by visibility, detectability, and observer attention.
Patterns of Change
Seen alongside the seasonal and breeding classifications, these categories add a third dimension to the picture.
The seasonal classifier describes how species occupy the year.
The breeding classifier describes how the year renews itself.
The flowering classifier describes how the landscape itself changes state.
Together, they begin to form a more complete account of the rhythms of the place.
Limitations and Observational Bias
The same limitations apply here as elsewhere.
Flowering is not always recorded consistently. Some species are easy to recognise in flower, others less so. Some persist at low levels outside their peak and may be overlooked.
As a result, the classifications reflect patterns of encounter as much as underlying biology.
A species classified as near-continuous may not flower continuously in a strict sense, but may simply be noticed more often. A species with a narrow window may in fact have a longer flowering period, but be recorded only when most conspicuous.
These are not errors, but part of what is being described.
What This Adds
The method remains simple. The rules are transparent. The categories are few.
But the effect is to shift the perspective again.
From a record of what is present, and when, to something more visual and immediate: a record of when the landscape comes into flower, and how that change unfolds across the months.
Looking Ahead
As more species are added, it will be interesting to see how stable these categories prove to be.
Whether additional forms emerge, whether some species shift between types from year to year, and whether the boundaries between categories remain clear.
For now, though, the approach offers a third way of reading the data.
Not just as a record of presence, or of renewal, but as a set of recurring patterns of change — moments in the year when the familiar landscape briefly alters its character through bloom.