Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon

One afternoon last week, I was trying to get a photo of a ringlet, that small butterfly the colour of dark brown velvet.  They are difficult to get close to because they will fly off.  What caught my eye though, was this seedhead like an extra large dandelion clock

It belongs to the Goatsbeard, but try as I might I couldn't find one in flower.  There were lots of seedheads but no flowers.  Consulting my flower books I discovered that the flower closes up at midday.  This gives it its other name of Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon.

So I snuck back this MORNING and found several of these small flowers with very long sepals, those green bits behind the petals.

 At midday the flower closes up its sepals and the feathery pappus begins to form.

And eventually opens.

Oh and there's the ringlet, top right in the pic below!  Maybe I should stick to flower photography - they don't fly away.

 Another flower that opens in the mornng early but closes up after lunch is the Yellow-wort.  I found this specimen near the pylon at Filnore the other day but the flowers were closed. 

I managed to identify it because of its strange leaves which wrap right around the stem so that the flower stalk seems to be growing out of the middle of the leaf

This morning one starry yellow bloom was open.  Perhaps tomorrow all the flowers will open - but only in the morning.