WLE 2015 France – quality pictures

International team of WLE 2015 asked national organizers to choose quality, featured, valued images. What image is quality? Quality images are photos that meet certain quality standards and are valuable for Wikimedia projects. They must be the work of Commons contributors; they need not be extraordinary or outstanding, but merely well-composed and generally well-executed.

Today we presenting you some of quality pictures form France.

Anchusa azurea

Anchusa azurea is a species of flowering plant in the family Boraginaceae, known by the common names garden anchusa^[1] and Italian bugloss (or just “bugloss”). It is a bristly perennial which reaches just over half a meter in height. It has straight lance-shaped leaves and petite tubular flowers of bright violet-blue. This species is native to Europe and western Asia and eastern Maghreb but is well-known elsewhere as a noxious weed. In Crete it is called agoglossos and the locals eat the tender stems boiled, steamed or fried.

Numerous cultivars have been selected for garden use, of which ‘Loddon Royalist’ has gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit.

Andromeda polifolia

Andromeda polifolia, common name bog-rosemary, is a species of flowering plant native to northern parts of the Northern Hemisphere. It is the only member of the genus Andromeda, and is only found in bogs in cold peat-accumulating areas.

It is a small shrub growing to 10–20 centimetres (4–8 in) (rarely to 40 cm or 16 in) tall with slender stems.

There are two varieties, treated as distinct species by some botanists:

Andromeda polifolia var. polifolia. Northern Europe and Asia, northwestern North America.
Andromeda polifolia var. glaucophylla. Northeastern North America (syn. A. glaucophylla).

Lac de Remoray

Lac de Remoray is a lake in the Doubs department of France. Located in the municipalities of Remoray-Boujeons andLabergement-Sainte-Marie, the lake is near Lac de Saint-Point. The lake and its surroundings were made a nature preserve in 1980.

Olargues

The former railway bridge of Olargues over the Jaur River, now used as a greenway.

Olargues is a commune in the Hérault department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. It is rated as one of the most beautiful villages in France.^[2]

Olargues is a good example of a French Medieval town. It was occupied by the Romans, the Vandals and the Visigoths. At the end of the 11th century the Jaur valley came under the authority of the Château of the Viscount of Minerve. The following centuries saw a succession of wars and epidemics, and it was not until the 18th century that Olargues became re-established. This was due to the prosperity of local agriculture and artisanal industry.

Sainte Lucie regional nature reserve

Thomisus onustus

Thomisus onustus is a crab spider species in the genus Thomisus belonging to the family Thomisidae.

These spiders prefer warm temperatures, forest-free areas, dry and sandy habitats with high solar radiation and dry grasslands.

Yucca

Yucca is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40-50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flowers. They are native to the hot and dry (arid) parts of North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Early reports of the species were confused with the cassava (Manihot esculenta).

Consequently, Linnaeus mistakenly derived the generic name from the Taíno word for the latter,yuca (spelled with a single “c”). It is also colloquially known in the lower Midwest United States as “ghosts in the graveyard”, as it is commonly found growing in rural graveyards and when in bloom the cluster of (usually pale) flowers on a thin stalk appear as floating apparitions.^[5]