Common Centaury (Centaurium erythraea)

Dear Readers, you might remember that a few weeks ago I was at Tyttenhanger Gravel Pits with my friend L, and came  across this very attractive little pink plant. This is  what it actually looks like when the sun is out:

By יורם שורק – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79723426

Centauries are members of the Gentian family, and in the UK many of them are vanishingly rare or local, so this is the one that you’re most likely to see. It seems to have two variants, one with quite long stems, and one, most often found at the coast, that grows very close to the ground (probably a result of the sea breezes). It’s a very pretty plant, and one that I’d never encountered before: it likes sparsely-vegetated grassland, heath, clifftops etc, which is a rare habitat in East Finchley!

Photo by By Ludwik Polak – https://atlas.roslin.pl/plant/6646, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93087080

Common Centaury was used by herbalists to control fevers: it has a variety of common names, including bitter herb, feverwort and Christ’s ladder. Suggested ways of using the herb include making a tincture, or making tea from the dried flowers. It’s also believed to support recovery from gastrointestinal disorders, and to help stimulate appetite. However, it tastes extremely bitter: Culpeper described it as ‘very wholesome, but not very toothsome‘, which I suspect is an understatement.

But why Centaury? The herb was believed to have been used to heal the centaur Chiron after he was wounded accidentally with an arrow from his pupil, Hercules.  Chiron was himself a gifted healer, who had taught his medicinal skills not only to Hercules, but also to Achilles, and to various kings and princes. Alas, although the Common Centaury healed Chiron’s wound it didn’t take away the pain, and although Chiron had been granted immortality he gave it up in order to die and put an end to his suffering. He’s remembered in the constellation Centaurus which contains our closest star (after the Sun) Alpha Centauri.

Constellation Centaurus by By Till Credner – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22441658

Common Centaury also has a variety of magical uses. According to the 1619 translation of a French herbal, all those who mix plover’s blood with centaury, pop the  potion into an oil lamp and inhale the fumes,

“Shall believe themselves to be witches, so that one shall believe of another that his head is in heaven and his feet on earth”

Leave those plovers alone, I say.

The plant can also be used to dissuade the ‘Wykked Sperytis’ from interfering with your life, something we could all do with at the moment.

The bitter taste of Common Centaury has been used to flavour various vermouths and non-alcoholic bitters, especially in mainland Europe (the  plant is found throughout Europe, North  Africa and western Asia). I suspect that its bitter flavour helps to stimulate both saliva and gastric juices, hence its efficacy in encouraging appetite.

And of course, there’s a poem….I rather like this one, by American  poet May Swenson (1913 – 1989) who was the eldest of ten children in a Mormon household. I imagine that getting away to the woods and  riding a ‘horse’ was a way of being alone and of starting to sort out the messy feelings of late childhood. See what you think.

The Centaur by May Swenson

The summer that I was ten–
Can it be there was only one
summer that I was ten? It must

have been a long one then–
each day I’d go out to choose
a fresh horse from my stable

which was a willow grove
down by the old canal.
I’d go on my two bare feet.

But when, with my brother’s jack-knife,
I had cut me a long limber horse
with a good thick knob for a head,

and peeled him slick and clean
except a few leaves for the tail,
and cinched my brother’s belt

around his head for a rein,
I’d straddle and canter him fast
up the grass bank to the path,

trot along in the lovely dust
that talcumed over his hoofs,
hiding my toes, and turning

his feet to swift half-moons.
The willow knob with the strap
jouncing between my thighs

was the pommel and yet the poll
of my nickering pony’s head.
My head and my neck were mine,

yet they were shaped like a horse.
My hair flopped to the side
like the mane of a horse in the wind.

My forelock swung in my eyes,
my neck arched and I snorted.
I shied and skittered and reared,

stopped and raised my knees,
pawed at the ground and quivered.
My teeth bared as we wheeled

and swished through the dust again.
I was the horse and the rider,
and the leather I slapped to his rump

spanked my own behind.
Doubled, my two hoofs beat
a gallop along the bank,

the wind twanged in my mane,
my mouth squared to the bit.
And yet I sat on my steed

quiet, negligent riding,
my toes standing the stirrups,
my thighs hugging his ribs.

At a walk we drew up to the porch.
I tethered him to a paling.
Dismounting, I smoothed my skirt

and entered the dusky hall.
My feet on the clean linoleum
left ghostly toes in the hall.

Where have you been? said my mother.
Been riding, I said from the sink,
and filled me a glass of water.

What’s that in your pocket? she said.
Just my knife. It weighted my pocket
and stretched my dress awry.

Go tie back your hair, said my mother,
and Why is your mouth all green?
Rob Roy, he pulled some clover
as we crossed the field, I told her.

Centaur mosaic from Orange, France, 2nd century BCE

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) Photo By Jean-Pol GRANDMONT – Self-photographed, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27747981

Dear Readers, today is a stressful day because later this afternoon I have to wrestle Abbie, our new foster cat, into a carrier and off to the vet for a check-up. It’s always a performance because although Abbie is the sweetest cat in the world she turns into a Tasmanian Devil if someone even  tries to pick her up, let alone put her into a carrier, and for an old age pensioner (she’s fourteen) she’s surprisingly quick. So wish me luck! But for 15 minutes I stood outside as Painted Lady after Painted Lady drifted past. It’s been a phenomenal year for these butterflies, particularly in the south of England, but they are in fact the most widespread butterfly in the world, with populations on every continent except Antarctica. Perhaps it’s appropriate that in North America the butterfly is known as ‘The Cosmopolitan’.

The number of Painted Ladies varies year or year, as these insects are migratory (main routes below).

Painted Ladies have a multi-generational migration pattern – no one butterfly will make the whole trip from North Africa to Scandinavia or the UK, but their children or grandchildren  might. This year’s butterflies may be the offspring of French or Spanish Painted Ladies. Do they ever head back south, though? The answer seems to be yes: in autumn, Painted Ladies have been seen migrating back across the channel, though they fly at such high altitudes that they are rarely witnessed. What probably drives them is the availability of adult nectar resources – they mate and lay eggs continually during migration, sometimes laying eggs on highly unsuitable plants that have lots of nectar. Fortunately, the caterpillars have varied tastes, and will eat anything from thistles to mugwort. As the eggs are laid with little regard for the caterpillar’s welfare, it’s just as well that they’re well camouflaged, and hide in little silk ‘nests’ at the top of leaves.

Painted Lady caterpillar (Photo By Harald Süpfle – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7529515)

So, do keep your eyes open for these little beauties – they’re easily mistaken for Small Tortoiseshell at first glance, but note the yellow patches on the forewing, and those  blue ‘scallop’ markings. I don’t think I’ve seen a Small Tortoiseshell yet this year.

Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) Photo By Jörg Hempel, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27756983

So, has anybody else done the Big Butterfly Count yet? I think I might give it a second go in the back garden and see who fancies the Hemp Agrimony.

And now I’m off to catch a cat….

After six years, seven  modules and two subjects (Environmental Science and Biology) my degree is finally finished, and I have a 2:1 BSc. It feels most peculiar: I started the degree during lockdown, not long after Dad had died, and it’s been a quite the journey. I loved the breadth of the Environmental Science, and the way that it encompassed not only science, but politics, economics, sociology, psychology and a lot else besides. Biology was more of a slog: I enjoyed the ecology aspects, but memorising chemical pathways and remembering what the hell happened when was more of a challenge. But I have loved feeling my knowledge grow, and my brain expand.

I’ve particularly loved the practical experiments: I’ve fed magpies on different coloured doughballs twice (and indeed they still pop in occasionally to see if I’m still feeling generous) .

I’ve measured trees, and been quizzed by East Finchleyites to make sure that I’m not from the council with a plan to cut them down. I’ve filled the fridge with strange concoctions, and have read newspaper articles with a more quizzical eye. Who knew that even respected papers could illustrate their stories about bees with photos of hoverflies? Very happy to help out with that one, if any one has any journalistic contacts.

I’ve often  felt distressed at the extent of human destruction and short-sightedness, but have also been inspired by the scientists, activists and researchers that I’ve learned about. While there is still such creativity and empathy in the world, I refuse to wring my hands and give up. We can sort ourselves out, we just need to get a move on.

And I’d just like to say how much I’ve enjoyed the Open University – I’ve loved the course, and wouldn’t hesitate to get stuck into something else at some point. But this year and in 2027 I want to concentrate on my End of Life Doula qualification, which will require a very different set of skills. So, it’s goodbye to all that, and on to the next challenge. Let’s see what the next few years bring!

Robin singing

Dear Readers, there is a very interesting  article in my British Birds magazine this week, about the prevalence of song in female birds, and how understudied it is. I often use Xeno Canto for examples of bird song, but Mark Constantine and Lucy McRobert, the authors of the piece, point out that only 0.01% of the bird songs were labelled as ‘female’ back in 2016. However, Constantine and McRobert’s project, The Sound Approach, has recordings of female sounds for 41% of Western Palaearctic species. There seems to be an assumption that any bird that sings is a male, but this is increasingly being shown to be untrue.

Why do birds sing? It can be done to attract a mate, but it can also involve territorial defence (we know that when a territory-holding male blackbird ceases to sing for more than three days, another male is likely to move in), warning off rivals (the volume and complexity of song can give an indication of the aggression and size of the bird) and pair-bonding (many birds sing ‘duets’).

In Robins, for example, both male and female birds sing, with no difference in vocal performance between the male and female outside the breeding season – females are as adept at the complicated parts of the song as males are. Robins are intensely territorial throughout the year (though it reaches a peak in breeding season) – often a female and a male will hold adjoining territories that are combined when the time to pair off and nest arrives. The Sound Approach team are trying to gather more examples of female song, to see if there are differences in the sounds that can be used to identify the sex of the singer. As male and female Robins look identical, this could be useful in the field.

One interesting case is that of the Alpine Accentor (Prunella collaris), a close relative of our Dunnock (Prunella modularis). In the Alpine Accentor, females sing to attract males, and often solicit copulation as soon as the male arrives, often mating with multiple males. Older females who lay the largest clutches of eggs have the most elaborate songs; having several males who think they may be the father of the nestlings means several sources of food provision and defence.

Alpine Accentor (Photo By Paco Gómez from Castellón, Spain – Acentor alpino (Prunella collaris)-2, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10653904)

In the Greater Painted-snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) not only is the female the principal singer, but she is also the more brightly coloured sex – the male is more cryptically-coloured, and takes care of the eggs and young.

Greater Painted-snipe (female) Photo By Afsarnayakkan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81947019

Greater Painted-snipe (male) Photo By Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE – Day 20 : Greater Painted-Snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) male …, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=138683408

In the UK, it wasn’t until 2020 that female song was identified in the Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica). Wilkins et al discovered that females sing at the beginning of the breeding season, and, furthermore, they sing over the top of their mate’s song, preventing him from advertising his availability to other females.

Barn Swallow (Photo By Andreas Trepte – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40877458)

And finally, male and female Common Swifts (Apus apus) duet with distinctly different calls, usually at dusk.  It was described by scientist Erich Kaiser back in 1997. Usually, the call consists of a series of short screams, given  alternately by each sex. The higher ‘swee’ sound is made by the female, the lower ‘ree’ sound is given by the male. Amazing! And something to listen out for over the next few weeks in the UK before the Swifts leave to head south. I wish I’d paid more attention when they were zooming up and down the road yesterday.

So, paying more attention to female birds is opening up all kinds of questions, and is starting to help us understand the complexities of the lives of different species, some of them very close to home. I wonder what else we’ll discover, when we  put aside our assumptions and come to look at birds with an open mind?

Common Swift (Photo By Alexis Lours – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=170916976)

Dear Readers, it feels like the tail-end of summer even though July isn’t even finished yet – everything is a bit tatty and dusty, the bird feeders hang (largely) neglected, and the Buddleia has nearly gone over, but not quite, hence the Peacock butterfly above. Today it’s humid and the clouds are low, and as I look out of the window I see the swifts are barrelling past, shrieking – maybe the insects are lower at the moment, or maybe the birds are thinking about their long journey south. There’s a kind of hectic energy in the air that feels very close to exhaustion,  or  maybe it’s just me. Anyhow, I stood on the doorstep and  tried to capture the flight of the swifts, and I suspect that the result is closer to something avant-garde than to a nature film. Anyhow, let’s see what you think 🙂

Female Gatekeeper (the males have a brown stripe on the upper wing)

Dear Readers, there are a couple of opportunities to get out and about over the next few weeks, should the urge take you! First up, it’s the Big Butterfly Count until 9th August – I shall be doing mine soon, so let’s see what we can see! My Buddleia has practically gone over, so I shall have to be quick.

You can read all about it here.

And secondly, this looks like a lot of fun, and I may well give it a go myself. The BSBI 100 Plants in 2026 combines citizen science with plant education – it’s encouraging beginning botanists to find 100 plant species in their neighbourhood, and to record them on iRecord. The BSBI provide excellent materials to help identify plants, and this feels like a very nice way to cure the ‘plant blindness’ that so many people have. I have learned so much from doing the Wednesday Weed blog, but still have more to learn than I can possibly pack into a lifetime.

Let me know if you’re trying either challenge, and let me know how it’s going! Anything that both encourages us to pay attention to the natural world and collects data has got to be a good thing.

Feverfew – a favourite ‘weed’

The cherry trees of Door County, Wisconsin in full bloom.(Photo by Elvis Kennedy at https://www.flickr.com/photos/elviskennedy/8836223408

Dear Readers, I really loved this – can’t you just see the poor cherry farmer shuffling away? Ah, the foolishness of youth….

The Woman Who Turned Down a Date with a Cherry Farmer

By Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Fredonia, NY

Of course I regret it. I mean there I was under umbrellas of fruit
so red they had to be borne of Summer, and no other season.
Flip-flops and fishhooks. Ice cubes made of lemonade and sprigs
of mint to slip in blue glasses of tea. I was dusty, my ponytail
all askew and the tips of my fingers ran, of course, red

from the fruitwounds of cherries I plunked into my bucket
and still—he must have seen some small bit of loveliness
in walking his orchard with me. He pointed out which trees
were sweetest, which ones bore double seeds—puffing out
the flesh and oh the surprise on your tongue with two tiny stones

(a twin spit), making a small gun of your mouth. Did I mention
my favorite color is red? His jeans were worn and twisty
around the tops of his boot; his hands thick but careful,
nimble enough to pull fruit from his trees without tearing
the thin skin; the cherry dust and fingerprints on his eyeglasses.

I just know when he stuffed his hands in his pockets, said
Okay. Couldn’t hurt to try? and shuffled back to his roadside stand
to arrange his jelly jars and stacks of buckets, I had made
a terrible mistake. I just know my summer would’ve been
full of pies, tartlets, turnovers—so much jubilee.

Musk Mallow on the County Roads

Dear Readers, I am feeling a bit tired and at odds with myself today – my ankle still hurts and I am wondering whether to go and get it X-rayed or just put up with it and hope it improves./ And the cat has been sick, so there’s that. But then I look back through the blog, and remember how the seeds that I threw around 18 months ago turned into a mass of Musk Mallow and Red Campion this year, and I feel strangely lighter. Sometimes the littlest things are worth making the effort for, even if it’s just opening a packet of seeds, or waving to a neighbour, or re-reading a poem, like the one at the end of this blogpost.

And sometimes, your eye is distracted by a blur in the Buddleia outside the window…

…and you realise that a Hummingbird Hawk Moth has popped onto the last of the Buddleia blossom for a drink of nectar. My Mum insisted that she had been visited by a hummingbird, and nothing would dissuade her, until the two of us were sitting in her garden one day, and the moth hovered long enough for her to see it properly. What a blessing!

And now, here’s my original Musk Mallow post, from 2021.

Musk mallow (Malva moschata)

Dear Readers, what a delicate and pretty plant this is! I’ve seen it twice in the past few weeks, once on Hampstead Heath and at the weekend in the woodland grave area of St Pancras and Islington Cemetery, where I suspect it’s been planted as part of a wildflower mix. You can distinguish it from Common Mallow (Malva sylvestris) by its pale pink petals and very fine, feathery leaves. Common mallow is much darker in colour (it can often look almost purple) with dark-coloured veins.

Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)

Musk mallow is so-called because it is perfumed, though you can smell it much more strongly in an enclosed space. The plant is native to Europe and south-west Asia, and is said to have been used by the Ancient Greeks to decorate the graves of their friends. The Anglo-Saxons also planted it on graves, and in Austria it still seems to be a favourite graveyard plant.

All parts of the plant are said to be edible, and in Egypt you can eat Melokhia, or Mallow Soup, made from the young leaves (see here for a recipe). I suspect, though, that the leaves of this species are rather too fine and delicate to eat in anything other than a salad, along with a sprinkling of the flowers. The seedheads of musk mallow turn into little round ‘cheeses’, which are added to many Russian dishes, including borscht.

Musk mallow is also known as St Simeon’s herb, and it has a long association with eye health – St Simeon is said to have cured his blindness by bathing his eyes in a solution made from the plant, and credited it with enabling him to recognise the baby Jesus as the Messiah. It’s said that if you dig up a mallow root on St Simeon’s Day (October 8th) before sunrise, you can use it as an amulet against eye disease, or make a tincture to cure blindness or cataracts.

In the Middle Ages it was also said to be a test for fertility and, conversely, for virginity. The woman in question peed on a mallow. If it dried up in three days, she was either infertile or no longer a virgin. If the plant survived the dousing, the maiden was either, well, a maiden or capable of bearing children (or presumably both). Being a woman in the Middle Ages was clearly fraught with peril.

Like all mallows, musk mallow is rather mucilaginous, and as such its medicinal uses include many ways to soothe. It’s an ingredient in many recipes for cough medicine, and was historically used to soften boils (indeed the word mallow comes from the Greek malakos, meaning ‘soft’). No wonder then that in Christian symbolism the plant came to represent forgiveness, the softening of the heart towards a hardened soul. Galen also considered it to be anaphrodisiac, a plant that cooled the passions.

In the Victorian Language of Flowers, musk mallow is said to represent being consumed by love, persuasion and weakness, so be careful if you pop it into a bouquet for your loved one.

And finally, a poem. I love this, of course I do. Wherever I look, people seem to be losing their loved ones, one way or another. This is for you, brothers and sisters.

Joy
by Ann Gray

When I let the chickens out, I hurl mixed corn
in a golden arc across the frosted ground.
I know it’s junk, they shouldn’t have it, they don’t
need it, but everyone deserves joy somewhere.
I’ve been looking for something I once had and miss
and want again. I meet him in the beach café.
He has soup. I sip tea. He has over-wintered
vegetables on his allotment. I see it on his hands.
I imagine all that soil on my body. Sometimes
you know what’s bad for you, might be good.
I phone my mother every morning to start her day
– the way she knows it’s me, the way she says,
hello dear, before I’m speaking. She needs someone
to complain to. A mother is a precious thing. I know that
now I’m sure to lose her. She’s losing nouns and I have
to rummage in my brain to help her find them. I tell her
yesterday I thought I’d lost a dog and lost my voice calling.
I found her back at home, shaking, not sure if coming home
was good or bad, or neither, or both. There’s no reward
for coming home if no-one’s there, no one you love, no-one
to put out a hand, or smile to see you. My mother knows
and tries to hold me in her voice. Mothers do what they can.
Sometimes they don’t get much to work with. She knows
I’ll chase that golden arc, hoping for the joy in it.
I hope so much, hope the wine, the food, will taste
as it’s supposed to, hope that friends will stay,
their elbows on the table, The Low Anthem singing
To Ohio across the garden, where all those flowers
I fell in love with will be just a promised on their packets:
night scented stock, musk mallow, lunaria, pale phlox.
In this falling dark, when hens shuffle on their perches,
I hold my breath, listen to the sound of my loud heart.

Dear Readers, I was very excited when I got home from Austria to discover that my trailcam had recorded nearly 3000 photos. However. About 200 of them were photos of my husband taking the washing backwards and forwards to the dryer in the shed. And about 2800 of them were photos of a piece of Greater Willowherb which had grown up in our absence and was waving its fronds in front of the camera. Every time it passed in front of the sensor the camera took another photo. Sigh.

Still, I did get a few shots of foxy activity. I love the fox cub standing on his or her back legs and checking out the table – the plant has even managed to act as a fig leaf so I can’t be sure of the sex.

And then, last night there was a lot of gekkering coming from the garden (that irritable chattering noise that foxes make when they aren’t happy with one another) and the camera actually caught them fighting. I’m not sure if this is the mother and cub getting irritable with one another (it’s about the time when fox cubs disperse) or if it’s two youngsters, but I shall clear away the foliage and hopefully get a bit more information. Actually, looking at the photo again it could well be an adult telling a youngster what’s what.

So, what’s happening in your garden?  I am definitely going to pivot  towards drought-resistant plants, particularly in the front garden which is south-facing. As I mentioned before, we have a hosepipe ban now (not unexpected) so I’m glad that the pond is fairly shaded in the back garden. But of course we never know what’s going to happen next!

Abbie the Cat incognito…

Well, Readers, it’s fair to say that those of you in the South of England have been having a bit of a hot time (ahem) – when we flew back from Austria yesterday (no diversions to Munich this time) the fields and parks were all parched yellow. My lovely neighbour has been watering the plants with the watering can (we’ve now got a hosepipe ban) but at least my dahlias have survived. Incidentally, do you call them day-le-as or dar-le-as? I’d only ever heard them pronounced the first way until about a year ago, when there seemed to be an epidemic of dar-le-as going on. No judgement, but I’m curious.

Anyway.

As we know, the real question is how did my new foster cat Abbie get on, and was she happy to see us? Our (male) neighbour looked after her for the first week, and in spite of his being the kindest, most gentle chap you can imagine, she spent most of the time hissing every time he looked at her and then retreating to the attic like someone from a Daphne du Maurier novel. However, in the second week the cat person that we had for our previous cat, Willow, came in, and by the end of the week she was allowed to stroke Her Majesty, so progress.

Now, some cats I’ve fostered/owned (inasmuch as you ever really own a cat) would punish me if I went away. One once took a crap in the middle of the duvet. Another would sit with her back to me for several days until she decided that I’d suffered enough. Willow would spend the first night walking into the bedroom, letting out an ear-splitting wail every couple of hours.

Abbie, on the other hand, has decided that if she doesn’t leave my side everything will be okay. She’s helping me with this blog as I type.

It’s hard to believe she’s the same cat as the one that spent best part of a week hiding behind the litter tray, but there we go.

Next week she’s off to the vet for a quick once-over. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes, but apart from being a bit stiff she seems fine to me. At fourteen, there will be no invasive procedures or other stuff unless it’s strictly necessary for her comfort. I want her to have a bit of peace and quiet after losing her previous owner and having a very traumatic few months.