Dear Readers, as the bog bean (Menyanthes trifoliata) is in flower again in the garden I thought this unusual plant could do with another airing. The plant’s Wikipedia page describes how its roots can be used to make ‘an unpalatable flour for emergency use’, which sounds delightful, and much as I am currently into baking I think I’ll give this one a miss.

You might think that being a bog/pond plant would be a bit of a problem for caterpillars, but not a bit of it: bog bean is a food plant for both the elephant hawk moth (Deilephila elpenor) and the light knot grass (Acronicta menyanthidis). As the former also likes greater willowherb, which I have in abundance, I shall be keeping an eye open.

Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar (Photo by By janet graham – Deilephila elpenor, Elephant Hawk-moth, Dolgarrog, North Wales, Sept 2015, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63734845)

Light Knot Grass moth (Photo By Patrick Clement from West Midlands, England – 73.042 BF2286 Light Knot Grass, Acronicta menyanthidis, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63728909)

And now, let’s find out a bit more about bog bean…

Bog Bean (Menyanthes trifoliata)

Dear Readers, I thought that the Bog Bean that I mentioned yesterday deserved a few moments of attention. This is a native plant, though not a bean (the leaves apparently look a bit like those of the broad bean), and the genus name comes from the Greek for ‘disclosing flower’ as the flowers open sequentially along the stem. I love the pink buds, and the ‘hairy’ flowers are apparently unique, though I imagine that this must surely have something to do with whatever creature originally pollinated them. Fossil seeds of bog bean have been found in the Carpathian Mountains, and they date back to the middle Miocene (about 16 million years ago), so this is a plant that co-existed with giant sloths, three-toed horses and ‘bone-crushing dogs’. The plant is related to the water lily, though not closely – it’s the only plant in its genus.

A Bog Bean in Quebec (Photo One)

Bog bean is also known as ‘bog hop’ in Northern England and some parts of Europe, and has been used to flavour beer and schnapps.  It is the County Flower of Renfrewshire. Apparently there are chemicals in the leaves which can attract cats in the same way that catnip does, though as this is a plant of ponds and other wet places that seems somewhat ironic.

The plant has been used extensively for medicinal purposes, especially in Ireland and parts of Scotland. The leaves are boiled to make a medicine for arthritis and rheumatism, congestion, indigestion, constipation, blackheads and boils. There’s a pool in Bute, Scotland, known as The Pool of Healing because the bog bean grows there. In Chinese medicine the plant is used as a cure for insomnia.

In Devon, children were said to say this rhyme if they had to pass through a dark passage or dangerous place. ‘Biddy Bene’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘biddan‘, meaning to entreat or pray. I rather like the notion that the goose and the fox were the things that children were afraid of.

Buckee, Buckee, biddy Bene,
Is the way now fair and clean?
Is the goose ygone to nest,
And the fox ygone to rest?
Shall I come away?’

Bog Beans from a remote Scottish lochan (Photo Two)

And of course, this is a plant of the bog lands, the most underrated and undervalued of habitats in spite of their role in capturing carbon and preserving all manner of delicate plants and rare insects. There is nothing as evocative, or as tricksy, as a bog, as anyone who has ever tried to cross one will know. Only those who really know the lie of the land can navigate a bog without wet socks, or worse. And so, I was delighted to find this poem by Irish poet Eileen Casey. If you would like to hear more of her work, there’s a short film here, which I highly recommend.

Treasure by Eileen Casey

Dappled light pleats lilac shadings.

Blue meshes with pink; bog weathered

morning enters its stride. Colour

sharpens as light deepens. Spider webs

drape lacy antimacassars across purple

heathers, yellow flowered asphodel.

Early frost begins to thaw, burgeons

sphagnum’s already swollen hoard.

Dew glistens pearly frogspawn,

dragonflies hover close-by. Skylarks

rise with meadow pipits and willow

warblers or stall over a bog-bean pool.

Man and beast leave traces in their wake.

A thumbprint traced in buried bog butter.

A psalter creased by righteous devotion.

Elk bone fragments. Bodies. Stabs of bog

shadow struggle with bog memory;

sacrificial wounds. We glimpse survival

in russet-edged leaves, mauve bruises

ruffled onto moss.

Bog is like a treasure filled galleon,

centuries deep. Imperial measure in peat.

We lose sight how, even inconsequential

elements become more than their sum of parts.

Faithful to its seasons, bog keeps track.

Photo Credits

Photo One by peupleloup, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Two by Sally from https://www.geograph.org.uk/more.php?id=4042853

White lilac

Dear Readers, the garden is having both a good time and a not-so-good time. You might remember that I was replacing my shed: well, the good news is that the shed is no more, and the concrete plinth has been laid….

Shed-in-waiting….

The bad news is that the garden is piled high with the remains of the old shed, which is due to be going into a skip as soon as the guys who are doing the shed/the skip people/me can get our ducks in a row. Hopefully not too much longer, as it’s hardly relaxing to be sitting in the garden amongst all this carnage.

But the lilac is really lovely this year, as is the rowan, which is covered in blossom…

The bog bean is in flower….

The red campion and the garlic mustard are doing well…

…and the green alkanet is not at all bothered by anything going on in the garden. It’s even growing through the slats in the bench, cheeky plant…

But it is extremely popular with bees, so I forgive it for being a bit of a thug. If you look in the photo below you can see a blurred hairy-footed flower bee (female!) zipping away.

The balm-leaved deadnettle (Lamium orvala) is doing very well – the native deadnettles have never done well under the whitebeam, but this plant seems to be able to tolerate the dry conditions a bit more. Another bumblebee favourite.

And finally, some pendulous sedge has popped up again next to the pond, and the flower heads look as if they’re smoking when the wind blows them, they have so much pollen. I guess I’ll be pulling the seedlings off for some time to come…

So, what’s going on in your garden, lovely Readers? I feel as if everything has taken off at a gallop here in East Finchley. I just can’t wait to get my garden back….

Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus)

Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna)

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren. 

Dear Readers, down here in East Finchley, Lesser Celandine (which is actually ‘April’s Eye’) has already pretty much finished, but on my road there is a very fine patch of Greater Celandine which has seeded itself under a hedge and is doing very nicely. The two celandines are not closely related at all: Lesser Celandine is a buttercup and Greater Celandine is a poppy. Lesser Celandine is a native plant, and an ancient woodland indicator, while cheeky old Greater Celandine was probably brought to the UK by the Romans and, like the House Sparrow, is usually found close to human habitation.

Both celandines are named for the swallow (Chelidon) – Greater Celandine is thought to start to flower when they arrive in the UK, and to fade when they leave. How Lesser Celandine got its name is more unlikely, as the flowers have normally disappeared well before the swallows turn up. There was a legend that swallows used the juice from Greater Celandine to improve the vision of their nestlings, like a kind of ornithological Optrex, and how this became part of folklore is anybody’s guess.

However, one interesting point about both of these plants, and many others in bloom at this time of year, such as the dandelion, is that they all have yellow flowers – you could argue that yellow is the colour of early spring. This may well be because very early flowers are largely pollinated by flies, who have limited colour vision. Yellow also absorbs heat more easily than darker-coloured flowers, and is also more visible in limited light. But who knows? Bees also love dandelions, and I’ve seen hoverflies on my bright pink saxifrage, so it’s a complicated business.

And finally, you might remember that Lesser Celandine was Wordsworth’s favourite flower. I can imagine him walking in the woods around Grasmere and being enchanted by its star-like flowers. However, the person who designed his memorial wasn’t a botanist, so he got some Greater Celandine instead.

And just in case you thought  that Wordsworth wasn’t a true fan of Lesser Celandine, here’s a poem. Of course.

The Lesser Celandine

There is a Flower, the Lesser Celandine,
That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;
And, the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, ’tis out again!

When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm,
Or blasts the green field and the trees distressed,
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,
In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest.

But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed,
And recognized it, though an altered form,
Now standing forth an offering to the blast,
And buffeted at will by rain and storm.

I stopped, and said, with inly-muttered voice,
“It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:
This neither is its courage nor its choice,
But its necessity in being old.

“The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew;
It cannot help itself in its decay;
Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue.”
And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey.

To be a Prodigal’s Favourite -then, worse truth,
A Miser’s Pensioner -behold our lot!
O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth
Age might but take the things Youth needed not!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Dear Readers, we’ve been to Golders Green Crematorium for a walk several times before, but I don’t think we’ve ever caught it just as the Azaleas and Rhododendrons are at peak colour. I was wearing sunglasses as it was a sunny day, but I think I’d have needed them regardless. I suspect I should probably head over to the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park to get a full-scale burst of what these plants could do, but even this more limited display was really something, especially when interspersed with the Japanese Maples and the last of the cherry blossom.

Typically the sun went in for my pond photo. Sigh.

But then came out again for the Mexican Orange Blossom…

…and the lilac…

…and this rather impressive two-tone lilac…

Then there were a few more azaleas…

and a rhododendron…

and finally, a tree peony. That crisp white blossom was a bit of a relief after all the colour.

I can never resist taking a photo of the memorial walk.

This is a wonderful, peaceful spot for a walk, highly recommended. I’ve written about the history of the place before, and about the rose garden and a heron here, and about a visit in high summer here. It’s surprising how much a place changes through the seasons, but Golders Green Crematorium manages to look wonderful at any time of year, a real tribute to the gardeners.

Pudding and Sunrise – absolutely not fussy about food

Dear Readers, those of you who have felines in your life have no doubt experienced the sense of frustration that occurs when your cat turns up his/her nose at a food that they’ve previously enjoyed. This usually happens after you’ve bought a whole tray of the stuff. But why? Scientist Masao Miyazaki, of Iwate University in Japan has been investigating, and thinks that it’s likely to be because of the smell of the stuff.

12 cats – 6 males and 6 females – were each offered dry food for ten minutes, and the amount that they ate was measured. They had a ten minute break, and then a further ten minutes when either the same food was offered, or a different one. This was repeated six times. As you might expect, the cats ate less as time went on, but the cats offered different food ate more – nearly twice as much, in fact.

A similar effect was produced when cats were offered the same food, but with a different food in an inaccessible but permeable chamber beneath the food, so that the cats could smell the new food, but only eat the familiar stuff.

Interesting! Masao wonders if, in the wild, cats change to birds after eating a mouse or two. Presumably wanting novelty might mean that cats vary their diet in order to get a full range of micronutrients, but that’s me speculating.

Masao also wonders if the smell of all the different kinds of cat food is encouraging cats to eat more than they actually want to, because they are so hyped up with all the variety. There is an epidemic of feline obesity after all, and cat food is particularly smelly stuff.

So, the advice if you have a ‘fussy’ feline is to vary food, but to keep it within the recommended volume for your weight and age of cat. I’ve found that gently warming food in a microwave for a few seconds can often bring out the smell and encourage a cat who isn’t well to eat. Also, making sure that any cat bowls are properly washed so that they don’t contain the smell of the previous food is also advised.

But cats, as we know, can be very contrary, so if your puss is pernickety, you have my sympathy. My main advice is to never buy large quantities of tins of a particular variety, however much the cat seems to enjoy it. And if your otherwise healthy cat has lost his/her appetite, don’t delay taking them to the vet – food is a highlight for most cats, so a change to disinterest is likely not  a good sign.

If they’re trying to break into the food cupboard, though, you probably don’t have a problem…

The New Scientist article is here.

The research article is here.

Photo By Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia – Sweet Old Dog, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25649934

I love this. See what you think.

A Portrait of a Dog as an Older Guy

By Katia Kapovich

When his owner died in 2000 and a new family
moved into their Moscow apartment,
he went to live with mongrels in the park.
In summer there was plenty of food, kids
often left behind sandwiches, hotdogs and other stuff.
He didn’t have a big appetite,
still missing his old guy.
He too was old, the ladies no longer excited him,
and he didn’t burn calories chasing them around.
Then winter came and the little folk abandoned the park.
The idea of eating from the trash occurred to him
but the minute he started rummaging in the
overturned garbage container, a voice
in his head said: “No, Rex!”
The remnants of a good upbringing lower
our natural survival skills.

I met him again in the early spring of 2001.
He looked terrific. Turning gray became him.
His dark shepherd eyes were perfectly bright,
like those of a puppy.
I asked him how he sustained himself
in this new free-market situation
when even the human species suffered from malnutrition.
In response he told me his story;
how at first he thought that life without his man
wasn’t worth it, how those
who petted him when he was a pet
then turned away from him, and how one night
he had a revelation.

His man came to him in his sleep,
tapped him on his skinny neck and said:
“Let’s go shopping!” So the next morning he took the subway
and went to the street market
where they used to go together every Sunday and where
vendors recognized him and fed him
to his heart’s content.
“Perhaps you should move closer to that area?”
I ventured.—“No, I’ll stay here,” he sighed,
“oldies shouldn’t change their topography. That’s
what my man said.”
Indeed, he sounded like one himself.

Dear Readers, not only are Bumblebees the Einsteins of the insect world, but they also turn out to have a natural sense of rhythm. An experiment by scientists at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, have found that the bees can not only recognise a Morse-code like rhythm, they can recognise it when the rhythm is presented to them in different ways.

First up, the bees were presented with two artificial flowers. One contained nectar, the other an unappetising bitter liquid (quinine). One flower had LED lights that flashed long pulses, the other that flashed in short bursts – a bit like the dashes and dots in Morse code. The bees quickly learned to recognise the code for the sweet reward.

Then the bees were presented with two flowers both containing water, but with the same flash patterns. Almost all the bees headed to the pattern that had previously contained the nectar.

To up the ante, the scientists then presented the bees with more complex patterns – dash-dash-dot-dot or dot-dash-dot-dash. The bees still learned which one meant a reward.

But the truly surprising result came when the flowers were replaced with a maze. At the junction between the two branches was a vibrating floor. One rhythm meant ‘turn right for sugar’ and the other meant ‘turn left for sugar’. The bees learned this easily (and I confess to also being amazed that concepts like ‘left’ and ‘right’ can be taught to a creature the size of my thumb joint). Even when the vibrating floor was replaced with LED lights that blinked in the same rhythm, the majority of bees could still make the transition and find the sugar.

Only a few animals have demonstrated the ability to be able to abstract the key components of a rhythm from one medium (flashing lights) to another (a vibrating floor) – parrots, songbirds and primates. But it makes one wonder who else might have an innate sense of musicality, if only we were curious and ‘asked’.

The New Scientist article is here.

The research article is here.

Last time I saw a greenfinch in the garden – from 2014

Dear Readers, you may well know that Greenfinch and Chaffinch numbers in the UK have been in steady decline due to the advent of a disease called trichomonosis. A recent study by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the Institute of Zoology and the RSPB has identified garden feeding stations as a source of infection, especially where large numbers of birds gather. However, it’s also recognised that gardens can be an important source of food for birds, especially during breeding season, so a number of recommendations have been made. uc

1.  Both the RSPB and Vine House Farm (who support the BTO with sales of their mostly locally-grown bird seed) have stopped selling bird tables, which are seen as a major source of contamination. I won’t be using mine in the foreseeable future, both because of this, and because a largish animal has completely destroyed the one that I did have 🙂
2. Change feeding spots – in the wild, food sources would come and go, so birds are used to this, and it prevents the build up of dropped food which can attract large numbers of birds
3. Feed seasonally. Seeds and peanuts are favoured by the finches who are most impacted by trichmonosis, and they are most at risk from contracting the disease in the post-breeding season. So the advice is to provide seeds and peanuts from November to April, but to cease feeding these from May to October, and to instead provide small amounts of suet/mealworms – these will provide protein for the tits and other birds who are likely continuing  to breed, but won’t encourage post-breeding finches to gather in large numbers.
4. Provide ‘natural’ foods such as teasel, thistle and other seed plants – these will still attract finches, but not in such close proximity or such large numbers
5. If you or a neighbour has a pond with a shallow area where birds can drink/bathe, there is no need to provide additional water unless the water is frozen or has dried out. Where you do provide a bird bath, it should be refilled daily, and washed weekly.
6. And of course, the usual advice about cleaning feeders weekly applies.

I know that there are broader questions about the benefits or otherwise of feeding wild birds – research on the subject is continuing to develop, and I will post here about anything that I find. This is a nuanced and emotive subject – so much depends on the location, the birds who are visiting, their numbers and what food is being provided. But I know we all want the best for our feathered friends, so let’s see how the discussion develops.