Buffy-headed marmoset (Callithrix flaviceps) Photo By Peter Schoen – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23826246

Dear Readers, there has been a lot of bad and depressing news around lately, so it felt well past time to have a good news story. And here it is! One of the big problems in the Amazon basin is that roads have been built through rainforest habitats. This fragmentation can bring its own problems: seeds that are dispersed by animals, such as many nuts and seeds, don’t travel from one side of the road to the other, and animals that can’t fly are trapped in their forest ‘silos’ and can’t interbreed. But one of the most visible and distressing effects of the roads is that many animals are killed while crossing: nearly nine million mammals are killed every year in Brazil.

Enter the charity Project Reconecta. Their founder, Brazilian biologist Fernanda Alba, has been pioneering the use of low-cost, easy-to-maintain road bridges in the forest canopy. Each bridge has a camera at each end, so that the animals using the bridges can be monitored.

Eight bridges were put in place in Alta Foresta, a small town in the Mato Grosso in Brazil, in 2024. In the eighteen months following their implementation, over 15,000 crossings were recorded, and not a single road kill.

Some species take to them straight away:

Black-faced Black Spider Monkey (Ateles chamek) Photo from https://wildexpedition.com/animals/black-faced-black-spider-monkey/ )

Purus Red Howler Monkey (Alouatta puruensis) Photo By D. Gordon E. Robertson – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17566490

Schneider’s Marmoset (Photo By Diego Silva – Costa-Araújo, R., Silva-Jr., J.S., Boubli, J.P. et al. An integrative analysis uncovers a new, pseudo-cryptic species of Amazonian marmoset (Primates: Callitrichidae: Mico) from the arc of deforestation. Sci Rep 11, 15665 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93943-w, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=108190797)

Alta Foresta Titi Monkey (Plectourocebus grovesii) Photo By Reuber Brandão – https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/466559914, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=194054982

The Alta Foresta Titi monkey in the last photo was only discovered by Western science in 2019, and is critically endangered, so it was a real joy to see them using the bridges.

Back  in 2021, Project Reconecta put 21 bridges into the area between the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Roriama, with the help of the indigenous Waimiri-Atroari people, who advised on the best places to put the bridges. This enabled the project team to note which animals used which bridges: the best used were the longest ones, possibly because the primates could jump across any shorter junctions. Some animals took a long time to feel happy about using the bridges: the Tufted Capuchins (Sapajus apella) took up to seven months before they felt confident about crossing, showing that the benefit of the bridges may reveal itself gradually over time.

Tufted Capuchin (Photo By Basile Morin – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74555820)

It wasn’t just primates who used the bridges either: sloths, opossums and mouse opossums have also been seen using them.

Project Reconecta has big plans, and has received a number of awards for its innovative bridge designs: these are now the recommended standard for highway crossings, and Alba is working on projects in the Pantanal (where the ‘highway of death, the BR-262, kills 2,000 animals a year) and Suriname, as well as other regions in the Brazilian Amazon. The success of these projects is largely down to the involvement of everyone locally: as Alba says:

“When everyone is involved, everyone values the initiative and works harder to make it succeed.”

Let’s hope that this initiative continues to help bring animal communities together, and reduces the number of deaths of animals on the road.

Dear Readers, on Saturday we went on a Bat Walk in Coldfall Wood, with Cindy Blaney, bat expert and ecologist. As Friends of Coldfall Wood, we’ve been organising this walk every year for about a decade. We usually run two events, one for families with small children, and one for adults and older children, and they are always well-attended – there’s something about walking around the woods at night that gives one a whole new perspective, and it’s always good to see the bats. Coldfall is home to Pipistrelles and some Noctule bats. We normally see them above the wet woodland, where they flitter around catching mosquitoes, and even if we don’t see them, we can hear them using the Bat Detectors that Cindy provides.

Common noctule (Nyctalus noctula ) Photo By Mnolf – Photo taken in Rum, Austria, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=872955

Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) Photo By Drahkrub – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8802172)

At this point, I should say that we have never not seen bats in the wood. As we wander around, trying to avoid tripping over logs or falling into ditches, we start to hear the distinctive clicks of the Pipistrelles on our bat detectors. If we’re very lucky, we might even hear the deeper, slower sounds of a Noctule on the playing fields behind the wood.

This short film shows a bat detector picking up the calls of a Pipistrelle…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swFxJOcV5h0

…and this is a Noctule feeding over water.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1413233189327497

Now, we did pick up some Pipistrelles, but we didn’t see a single bat, and as it got darker even those  bat sounds disappeared. Cindy speculated that because it has been so hot and dry, there are fewer insects in the wood – many places in the wet woodland are pretty much dry. When the bats emerge in the evening, therefore, they head out as quickly as possible to see if they can find food over more guaranteed sources of food, where there is still water – some bats can travel as far as 25 kilometres in an evening. I’d be interested to know if there’s been more success in places such as Alexandra Palace, where there’s a lake, or some of the other local water sources.

It was a disappointment not to see the bats, but it does remind me that when you spot a wild animal, it’s a privilege, not a right. And I’m off to see if I can find some bat boxes for the garden. There’s a small water source here, so it should provide at least some food. It feels as if our wildlife has never needed us more.

So, Readers, how are the bats doing where you are?

Bonnie or Clyde, a Kune Kune pig

Dear Readers, we are very lucky to have a wide range of City Farms here in London – you might remember that I had my retirement party at Mudchute City Farm over in Docklands, and had a very fine Away Day in Spitalfields City Farm back in 2022. On Friday,  I visited Vauxhall City Farm with my friend P and her lovely son, who is eight months old, but is already fascinated by animals, and wasn’t the slightest bit scared of the goats and pigs. I won’t be posting any photos of him, but take it from me that he is the best baby in the world :-).

The entrance to the Farm (Photo By VauxhallCityFarm – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71660625)

In my twenties I worked on a City Farm in Dundee (long since gone), but I’ve always been a fan of the movement. It teaches children (and adults) about the link between animals and the food that we eat, and can provide a whole range of other opportunities. Some farms, such as the one at Spitalfields, are helping to restore breeds of farm animal that have come perilously close to extinction, while others have community gardens and sell eggs, fresh vegetables and fruit and even wool.

Vauxhall City Farm is lucky in having some large paddocks for the goats and alpacas, and everyone is very well looked-after. There is a group of spinners who dye the wool from the alpacas and sheep using plants grown in the community garden. There’s also a very pleasant caff.

Next door is what remains of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, which must have looked like a very decadent  version of Copenhagen’s Tivoli Garden in its heyday. It used to be full of restaurants, concert halls, stalls and music, but these days it’s basically a green area. However, if you visit do not miss the Tea House Theatre – it sells a wide variety of cakes, and I can recommend the rhubarb and custard Victoria sponge.

Here I am, not enjoying the cake one bit. The carrot cake also comes highly recommended.

Vauxhall has certainly changed a lot since I was last here, what with the arrival of the American Embassy and all sorts of new high-rises. However, some things stay the same, and I was delighted to see that the Royal Vauxhall Tavern is looking particularly splendid – this gay venue has featured luminaries such as Lily Savage and Hinge and Bracket, and was once visited by Princess Diana, dressed as a man and accompanied by Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett. Apparently they attracted much more attention than Princess Diana did! The venue is now Grade II listed, because of its importance to the gay community.

The Royal Vauxhall Tavern (Photo By Ewan Munro from London, UK – Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Vauxhall, SE11Uploaded by Oxyman, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22394484)

Anyhow, that’s two visits ‘south of the river’ in less than a week, and very nice they were too. Who knows what I’ll get up to next?

Australasian barnacle )Austrominius modestus) Public Domain)

Dear Readers, my Linnean Society newsletter this week featured an interesting example of the law of unintended consequences. There are currently some 1500 vessels stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, waiting for the current war with Iran to end. All of them will have been fitted with what are known as biofouling measures – these are special paint or structures that reduce the amount of algae, bacteria or other marine organisms that grow on the undersides of the ship. Coupled with the fact that ships are normally only in dock for a couple of days, this means that most biofouling is minimal. Which is just as well, as when the ships move on you don’t want them to spread their organisms to other ports. The barnacles in the photo above came originally from New Zealand, and spread to Western Europe while ships from the Antipodes were laid up waiting for escorts across the Atlantic.

The ships in the Strait of Hormuz have been stuck there for, in some cases, months. Biofouling measures start to break down when the ship doesn’t move, and organisms accumulate. Furthermore, there’s a problem in the Strait itself – rising temperatures have had a knock-on effect on salinity, which has decreased biodiversity and increased the number of a small number of extremely tough organisms who can survive a wide range of conditions. And then there’s the question of reproduction: the delightfully-named Cosmopolitan Barnacle (Amphibalanus improvisus) can produce up to 36 offspring per day when the temperature is above 30 degrees Celsius. The ships then form a perfect substrate for the baby barnacles to attach and continue to grow.

Cosmopolitan Barnacles (Photo By Andrew Butko, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10732884)

It’s in the interests of the shipping companies to make sure that their ships aren’t covered in barnacles or algae – these organisms increase drag, making ships slower and less fuel-efficient. However, the scientists in the paper quoted (Tamburi et al, 2026) suspect (and I’m sure they’re right) that when the Strait opens, the last thing on the mind of the captains will be sorting out biosecurity – they will want to get their crews and their cargo to where they’re supposed to be. Sadly, they will not only be transporting barnacles and algae, but also the pathogens and parasites that use them. The final result could be the spreading of organisms all over the world, particularly to ports with similar conditions to those in the Strait, with Jeddah, Mumbai, Colombo, Singapore, Alexandria, Piraeus, Algeciras and even Rotterdam being vulnerable to these organisms setting up home. Not only will these cause problems for ships, but they will also damage the ecosystems to which they’re introduced, being so well adapted to warming waters that they could well out compete existing plants and animals.

The report suggests that there’s little that can be done in the Strait itself, but that destination ports could be put on high alert and have remedial measures ready when an infected ship arrives. Furthermore, even if the ships can’t worry about treating biofouling while stationery, estimating the amount and type of organisms involved could help destination ports to prepare.

While the economic and human costs of the US/Iran war are foremost in everybody’s mind, I hadn’t thought of this particular aspect of the (many) ecological impacts that it will have. With shipping routes increasingly becoming targets for military action, and with ships and crews being ‘stuck’ more and more often, it would seem sensible to have plans and measures in place. Let’s see if it happens. Otherwise, as the report describes, we could be about to witness a ‘global bioinvasion super-spreader event;.

The report can be read here (and very interesting it is too!)

From ‘A Year in Normandie’ by David Hockney, at Serpentine North

Dear Readers, I was saddened by the death of David Hockney earlier this year: I really fell in love with him when he had his exhibition of i-Pad paintings at the Royal Academy a few years ago, when I was delighted by his use of colour (pretty much a constant throughout his long and varied career), and by his use of new technology. So I wasn’t going to miss his swan song at the Serpentine. Inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, this work forms a frieze around the gallery at Serpentine North of more than 100 i-Pad paintings, made in 2019 when the artist moved back to Normandy, but was waiting for his house to be renovated. The ‘paintings’ were made in the open air, and record a year in nature, moving through the seasons, with humans only represented by their artifacts: a tree house, a chair, a rather fine house. By the time the images were finished, the world was in lockdown, and there’s something of that quiet, introspective time in the work. 

To add to the pleasure, I was visiting with my friend J, who I met via the blog! Never let it be said that the internet is just a tool for division, it’s a tool for connection too.

On the way to the gallery, I’d passed some very fine trees, including this extraordinary Sweet Chestnut, which was positively bowed down with nuts.

And on the way back, I noticed this unusual lime tree, which had leaves rather like those of a whitebeam. Turns out it’s a Silver Lime (Tilia tomentosa). This is a species from southern Europe, and the one in Kensington Gardens really is a spectacular specimen.

There was also some interesting ‘dry’ planting: in amongst the usual suspects (Echinops, aloes, yuccas etc) was this very pretty lilac-blue plant. It’s known as Native Hibiscus (Alyogyne hakeifolia) and it’s a relative of the Mallows, rather than an actual hibiscus, though the plants are part of the same family. It was doing really well, so. definite possibility for a very hot, dry spot.

Native hibiscus (Alyogyne hakeifolia)

There’s no disguising how brown everything is, though the view up to Kensington Palace is still wonderful.

Then we walked the short distance from the Serpentine North gallery to Serpentine South, via the Serpentine Pavilion, designed this year by the Mexico-based LANZA atelier – the shape is ‘serpentine’, and there is excellent coffee to be had inside.

We also popped in to see the exhibition at Serpentine South, which was based around the work of Cecily Brown, a UK artist who has lived in New York for thirty years, and has recently returned. Her work is heavily influenced by the Serpentine and Kensington Gardens, and many of the more recent paintings have been created for this, her first solo exhibition in this country. I really liked her work – as you know, I’m a big fan of bright colour, but these paintings seemed to reveal themselves gradually as you spent time with them.

Anyhow, this was a really lovely day, filled with art and nature and combinations of the two. Furthermore, both exhibitions are free: we booked in advance, but you can just walk up for either of them, though you might have to queue at busy times. All the details are here.

We ate at the ‘Friends of Ours’ restaurant at Serpentine North – I’d recommend booking for lunch, but you could probably walk in without having to wait too long if you avoided the busy time between noon and 2 p.m. Very nice veggie options and Hackney Gelato ice cream.

All details are here. I’m a lifelong Londoner, but this was my first visit, It won’t be my last!

‘The Lady of Shalott’ By John William Waterhouse – Google Arts & Culture — RQHFwa4u2LTw0g Tate Images (http://www.tate-images.com/results.asp?image=N01543&wwwflag=3&imagepos=2) – Colour edit by uploader (+0.6 exposure, -5 contrast, -5 white balance), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34325115

Dear Readers, a few weeks ago I published a poem that my Mum used to recite when I was about eight years old and couldn’t sleep, so here is another one. Looking at it now, I can’t believe that Mum  managed to learn the whole thing, but I do remember her loving the moment when the mirror ‘crack’d from side to side’ and how she’d usually stand up to utter the words ‘the curse  is come upon me! cried the Lady of Shalott’. All very dramatic. My Mum definitely should have been on the stage, she’d have been a magnificent Lady Macbeth. Anyhow, Readers, here is the whole thing, and quite a tale it is. Don’t say I’m not good to you 🙂

The Lady of Shalott (1842)

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Part I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro’ the field the road runs by
To many-tower’d Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro’ the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veil’d,
Slide the heavy barges trail’d
By slow horses; and unhail’d
The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower’d Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers ” ‘Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott.”

Part II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And moving thro’ a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower’d Camelot;
And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often thro’ the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
“I am half sick of shadows,” said
The Lady of Shalott.

Part III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon’d baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn’d like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro’ the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro’ the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.

Part IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower’d Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river’s dim expanse
Like some bold seër in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance—
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right—
The leaves upon her falling light—
Thro’ the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken’d wholly,
Turn’d to tower’d Camelot.
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross’d themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”

Persian Silk Tree (Albizia julibrissin)

Dear Readers, I was so taken with this tree that I spotted during my visit to Dulwich at the weekend that I thought I’d find out a bit more about it. The plant was originally imported to Europe from the Caspian Hyrcanian Forest in Iran by Florentine  nobleman Filippo degli Albizzi, who gave the genus its Latin name. This area of forest is also home to several other rare London street trees, such as the Caucasian  Wingnut and the Persian Ironwood. Persian Silk Tree is also native to the area east from Azerbaijan through to China and Korea.

In the UK this is still a rare and unusual street tree, but in ‘London’s Street Trees’ Paul Wood speculates that, like Buddleia, this is a tree that could ‘jump over the fence’ and become a pest, as it has in the US, where it’s a ‘weed of concern’. But for now, this is a truly stunning tree when in flower. Furthermore, the leaves close when it rains (hah!) or as night falls. When we were growing up we had a ‘sensitive plant’, which would collapse if it was touched, which happened rather too often for the poor thing. In the end it gave up doing anything at all, as if on strike. I suspect it was a member of of this or a related plant family.

To celebrate this habit of the Persian Silk tree, its Persian name means ‘night sleeper’, while the Japanese name means ‘sleeping tree’.

Silk tree by day and night (Photo By Abubiju – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49213798)

Pretty as it is, the Persian Silk Tree is not loved by everybody: a North Carolina plant website describes it as ‘aggressive, high-maintenance and short-lived’. In the States, the suggestion is to plant sterile cultivars, such as ‘Summer Chocolate’. There are no such problems here, yet, but as the climate changes all bets are off. The flowers are popular with insect pollinators and some birds, and some butterflies, such as the Three-spot Grass Yellow shown below,  use it as a food plant for their caterpillars.

Three-Spot Grass Yellow laying its eggs on Persian Silk Tree (Photo By © 2010 Jee & Rani Nature Photography (License: CC BY-SA 4.0), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18449483)

‘Summer Chocolate’ Persian Silk Tree, Virginia, USA (Photo Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

The flowers and bark of the tree are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine as a mood booster and nerve tonic. Seeing the tree in Dulwich certainly cheered me up, it’s such a show stopper. Who would have guessed that this plant is a member of the bean family (Fabaceae)? Well, I guess I would have done once I’d seen the pods.

The wood of the Persian Silk Tree is light but not particularly durable, according to The Wood Database, so it’s normally used for small craft and art projects.

Persian Silk Wood (Photo from https://www.wood-database.com/mimosa/)

In spite of its beany heritage, the seeds of the Persian Silk Tree are poisonous, so having them on toast is a no-no. The young leaves are said to be edible boiled, but honestly, haven’t the leaves got enough to do, what with drooping every night and reviving every morning? Maybe stick to the spinach 🙂

In Chinese folklore, the Persian Silk Tree’s name is translated as ‘ joy of togetherness’ – the story goes that a devoted Chinese queen searched endlessly for her husband, a fallen Emperor – when she couldn’t find him, she died of a broken heart, but the two of them are fused together forever in the flowers of the tree.

I also loved this touching story from Mandana Boushee. Her mother died in January 2018 in Iran, mine in December 2018 in Dorset, and yet the words she’s written could apply to my mother too.

Photo by Steve Guttman at https://www.flickr.com/photos/steveguttman/2769514474

Confusingly, the Persian Silk Tree is also known as Mimosa, though to me, Mimosa is this yellow-flowered plant. There’s no doubt about which plant is referred to in this poem, though, by American poet Kathe L. Palka. I love how closely observed it is, and the sense of sadness that I share when a tree is dying. See what you think.

Mimosa in the Yard
by
Kathe L. Palka

At thirty feet,
testament to the first owner’s
exotic tastes,
it died this year,
trunk cracked and bug infested.
A few limbs leafed out
in late spring, withered yellow
then bare by mid July.

In its prime it offered shade well placed,
I’d watch
the boys play in its cool
embrace as I cooked meals.
Yet,
it’s not the respite from the sun,
the pink fuzz of summer
alive with butterflies
or
the seed pods shaken
like maracas in October
that I’ll miss,
but the way the leaves closed up
each night at sunset before it slept.

Wisteria in flower in mid August

Dear Readers, this hot, dry weather is having a number of interesting and worrying effects on plants – here in North London there’s early leaf drop, the usual bark-shedding from London Plane, and a number of Japanese Maples  are already turning red. But seeing this Wisteria in flower really did give me pause. It’s already flowered beautifully back in April, and here it is, flowering again.

The same Wisteria in April 2023

We know that plants in the UK are generally flowering earlier (see here) as a result of warming temperatures but the second flowering of perennials is usually due to stress. In this year’s  drought conditions we may see many shrubs and trees flowering for a second time: this is a recognised phenomenon, and seems to mean that the plants are recognising at some chemical level that they are threatened, and are rushing to reproduce while they still can. It’s known that dying trees can sometimes produce one last bounty of blossom and fruit, and while these plants might not be actually dying, they are  recognising a threat. It may also be that this is a last throw of the dice for the plants before they move into dormancy – plants often ‘close down’ when there are drought conditions, to conserve their remaining energy.

Annuals, such as marigolds, will usually flower as quickly as they can, produce seed and then die. Interestingly though, the few annuals that I’ve seen in flower are from the daisy family – there are bare lawns with tiny, stunted daisies, groundsel or nipplewort. You have to love these tiny, tenacious titans of the plant world.

So, Readers, what have you noticed in your gardens? I’d love to see the RHS do a survey on the effects of this year, as it might give us all an idea on what to plant that is more likely to survive. I read an article recently suggesting that sticking in lots of Mediterranean plants won’t help if we have a warm, wet winter, which seems to be the trend. Sigh.

Classic Rolls Royce cars parked in Dulwich Village

Well Readers, as an East/North Londoner it’s always a bit daunting crossing the river, especially when one has to catch an actual train instead of a tube. But here we are in Dulwich, for a trip to the Dulwich Picture Gallery. We’re here to see their current exhibition of American photographs (highly recommended by the way), but I keep getting distracted. How about this tree, for example?

Persian Silk Tree (Albizia julibrissin)

It’s not until I noticed the ‘beans’ that I remembered that this tree is actually a member of the Bean family (Fabaceae). It’s also known as Mimosa, although for me that name refers to the yellow-flowered tree that grows on one of the County Roads. As a Fellow of the Linnean Society, all I can say is ‘thank heavens for binomial nomenclature’.

Dulwich really is very posh. There are nice cafes everywhere, and everyone looks very well-groomed and put-together. No doubt this isn’t the case for everyone, but I imagine it’s a very nice place to live if you can afford it. It’s also home to a number of famous private schools, such as Dulwich College and Alleyn’s School. Alleyn’s was named for Edward Alleyn, the Elizabethan actor – in his time, he was ranked second only to Richard Burbage,  though Alleyn was most famous for his roles in the plays of Christopher Marlowe, such as Dr Faustus and Tamberlaine. This last role involved dashing his brains out on the bars of the cage that held him captive, which must have been quite something to behold. He set up ‘ The College of God’s Gift’ in Dulwich, which owned most of the land in the area, and which turned into the private colleges. There’s a rather nice statue of him in front of the Old College.

Edward Alleyn and William Allen Sculpture By Louise Simson

Dulwich Picture Gallery is the oldest public art gallery in England – it was designed by Sir John Soane, and has an extraordinary collection of paintings, by everyone from Constable and Gainsborough through Veronese and Fragonard.

Main Gallery (Photo By Bridgeman at German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7681629)

It also has a very nice caff (important for when your feet are swelling on a  hot day) and a sculpture garden outside. I rather liked this sculpture, by Laura Ford: it’s a response to Marino Marini’s sculpture ‘The Angel of the City’, a very grandiose, masculine piece. I love the sense of ‘My Little Pony’ in Ford’s sculpture, plus the sense of stalemate rather than victory. See what you think.

Laura Ford, ‘My Little Marini’

Marino Marini, ‘The Angel of the City’

The stones in the photo below were left behind when a Finnish glacier melted, more than 10,000 years ago – they’re known as ‘Glacial Erratics’. What a great phrase! Sculptor Peter Randall-Page has preserved the stones’ original shapes, but has added a ‘meandering’ pattern, which echoes the frieze on the Picture Gallery. The sculpture is called ‘Walking The Dog I, II and III’

This piece is called ‘Waking Matter’ and uses ‘surplus’ Carrera marble from Italy – it’s by Amy Stephens. You are invited to walk under it, which fills me with some trepidation I must say. It looks a little too like a guillotine to me.

Anyway, we had a lovely time ‘south of the river’, and, indeed, we were so impressed with the exhibition that I’ve signed us up as Friends – the next exhibition is the Hokusai ‘Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji’ which I managed to miss when it was at the British Museum recently, so it felt as if it might be worth it. If you’re in the area (or even if you’re not) do pop in. I can recommend the vanilla doughnuts in the cafe too.