Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Dear readers, most of the plants that I write about in the Wednesday Weed are not unusual: they are the kind of flowers that might crop up in any urban area, and are all the more precious for their resilience and unexpected beauty. But I was astonished to be led to this plant by my botanical friend. It was growing in a damp corner of St Pancras and Islington cemetery, all on its own and far from any graves. Known as Loddon Lily or Summer Snowflake, you might initially mistake it for a Snowdrop with its white flowers, each petal kissed with green. But a closer look shows that the structure of the flower is quite different.

There are two species of Snowflakes in the UK: the Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum), which is not native and which normally has only one flower head per stem, and the Loddon Lily (or Summer Snowflake), which has multiple heads and is generally considered to be native, although it is also cultivated, which complicates matters somewhat.  The plant is named for the river Loddon in Berkshire – the seedpods of the plant can inflate, which means that they can be dispersed by streams and rivers, and accounts for the thick stands of Loddon Lily on the riverbank. The plant is so beautiful that it is the County Plant of Berkshire – Geoffrey Grigson, who wrote a book called ‘The Englishman’s Flora’ (1958) amongst many, many other works on natural history, described the Summer Snowflake thus:

‘White flowers hanging in severe purity from long stems’.

Who knew that we even had County Plants? To find out what yours is (if you live in the UK), have a look at the Plantlife site here and click on your area. One thing that gave me a little pause when I came to investigate this plant was that it was in flower in mid-March. All my books tell me that it shouldn’t come into flower until April or May. As usual, the plant appears not to have read them. However, my botanists’ group was unanimous in their identification of the plant, and some reported early flowering in their ‘patches’ too. Maybe our mild winter (in the south of the UK at any rate) has encouraged the plants into early bloom. This is much appreciated by the early bees that are just about beginning to appear now.

The inside of the Loddon Lily flower is a combination of white, green and gold. Notice that you can see the green mark inside the flower as well as outside (another thing that distinguishes it from the Snowdrop).

According to Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica, the Summer Snowflake has been used to adorn church altars, and in the May Day celebrations, though there is some evidence that the cut flowers have an obnoxious smell. Best to leave them where they are, I think. It’s sad how often blooms that look wonderful on the plant turn to sad, wilted objects when they’re picked.

Summer Snowflake has not escaped the attentions of the pharmaceutical industry. In Bulgaria, it is harvested on an industrial scale to extract a chemical called Galanthamine, used to make drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. A scientific study by L. Georivaa has shown that the bulbs which contain the chemical also contain a very variable range of other helpful compounds, and recommends the better management of wild populations and the careful cultivation of the plants, both to ensure a sustainable supply and to provide time to look at the other uses that these compounds might have. You might think that this would be common sense, but as we know, there is a universal tendency by big business to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Let’s hope that we can develop a reciprocal relationship with this elegant plant, whereby we make use of its gifts without wiping it off whole swathes of the planet. It doesn’t seem a lot to ask.

 

 

 

 

Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Dear readers, my last visit to St Pancras and Islington Cemetery involved an unexpected detour. One of the heavily wooded paths in the older part of the graveyard was blocked by a massive fallen beech tree. As my friend , as agile as an anorak-clad mountain goat, clambered over the branches and found a way through, I slid down a muddy incline,into the middle of this mass of heart-shaped leaves. A little investigation showed that this was Lesser Celandine, normally one of the earliest woodland plants to flower. Gilbert White, the nature diarist of Selborne, records it flowering on 21st February, but mine were still not in bud in early March. However, one of the plant’s vernacular names is Spring Messenger, which gives some indication of its precocity.

The plant is a member of the Buttercup (Ranunculaceae) family. This is a group which prefers damp habitat,  which may explain why the  Latin meaning of Ranunculus is ‘little frog’. Like many buttercups, It can certainly spread when in the right situation. The tubers easily break off from the roots in disturbed situations, such as cemeteries which are trampled by eager middle-aged lady plant hunters. A subspecies, Ranunculus ficaria bulbifer, produces little bulblets at the junction of its leaves, which can be accidentally transported by walkers, dogs and wildlife. In its native range (the whole of Europe and West Asia)  it grows where few other plants can survive and is more of a boon than a problem. However, it is yet another ‘weed’ which is described as ‘invasive’ in other places. For example, it has been imported to North America, where its early flowering and spreading habit means that it can smother more ephemeral native plants.

The name ‘Celandine’ is interesting. In the UK, there is the Lesser Celandine and the completely unrelated Greater Celandine, which will undoubtedly be a subject for a future post, as there is a great mass of it growing at the side of my house (I like to have a few ‘weeds’ up my sleeve in case domestic emergency or sheer laziness stop me from walking in the woods or the cemetery). Just to say here that the name Celandine derives from Chelidon, the Greek name for the swallow. This works for Greater Celandine, which flowers at about the same time as the swallows arrive, but Lesser Celandine flowers much earlier. I suspect that someone back in antiquity got confused because the flowers of both plants are yellow, and look superficially similar. Either that or, as Richard Mabey suggests, the plant was seen as a kind of ‘vegetable swallow’, a harbinger of spring.

Now, let us return to the Doctrine of Signatures. As you might remember, this was a belief that God had put a sign on plants that were useful to human beings. The buds of Nipplewort, for example, are shaped like nipples, and so the plant was said to be good for all kinds of things related to breast feeding. Have a look at the picture below, in particular the roots of the plant, and see if you can guess what Lesser Celandine was said to be good for.

One of Lesser Celandine’s alternative names was Pilewort, and it was used to treat hemorrhoids. In Germany, it is known as Scurvygrass, and was harvested because its leaves are rich in Vitamin C. As it appears so early, it must have been a blessing to eat something green just as winter was coming to a close, and the cupboard was bare. In Russia, the dried herb is also used for a variety of ailments.

Wordsworth loved Lesser Celandine, and wrote three poems about it. This is part of my favourite of the three, which sums up a little how I feel about all the ‘weeds’ that I write about every week.

Comfort have thou of thy merit,
Kindly, unassuming Spirit !
Careless of thy neighbourhood,
Thou dost show they pleasant face
On the moor and in the wood,
In the lane; — there’s not a place,
Howsoever mean it be,
But ‘t is good enough for thee.

Wordsworth wanted the Lesser Celandine to be depicted on his tomb, as it was his favourite flower. Unfortunately, the stone mason carved images of the Greater Celandine, which is not, as we’ve seen, the same thing at all.

 Richard Mabey, in his magisterial ‘Flora Britannica’, notes that Wordsworth made the following field note about the Lesser Celandine.

‘It is remarkable that this flower, coming out so early in the Spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful, and in such profusion, should not have been noticed earlier in English verse. What adds much to the interest that atttaches to it is its habit of shutting itself up and opening out according to the degree of light and temperature of the air’.

And this is exactly what the plant does. Wordsworth was a great walker and observer of nature and, although unfashionable at the moment, had a deep love of his local area and of the plants and animals that lived there. He was a man with a big heart, and a great and enduring spirit, as so many poets are, but he was also modest and reclusive, How appropriate that he should have been so fond of this little, unobtrusive flower.

 

Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

On a grey, damp day at the end of February, I went with my friend Ann to see what weeds I could find in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery. A stream runs along the far north-eastern edge of the area and there, silhouetted against the sky, we found the unmistakable seedheads of the Teasel.

Teasel, for all its grass-like appearance, is in fact a member of the Scabious family, and like scabious, it has a lot of wildlife value – I have seen whole families of goldfinches dangling from the stems and pulling out the seeds, and in summer, the flowers are loved by bees and other pollinators.

The Teasel flower itself is remarkable. In July, a band of flowers opens around the middle of the head, as below:

Then, gradually, the band separates into two ‘stripes’, one moving up the seed head, the other moving down.

For some truly beautiful close-ups of the Teasel, have a look at the photos by Brian Johnston here.

A close relative of ‘our’ teasel, Fuller’s Teasel (Dipsacus sativum) was extensively used in the  textile industry. The plant was used to ‘raise the nap’ on woollen fabric, particularly for such delicate jobs as treating the green baize covering on billiard tables (and indeed they are still used for this purpose, having proved to be the most efficacious way of performing this task). For anyone who would like to know more about the process, and about the history of baize, I can heartily recommend the Pegs and Tails website, which is full of arcane and interesting facts and photos.  The seed heads were attached to a machine such as the Teasel Gig below, from the Somerset Levels.

By the twentieth century, the Teasel gigs had been largely replaced by metal combs. However, many weavers still swear by the Teasel heads – they don’t tear the cloth as metal items sometimes do, and are, of course, cheaper to grow or to harvest. And the Wild Teasel that I saw in the cemetery has also had its part to play – though the spines are weaker than those of Fuller’s teasel, they have still been used for gently carding wool, a process that ‘teases’ out the separate threads for spinning.

Fuller’s teasel was taken to Virginia in the USA by the early settlers for their woollen industry, although there it has proved to be something of a thug. It can grow surprisingly tall given half a chance.

In a winter garden, or in floristry, Teasels also have a kind of sculptural majesty, especially in autumn, where the low sunlight shows them to their best advantage.

One very interesting feature of the teasel is that when young, the leaves of the plant form a kind of continuous cup, which holds water when it rains. This prevents insects from climbing up the stem, and drowns a good number of those who try. There is some evidence that the insects that are thus left rotting are absorbed by the plant, in a form of partial carnivory – plants that have such ‘food’ seem to have a larger seedset than those who don’t.

It’s also interesting that this is the very water that is said to have rejuvenating powers: it has also been used to remove freckles, and as an eye bath for those suffering from hay fever.

The structure of the Teasel seed head fascinates me. It looks a little like a small hedgehog, or some kind of many-spiked sea creature. It doesn’t surprise me at all that there is an Irish belief that a teasel head left on a grave will distract the Banshees, who will use it as a hairbrush. It is one of those plants which look almost otherworldly, a spiky character full of strange secrets and a most particular beauty.

 

 

Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Dear Readers, I found this plant carpeting the graves in some of the more open, sunlit areas of  St Pancras and Islington Cemetery when I visited with my friend Ann a few weeks ago. It is always a surprise to find a succulent growing in the wild: with their water-storing leaves, I associate them more with climates where moisture is hard to come by, something that can hardly be said of the UK. However, the soil is very scanty on some of these burial places, and the addition of gravel or small slates has made the area even more free-draining.

In fact, this plant, also known as Large Rock Stonecrop, is an ‘alien’, although it has been here for almost four hundred years. It was originally introduced as a salad plant, but was recorded in the wild for the first time in 1666, and has been making itself at home ever since. There is something very toothsome about the leaves of Sedum plants – they remind me of tiny asparagus stalks. Maybe one day I will summon up the courage to try them as food.

The vigorous growth of this plant, coupled with its hardiness and resistance to drought, is one reason why it is a key component of many green roofs. These have become really popular during the past few years, and they have a lot of advantages – they help to insulate the rooms below, provide an additional habitat for invertebrates and other creatures, can help to absorb rainwater and reduce storm run-off, and can help to cool the air in urban areas through taking up water and releasing it by transpiration.

There are several different kinds of Green Roofs. Extensive roofs can support 10-25 pounds of vegetation per square foot, whilst intensive roofs can support up to 150 pounds. Sedum is the usual planting on extensive green roofs. These are often the roofs of choice – the substrate for planting is not so thick (typically just a few centimetres, and some roofs even have the Sedum planted directly into Rockwool), and therefore the requirement to  reinforce the roof to carry the extra weight is not so onerous. Furthermore, these roofs are practically maintenance free – someone just needs to climb up once a year to replace any ailing plants, and to pull out any perennial ‘weeds’ which are in danger of penetrating the waterproof layer beneath the soil with their roots.

Now, I am all in favour of Green Roofs, and when I’m feeling particularly bossy (which is most of the time) I think that any new flat roofs in cities should be Green Roofs as a matter of course. In fact, the city of Toronto already mandates this for residential buildings over six storeys tall. Think of the difference all those Green Roofs could make on the 200 new skyscrapers that are planned for London! Fat chance of that, I suspect. But although I think that Sedum rupestre is a wonderful plant, I do think we could be more adventurous. Take a look at some of these:

Of course, nothing is new under the sun. Sod roofs have been used in cold climates for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and very fine they are too.

On their own, Sedum roofs tend to be much less biodiverse than roofs that include a greater mixture of substrates and plants (a study was done by G.Kadas in 2006 on just this question). But even these relatively cheap and easy-to-install roofs can have their attractiveness to wildlife increased by seeding them with appropriate (i.e. local) grasses and herbs. There is a wonderful free publication by BugLIfe here . One day, when I’ve saved up my pennies, I’m going to put a green roof onto my garden shed. Here in the city, we need to maximise every corner’s potential as useful habitat for the creatures around us. After all, we’ve stolen most of the space they need. It wouldn’t hurt us to give something back.

Well, after that digression, let’s get back to our patient little Sedum.

How do you know if you’re looking at Reflexed Stonecrop? Well, the leaves have a habit of turning backwards, hence one of the plant’s Latin names, Sedum reflexum.

Here, the flowers are shown with six petals, but according to my Wild Flower key, they sometimes have seven. It seems that the Sedum hasn’t read the book, and this is often the way with plants – just when you think you’ve worked out what species they are, and are ready to whack a label on them, they throw you a curve ball. And don’t get me started on hybrids.

On the Seedaholic website, the author mentions that another name for Sedum reflexum is ‘Love Links’. The author speculates that, because the plant contains phytoestrogens which reduce testosterone, it could have been used to reduce male aggressiveness, and to encourage marital harmony. Maybe a stonecrop could be sent to some of the more bellicose of our world leaders to see if it did the trick with them too?

Finally, there is a long-standing belief that if a Stonecrop which is being kept as a houseplant dies, this is a sign of impending domestic trouble. And I can well believe it. If things have got to so bad that this hardy, tolerant, undemanding little plant has been killed off, the household must indeed be in a sorry state.

Resources this week include ‘Nature in Towns and Cities’ by David Goode in the New Naturalist series. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It’s certainly worth getting a copy from your local library (if you are lucky enough to still have such a thing).