Dear Readers, yesterday I saw my friend S for the first time since lockdown started. We’ve known one another since 1981, and, apart from her year in Australia back in the ’90s this is the longest we’ve ever gone without seeing one another. But, in the way of all true friends, it was as if we had never been apart: we fell back into our rhythm of give and take, listen and talk, as if it had been there all the time in the background, just waiting to be resurrected.

We decided to meet outside as we are both in our sixties and, as much as we might try to ignore it, we are at higher risk should we get Covid than younger people. And so I suggested Walthamstow Wetlands, and what a splendid place it is. I have been several times previously (see here and here) but this time we explored the reservoirs by the Maynards entrance. Whichever way you look, there are apartment blocks going up, but there is also some splendid Victorian architecture to be seen alongside the reservoirs. I love that there are still Thames Water workers doing their ‘thing’ to keep our water supplies safe, even if it does mean dodging the occasional car.

At the moment, there are hundreds of coots, tufted ducks and pochards, making elegant patterns as they swim across the reservoir.

And here is a bird that is now popping up everywhere, although the first pair only nested in 1996. Little egrets have taken to our lakes and rivers with great enthusiasm, and my Crossley Guide states that their plumage is ‘invariably immaculate’. Indeed. This one is probably a juvenile because it has green legs (or at least I imagine that they are both green because, as is often the way with storks and herons I can only see one). Apparently the call of the bird is ‘an irritable growling’. I know just how they feel.

There are lots of people out and about, but it’s easy to social distance: we stand aside for a group of cyclists, who appear to be mostly in their seventies and eighties but are not afraid of lycra. I notice a very fine mute swan, and then I see a cygnet. Such elegant birds, even if I was once chased up a country lane by one when I came a little too close to her nest by mistake. They have a surprising turn of speed for such large birds I can tell you.

Adult mute swan not cooperating with my camera work

Cygnet being more obliging

But then I hear an unfamiliar peeping sound coming from the middle of the water. What is it?

It’s a young Great Crested Grebe. I love those zebra-stripes on the head, which will gradually  be lost over the winter. For now, though, the youngster is still relying on parental provision of food. I spot an adult a hundred metres away.

Looks like s/he’s got lunch. The adult swims at surprising speed towards the chick, who is squeaking away. It’s like that bit in a romantic movie where the lovers run towards one another across a crowded train station, only it’s usually roses not a stickleback.

Coots rush to get out of the way as the fish is delivered, and the youngster gives the parent approximately 5 seconds relief before it starts calling again. What hard work it is to raise a young creature! I bet the adults will be relieved when this one is off-hand and they can put their (very large) feet up until the whole shenanigans begins again in the spring.

Not all of the reservoirs are accessible at the moment, so we loop back towards the entrance.

Pretty much the end of the road at the moment

There are still some plants in flower: Vervain (Verbena officinalis) is a new one to me, and I rather think that there might be a nursery spider egg case in the undergrowth behind it (which I didn’t notice until I uploaded the photo).

The purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) is a lot less leggy than the stuff in my garden, but then this plant is growing out of a crack in the concrete, poor thing.

Purple loosestrife ( Lythrum salicaria)

There’s some greater birdsfoot trefoil(Lotus pedunculatus) growing in the damp places alongside the reservoir – the flowers are a pure yellow without the occasional red and orange tints of common birdsfoot trefoil(Lotus corniculatus).

And across the road in what I think of as the main part of the wetlands, there are some hops! I love those ‘cones’ – there are the female flowers which enlarge after pollination. I feel several Wednesday Weeds coming on…

While we walk along the edge of the reservoir, I spot one of those Victorian water towers that I was talking about earlier. I love that the Victorians took care to pop in some detailing on the ‘bridge’, and to give the tower itself some crenellations.

And there are islands in the middle, currently serving as lookout posts for the cormorants.

What a pleasure it was to go somewhere different today, to find some new plants and, most of all, to reconnect with someone who has been part of my life for such a long time. What is so splendid about old friends is that there is so much that you don’t have to explain, a richness and patina that only comes with knocking along together, through bad times and good times, until just a gesture is enough to communicate a whole history. How lucky I am.

Love-lies-bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus)

Dear Readers, I do love a display of a single species of plant, especially when it is as striking as this one. I love it even more when it’s only a thirty-second walk from my house! As we move towards autumn, it becomes harder and harder to find ‘weeds’ that I haven’t covered yet, but this stunning annual more than makes up for it. I suspect that the plants are a mixture of ‘typical’ Love-lies-bleeding, with the deep red tassels, and Amaranthus caudatus var. viridis, for the green tassels.

This splendid plant comes originally from the Andes, where it is known as Kiwicha. Some amaranth species have naturalised in parts of the UK, where they are believed to have been introduced in grain crops or in pet food. However, the plant has played a important role in human nutrition: it is believed that the seeds from the amaranth plant accounted for up to 80% of the protein needs of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America before the Spanish conquest. Even today, the grains are toasted and mixed with chocolate, honey or molasses to make a drink called Allegria, which means ‘joy’ (and very joyful it sounds too). Skull shapes are made with amaranth grain and honey for the Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico.

Photo One

The leaves and stems have been used extensively in many parts of the world, from India to West Africa to the Caribbean, where Amaranthus tricolor is known as Callaloo. In the Yoruba language, it is known as shoko, which is a shortened form of shokoyokoto (meaning ‘make the husband fat’) or arowo jeja (meaning ‘we have money left over for fish’). Amaranths are highly nutritious plants: the seeds contain up to 14% protein, while the leaves are a rich source of Vitamins A and C. Like many staple foods, it has kept populations going for millenia.

A traditional Southern Kerala Thoran made with Chora (amaranth) leaves (Photo Two)

As you might expect from those red flower heads, the plant contains a high concentration of betacyanins, which can be used as a dye. One variety is actually called ‘Hopi Red Dye’, after the Hopi tradition of creating red corn bread using the amaranth to colour it. If you have a garden full of love-lies-bleeding and wanted to have a bash at some dyeing, there is a lovely article here to send you on your way.

Incidentally, the food colouring called Amaranth was banned as a carcinogen in the US in 1976, but is still used to colour Maraschino cherries in the UK. It is named for the colour of the chemical but is not actually extracted from the plant, so we can breathe easy on that score.

Wool dyed with amaranth (PhotoThree)

The flowers on Love-lies-bleeding look so much like the millet that I used to feed to my budgerigar when I was a child that I’d be interested to know if any of you have grown members of this family and have noticed any bird activity.

The name ‘amaranth’ comes from the Greek for ‘not fading’ – it has long been a symbol of immortality, as in this translation of Aesop’s fable:

A Rose and an Amaranth blossomed side by side in a garden,
and the Amaranth said to her neighbour,
“How I envy you your beauty and your sweet scent!
No wonder you are such a universal favourite.”
But the Rose replied with a shade of sadness in her voice,
“Ah, my dear friend, I bloom but for a time:
my petals soon wither and fall, and then I die.
But your flowers never fade, even if they are cut;
for they are everlasting.”

Indeed, the mythological ‘Amaranth’ appears in the poetry of Milton, Shelley, Tennyson and others as a symbol of everlasting life, though I doubt that these poets would ever have seen a love-lies-bleeding.

In the Victorian language of flowers, the plant came to stand for ‘hopeless, undying love’.

Green love-lies-bleeding

And now a poem, and by William Wordsworth no less (I was tempted by Algernon Swinburne but it was a bit too florid even for me). Wordsworth comments that:

“How touching and beautiful were, in most instances, the names they gave to our indigenous flowers, or any other they were familiarly acquainted with! — Every month for many years have we been importing plants and flowers from all quarters of the globe, many of which are spread through our gardens, and some, perhaps, likely to be met with on the few Commons which we have left. Will their botanical names ever be displaced by plain English appellations, which will bring them home to our hearts by connection with our joys and sorrows?”

And I think he has a point. At what point will Buddleia, for example, get a ‘proper’ vernacular name (though it’s true that many people know it as Butterfly Bush). It seems that a plant hasn’t really ‘made it’ until it has a nickname. Maybe we could make some up.

Love Lies Bleeding

by William Wordsworth

You call it, Love lies bleeding, — so you may,
Though the red Flower, not prostrate, only droops,
As we have seen it here from day to day,
From month to month, life passing not away:
A flower how rich in sadness! Even thus stoops,
(Sentient by Grecian sculpture’s marvellous power)
Thus leans, with hanging brow and body bent
Earthward in uncomplaining languishment
The dying Gladiator. So, sad Flower!
(‘T is Fancy guides me willing to be led,
Though by a slender thread,)
So drooped Adonis bathed in sanguine dew
Of his death-wound, when he from innocent air
The gentlest breath of resignation drew;
While Venus in a passion of despair
Rent, weeping over him, her golden hair
Spangled with drops of that celestial shower.
She suffered, as Immortals sometimes do;
But pangs more lasting far, that Lover knew
Who first, weighed down by scorn, in some lone bower
Did press this semblance of unpitied smart
Into the service of his constant heart,
His own dejection, downcast Flower! could share
With thine, and gave the mournful name which thou wilt ever bear.

Photo Credits

Photo One By Abbie yang – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22558877

Photo Two By Xufanc – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10608050

Photo Three from https://lifewaysnorthamerica.org/living-arts-weekly-natural-dyeing/#:~:text=Use%20a%20solar%20dyeing%20process,sunny%20spot%20for%20a%20week.

1) Stag Beetle

Dear Readers, this week I only had one response to the quiz, but well done Rosalind, who got 15 out of sixteen – excellent stuff! Here are the answers, so see how well you did….

2) Silverfish

3) Mole  Cricket

4) Meadow Froghopper

5) Suffolk Antlion

6) Green Tiger Beetle

7) Devil’s coach-horse

8) Rhinoceros  beetle

9) CraneFly

10) Horse  Fly

11) Hornet  Hoverfly

12) Scorpion Fly

13) Swallowtail Butterfly

14) Peacock Butterfly

15) Elephant Hawk moth

Photo Credits

Photo One by https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2457161

Photo Two by Alvesgaspar / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Photo Three by Tobias b köhler / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Photo Four by Charles J Sharp / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

Photo Five by David Short from Windsor, UK / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Photo Six by Bruce Marlin / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)

Photo Seven by Peter O’Connor aka anemoneprojectors from Stevenage, United Kingdom / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Photo Eight by Siga / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Photo Nine by Björn S… / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Photo Ten by Muséum de Toulouse / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

Photo Eleven by Frank Vassen from Brussels, Belgium / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Photo Twelve by Ian Kirk from Broadstone, Dorset, UK / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Photo Thirteen by I, J.M.Garg / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

Photo Fourteen by Lynne Kirton / Peacock butterfly (Inachis io)

Photo Fifteen by nick goodrum from Catfield in Norfolk, United Kingdom / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Dear Readers, every year, at about the beginning of September, I have to prune the Buddleia in my front garden. It overhangs the road, so it can be very antisocial, especially when people are trying to socially-distance. This year it has been absolutely inundated with greenfly, poor thing, and the honeydew has attracted late-summer wasps, who have been having a wonderful time – in fact, I waited until after some heavy rain to tackle this job, for fear of the very real risk of being stung. But now it’s done, and what a job it was! For those of you worried about the plant, I can tell you that by the end of the autumn it will already be sprouting again, and by next summer it will probably have new growth about eight  feet long. Truly, there are few plants as vigorous as Buddleia davidii.

The Buddleia back in June

However, every act of pruning involves dislodging some happy predators. Lacewings flew off, ladybirds took to the wing, and I had to re-home a very splendid orb-web spider who had made a little house for herself in a folded leaf. How cosy she looked! I have popped her, complete with leaf, in amongst the lavender for now, and I have no doubt that she will be constructing a huge web somewhere inconvenient as I write.

European garden spider (Araneus diadematus)

But what surprised me most was the sheer number of Harlequin ladybird larvae. One even fell down the back of my neck.

Harlequin ladybird larva (Harmonia axyridis)

This menacing-looking larva is at least twice as big as other ladybird larvae, and is said to be outcompeting the UK’s native species, though I did also spot adult Seven-spot Ladybirds on the plant. I would hope that there was plenty for everyone this year, but in terms of aphid eradication, the Harlequin Ladybird has our native species beat hands down (which is one reason why it has been deliberately released as a biological control in many countries). In the seventeen days that it spends as a larva, the Adonis ladybird (Hippodamia variegata) eats about 100 aphids, compared with the 370 wolfed down by the hungry Harlequin in only ten days. Alas, in the absence of aphids the Harlequin will eat other ladybird larvae, the larvae of lacewings and hoverflies and even each other. However, even in native ladybird species there can be up to 80% mortality in the first few days after hatching if there are no aphids about, as the little darlings set about eating each other. Nothing in nature is ever straightforward. It seems that the Harlequin is here to stay, hibernating in our houses, patrolling our aphid-ridden Buddleias and even occasionally falling into our clothing. Although it comes in a wide variety of colours, it is much larger than other species, and also has a distinctive ‘dent’ at the base of each of the elytra (wing covers). If you live in the southern UK, or the warmer parts of North America, you will most likely have seen one.

The many forms of the Harlequin ladybird (Photo One)

Incidentally, some ladybird larvae have evolved not to eat the aphids themselves, and not even the honeydew that they produce, but the moulds that grow on the honeydew! The larva of the Twenty-four spot Ladybird (Subconccinella vigintiquattuorpunctata) lives on the mould that grows on false oat-grass. I learn something new every day.

Subcoccinella vigintiquatuorpunctata first instar larva (Photo Two)

So, with the cutting back of the Buddleia there’s a definite sense of autumn on the way. I am planting up some pots of sedum and asters to compensate for the end of summer’s bounty, pulling the weed out of the pond, and starting to rake up the leaves. On Friday, I’m off to buy some bulbs for next spring. What a strange year it’s been, but the routines of the garden remind us that some things, at least, continue as always.

Photo Credits

Photo One By ©entomart In case of publication or commercial use, Entomart wishes then to be warned (http://www.entomart.be/contact.html), but this without obligation. Thank you., Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=815107

Photo Two By Gilles San Martin – Subcoccinella vigintiquatuorpunctata first instar larva, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11002359

Other Credits

Information on Harlequin Ladybirds from Beetles by Richard Jones in the New Naturalist series, highly recommended.

1) ____ Beetle

Dear Readers, we had so much fun with the beastly plants last week that I thought we’d have a go with some beastly invertebrates this week. All you have to do is to find the creature that completes the name of the ‘bug’ in the photo. So, if you think photo one is of an antelope beetle, that’s your answer to number 1! Simple! All the invertebrates are found in the UK, though some of them are more unusual than others. I’m always surprised at the sheer variety of small beasties there are to spot in our gardens.

I have found some really great photos for us this week – photo credits will be included with the answers on Tuesday.

Please note that number 15 has not one but two other creatures in its name, so your total score will be out of 16.

As usual, pop your answers into the comments before 5 p.m. on Monday UK time if you want me to mark your attempt. Some people are extremely speedy, so if you don’t want to be influenced by those who came before, write your answers down first (and throw away your Tipp-ex and eraser 🙂 ).

Have fun!

2) Silver____

3) ____ Cricket

4) Meadow ____hopper

5) Suffolk ___lion

6) Green _____ Beetle

7) Devil’s coach-_____

8) __________ beetle

9) _____ Fly

10) _____ Fly

11) ______ Hoverfly

12) ________ Fly

13) _______tail Butterfly

14) _______ Butterfly

15) ________ ____moth

Dear Readers, Coppett’s Wood is a tiny nature reserve tucked away between the North Circular Road, a coach garage and a Tesco Superstore. I have lived in this area for over ten years and it’s the first time that I’ve visited, although it’s only a 20 minute bus ride away. Once upon a time, the wood was part of the extensive Finchley Common, which was the haunt of so many highwaymen that Sir Gilbert Elliot, Earl of Minto, said in a letter to his wife that he would not “trust my throat on Finchley Common after dark”. In 1725 two highwaymen went as far as to draw up a contract in which they agreed to split the proceeds of their ‘highway robbery’ between them, although one of the highwaymen later contested this in court. There was a gibbet at the corner of Lincoln Road, just a few roads up from where I live, until the 1780s.

As we walked through Coppett’s Wood earlier this week, it struck me that a current day highwayman could probably do rather well here today: the understorey is much better developed than in my local Coldfall and Cherry Tree Woods, and the path meanders so that you can’t see who is around the next corner, causing us to give quite a shock to a poor young woman out running with her husky. I note that one of the criteria for a Green Flag Award, given to parks and other green spaces, is that there should be clear sightlines so that people can feel safe. However, I suspect that Coppett’s Wood is probably richer in biodiversity than our wood, and that would be because of the greater variety of habitats. There’s always a balance to be trod between safety and conservation, and while this place may look like a place where bad things could happen, I have never read anything in the newspapers to indicate that this is a serious concern. Plus, once you’re away from the scrubland and into the wood, it becomes a bit more open.

Before anyone thinks I’m being a bit of a wimp by talking about how safe a wild area feels, I’d like to mention that, as a young woman of nineteen years old, I was attacked by a man in the woods above Winchester. Fortunately, I was able to get away before anything too serious happened, but for a time it made me hypervigilant and absolutely terrified of being outside on my own. I know that I’m not the only person that this has happened to, and my heart goes out to those whose experiences had more serious consequences. Not everyone can stride through green spaces without a care in the world, and not everyone that you meet is harmless. In the end, my absolute passion for the natural world and my instinctive sense that, for me, healing was only possible by getting out there and paying attention to plants and animals was what walked me out of the door when I was afraid and didn’t want to go.

The gleam of sunlight on leaves, the sound of bees, the glimpse of a bird flitting through the branches has saved my sanity and calmed my grief and fear more times than I can say.

Path through the scrubland and into the wood

The wood itself

But, back to Coppett’s Wood. While the wooded area is the usual hornbeam and oak, there are lots of apple trees in the less shaded areas, and I wonder if this could have anything to do with the fact that in a previous incarnation, the scrubland abutting the wood was a sewage farm.

One of many apple trees.

Near the Colney Hatch Lane entrance, there is supposed to be a pond, and I spent twenty minutes scrambling through the undergrowth looking for it. Alas, I couldn’t find it, and I wonder if it’s seasonal. There was a splendid Emperor Dragonfly hawking above the path though, and although these creatures are often spotted some distance from water, it made me wonder if there had been something there previously.

There is a fabulous crop of teasel, which likes damp soil, so maybe the pond is normally around here. I know the goldfinches will be delighted.

I am always very taken with how magical the heads of the umbellifers look at this time of year too.

And what a bumper crop of hips and haws there have been this year too! There is lots of Midland hawthorn in the wooded areas, and dog rose everywhere.

During WW2, Coppett’s Wood was used for tank and gas mask testing, and there are lots of miscellaneous concrete items left in the wood. I have no idea if these are actually WW2-related, or pipes from the sewage works, or indeed some other manifestation of the area’s history. Spiders seem to have made themselves at home in many of them, so they certainly have their uses.

I enjoyed our expedition to Coppett’s Wood – it’s always a delight to find a little patch of wildness so close to home, and I was even more impressed when I got home and found out that it’s the only London site for Lesser Water Plantain (Baldellia ranunculoides), so it’s even more of a shame that I couldn’t find the pond. Maybe next time I’ll go in winter, when the leaves will be down and any landscape features will be a bit more obvious. And here’s to exploring our local areas, which are often full of fragmentary green spaces that go unvisited because, pre-pandemic, we were visiting bigger, flashier sites elsewhere. I see from the London Borough of Barnet website that there are over 60 local nature reserves listed for this borough alone. Who knows what else I might find?

Lesser Water Plantain (Baldellia Ranunculoides) (Photo One)

Dear Readers, I can’t remember ever reading a book in the genre of nature writing that begins with a civil ceremony, but then ‘On the Red Hill’ is not an ordinary ‘nature’ book. Mike Parker manages to interweave two stories; that of Reg and George, a gay couple who owned the house on the red hill, Rhiw Goch, and that of the author and his partner, Preds, who inherit it. Underlying the book is a history of the lives of gay men, and of this part of Wales. There is also a meditation on what Welshness means, and on the tug between urban and rural life.

The stories of Reg, the homemaker and socialite, and George, who longs for the perfect body and who controls the purse-strings, are fascinating. They become civil partners after six decades together, when Reg is 79 and George is 89. They have been through the whole gamut of social attitudes: for the first eighteen years of their relationship, it was illegal. And yet they have run a series of guest houses, and seem to have had a mostly happy life. Towards the end of their lives, George develops dementia, and goes into a nursing home, while Reg contends with the aftereffects of a series of strokes. It’s thought that George is beyond recognising Reg, but then:

‘Near to the end, when Reg was once taken to the local rehab hospital, George – already there- saw him across the foyer and burst out. ‘There’s Reg! I love Reg!’ Even the nursing staff, inured to daily doses of heartbreak, looked momentarily teary.’

So at the heart of this book is at least one love story. But the relationship between the author and rural Wales is much less straightforward. He baulks against the quietness of Rhiw Goch, bursting out into the night and railing against this new identity;

‘The night punches me in the innards…I see nothing but a black wall and no escape’.

His partner, Peredur, is Welsh born and raised, and takes to the making of a home and garden with ease. He is a man so comfortable in his skin that he never had to ‘come out’ officially to his family – being a child who wanted a peacock for his ninth birthday seems to have been indication enough. But the author has suffered from body dysmorphia and a deep sense of shame. He normally pushes away anyone who likes him too much, but here he is, with a man who adores him. Will it work out?

‘…he silenced my frets with a kiss, whispered, ‘I promise you, I am going to build us the most beautiful home ever‘, and kissed me again. The thaw was instant, total.’

The author makes a swimming hole so that he can luxuriate in the water. He walks for miles. They have community parties in the house and the barn, bringing together friends and family and neighbours. But underlying everything is a sense of melancholy that’s difficult to shake. I wonder whether the author will be able to settle, or whether his restlessness will drive him on. It isn’t clear to me at the end of the book, and I don’t think it’s necessarily clear to the author either. But this is true to life, after all; we never know where fate will take us, or what will happen next. It’s difficult to know how we’re going to feel tomorrow, let alone in a year’s time.

What is unique about this book, at least in my experience, is that it sets out the story of gay men in a rural setting – everything else I’ve read has been about city life. I always expect the countryside to be more conservative, less tolerant of difference. But this is a stereotype; the author and his partner are touched to learn that their ‘next door’ neighbour, who is about to sell her house, quizzes all potential buyers on whether they are homophobic, much to the chagrin of her children who think that she should just get on with selling the place. Reg and George, and the author and his partner, seem to have just been absorbed into the life of the area, and accepted as they are. There is a phrase in Welsh ‘yr hen lanc’, which literally means ‘the old lad’, ‘the confirmed bachelor’, and there were and are many such men in rural areas, living with a special friend or a ‘brother’, looking after their mothers, running the shops, working away on the farms. And such women too, living quiet lives with their ‘friends’, often organising everything that matters in their villages.

And where, you might be asking, is the ‘nature’ part of this book? Well, as in so many of the other books I’ve read, I’d have to say that it takes a back seat to the human dramas that are going on, though it does provide a stunning backdrop, and the descriptions of the area through the different seasons are beautifully conveyed. Inasmuch as you can sum up what nature writing is these days, it seems to be almost anything that creates a sense of ‘place’, and of the author’s relationship to it, and this book certainly does that. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I loved the new perspective that it gave me. Reading the Wainwright Prize shortlist has been a real delight, and I can’t wait to see who wins on 8th September (bad timing on my part with two books left to review, but still).

And, for those of you interested in some advice on nature writing, I loved this piece by Helen MacDonald, of ‘H is for Hawk’ fame (her new book of essays, ‘Vesper Flights’ is just out). Let me know what you think, lovely readers.

https://lithub.com/helen-macdonald-the-things-i-tell-myself-when-im-writing-about-nature/

Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus)

Dear Readers, there is a most interesting article in the London History Society Newsletter this month by Rodney Burton. He is looking at the common weeds in Hackney (just a few boroughs east of where I live) and is comparing the plants with the Flora of the London Area (1976) and Dougie Kent’s Historical Flora of Middlesex (1975). I have long suspected that the wild flora of the London area has changed dramatically during my lifetime, and this seems to be borne out by the historical record.

Greater celandine still doesn’t seem to be present in large numbers in Hackney, but wasn’t recorded at all in 1976. It was previously recorded in my part of London, and I suspect that it has become a little commoner if my back garden is anything to go by. However, a real surprise is Herb Robert, which was one of my very first Wednesday Weeds, and seems to me to be everywhere around here. In 1975, Herb Robert was said by Kent  to be ‘common except in heavily built-up areas where, owing to the absence of suitable habitats, it is very rare or extinct’. Well, it must certainly have adapted better to city life since then, because it seems to pop out of the tiniest crevices in pavement or at the base of walls. It is undoubtedly our most resilient and urban-tolerant geranium species.

Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum)

Now, the two species that look to have increased the most are two old favourites of mine. Firstly, Green Alkanet (Pentaglossis sempervirens). In 1975 this was so rare in North London that every single instance of its existence was recorded. Nowadays you are practically tripping over the stuff. Burton notes that, on the RHS website, it says that the plant is ‘spread by dogs’, though this may have now changed, because when I looked it merely mentioned that the seeds can become entangled in fur and transported in that way. However, an intriguing question raised by Burton is whether Green Alkanet is actually being spread by foxes: they certainly travel regularly through dark and weedy places, and several Green Alkanets have sprung up in my garden recently. If so, as Burton mentions, it might be that the spread of the plant has coincided with the increase in urban foxes. Stranger things have certainly happened. 

Green Alkanet

And finally, there is the rise and rise of Yellow Corydalis, one of my favourite ‘weeds’. Again, in 1975 every single individual record of this plant was mentioned. By 1998, Kent noted that the plant was ‘increasing’. Today, it pops up wherever there is a gap in a wall that doesn’t already have some ivy-leaved toadflax in it. Burton notes, as I have previously, that the plant’s seeds have an ‘oil body’ which makes them very attractive to ants, who will take them into their nests, where they will germinate and somehow find a root to the light. Does the ant link explain the spread of the plant, I wonder? Whatever the reason, it is such a delicate and airy plant that it seems to brighten up wherever it grows. It seems to me that if it was rarer, you could happily sell it in the garden centre.

Yellow Corydalis

So, we have ample evidence that within our lifetimes, our whole flora can change. I could add in a few more ‘weeds’ that I don’t remember from my youth, at least in such profusion: buddleia for one, but also the various bellflowers, Mexican fleabane and Canadian fleabane. Welsh poppy seems to be increasing in numbers during the past few years, and I am seeing a lot of hardier garden escapes, such as antirrhinums and opium poppies advancing up the streets of East Finchley. Climate change will no doubt bring its own winners and losers, and London is a hotbed for all kinds of exotic plants that escape from groceries, bought-in plants and industrial waste. As the cliché has it, ‘change is the only constant’. How useful citizen science is in these situations, and how much we owe to the people who monitored our flora and fauna in the first place!

Now, over to you. How has your flora changed during your lifetime? What’s new, and what’s lost? Do you have any theories about why some plants have thrived and some have been lost? I would love to know what’s happened in your neck of the woods. Weeds are by nature opportunistic, adaptable and resilient, so knowing what’s happening may give us some inkling about what’s going on.

Trailing bellflower, a great opportunist

And, because this post is for once a general celebration of ‘weeds’, those intrepid colonisers of our broken-down places, those joyful celebrants of life in the most unwelcoming and desiccated spots, here is an excerpt from ‘Inversnaid’, a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

‘What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.’

Amen to that, I say.

Dog Rose

Dear Readers, what a popular quiz this was! All scores are out of 19 because like a twit I lost count of my photos. In joint first place were Christine and Rayna with 18 out of 19, well done ! They were closely followed by Liz with 17, Mike with 16, Andrea with 14 and Anne with 13. A special mention also goes to Anna, who got 14 right on her first attempt at a Bugwoman quiz – welcome Anna! A most creditable bunch of scores from everybody, thank you for playing. I shall have to think up something even more exciting for next week. Do let me know if you have any thoughts on a subject that you’d like to be quizzed on next week, otherwise who knows what dastardlyness I might come up with?

1)Horseradish

2) Black horehound

3) Corncockle

4) Shining Cranesbill

5) Ragged Robin

6) Foxglove

7) Shoofly plant

8) Monkey Puzzle tree

9) Staghorn Sumac

10) Bears Breeches

12) Viper’s bugloss

13) River Water crowfoot

14) Spider plant

15) Dogwood

16) Crab apple

17) Prickly sowthistle

18) Elephant’s ear

19) Hogweed

20) Ox-eye Daisy