Monthly Archives: January 2024

The Mouse and the Magpie

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Dear Readers, a lot of you will have been fascinated, as I was, by the film of a wood mouse ‘tidying up’ the shed of wildlife photographer Rodney Holbrook, who lives in Powys, Wales. He noticed that items that he’d left on his workbench were being tidied away overnight, and so he set up a night vision camera (as you do). The film of what was happening has gone viral, and hopefully you’ll be able to watch it here.

What is really going on here though? There are a number of clues. Holbrook mentions that the mouse was also stashing birdseed in his work shoes which he also left in the shed, so what the mouse could be doing is preparing to have hibernate, or to have babies – s/he appears to be hiding food away for a rainy day, and the ‘tidying up’ could well be an attempt to nest. Anyone who has kept small rodents as pets will know that they will put all sorts of things into their nests that don’t appear to be very comfortable. The urge to make a safe place seems to be compulsive in some animals, and they’ll use whatever they can find in order to add to it.

Exhibit Two.

This is the magpie nest/squirrel drey in my whitebeam tree. After a few days of high winds the nest is rather less substantial than it used to be, but these pieces of plastic were originally tightly tucked into the structure. They look to me like the stuff that’s used to wrap building materials, and there’s been plenty of construction going on in the County Roads here in East Finchley, as there usually is. Either the magpies who nested in the spring, or the squirrels who took over the nest later in the year, decided that this material was too good to waste, and used it to make their nest/drey.

This shows how adaptable animals are, but also makes me sad. Maybe the plastic provides a degree of waterproofing, but it might also wrap around somebody’s neck, or get eaten. Just as the mouse appears to be trying to make a cache or a nest out of bottle tops and plastic lids, so the animals in my garden are using what they find around them to make themselves safe and comfortable. Their survival depends on it, and while Tidy Mouse might be cute, it shows how instinct can encourage animals to use their time (so short in the case of a wood mouse, which lives a couple of years at best) to do things that might not be in their best interests.

Still, at least Tidy Mouse has access to probably plentiful supplies of bird seed, and a warmish, dry place to live, and maybe there are other interpretations for their behaviour. Let me know what you think, Readers! And for those of you who have long memories, here is another story of a mouse in a shed, this time one that found his or her way into the seed bin for the birds. It was written a few months before my mother died, and it’s painful to read how full of hope for her recovery I was. Still, it’s hope that often gets us through, so let’s not knock it…

 

 

Wednesday Weed – Camellia Revisited (Again!)

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Dear Readers, we went for a quick visit to Golders Green Crematorium at the weekend – we were promised a (brief) spell of warm weather, but instead we got some of the damp stuff. Nonetheless, it was long enough to admire the camellias before the rain (and the snow as of today) ruined their petals. Such ephemeral plants, and so varied these days! As you’ll read in my 2018 post below, I have a white one in a pot that my Dad bought for me, though he was never well enough to come and see it. These plants aren’t great for pollinators (my usual reason for giving anything house (or should that be garden?) room but how could I possibly get rid of this one?

Camellia japonica

I’m noticing a fair few double-flowered camellias now, like this splendid cerise one also from the crematorium.

But in truth I like the single-flowered ones best. They have a kind of hauteur (I’m sure I’m projecting now), a frosty elegance that makes me think that they would look down on the blowsy roses and ostentatious lilies if they were all at a ball together. Clearly there is too much Jane Austen in my backstory.

A friend of mine suggests that although they are supposed to like acid soil, camellias will do very well if planted in the garden, in spite of the clay soil, and there are many plants in local gardens that seem to prove the point. Maybe this year I will liberate my camellia from its confines and allow it to run free! Along with my poor potted mahonia, and a pyracantha that I’ve had in a pot since 1998. I rather suspect that the roots of the pyracantha will contain the bones of my pet hamster – I had no garden at the time of her demise but couldn’t bear to just throw her out in the rubbish. It will be interesting to see how I get on.

And now, let’s journey back to 2018 and my first post about the camellia. Seems like I’ve been obsessed ever since.

Dear Readers, it might seem strange to be in love with a plant, but I am enraptured with the white camellia that lives in a pot right outside my back door. I have tried to create a shade garden in the dreary north-facing side return there, and Dad gifted me with this plant several years ago. I know that it isn’t good for pollinators (my usual reason for planting something).  I know that in a bad year, the blossoms go brown almost before they’ve opened because of cold weather or rain. But still, I find it exquisitely beautiful, with its shiny green leaves and sunburst of yellow stamens in the centre of all that ivory-white.

Every time I see it, it reminds me of Dad. I think of how he taught me to transplant seedlings, picking them up with his big brown hands and handling them with such tender care. It makes me sad to think that, because of the neuropathy in his hands, he can now barely handle a knife and fork, though he would be the last one to dwell on such things. He deals with things by getting on with it does my Dad, and he doesn’t seem to think about what he used to be able to do. Everyone copes with things differently, but this is his way, and it seems to work for him. My parents come from a class and a generation when it wasn’t done to analyse things too much, because what was the point?  No one outside your immediate family and community was going to help.

The camellia is also known as the Rose of Winter, and in the mountainous areas of its native China, South Korea and Japan it blooms between January and March. In my back garden, its buds open from mid March onwards, although the snow that we’ve had this week will be slowing it up a bit.

In Japan, the flower is pollinated by the Japanese white-eye, a small bird.

Photo One by DickDaniels (http://carolinabirds.org/)

Japanese white-eyes courting (Zosterops japonicus) (Photo One)

Most camellia species need acidic soil, hence the fact that my plant is growing in a pot – the clay in my garden would certainly not be to the plant’s taste. There are, however, a few Vietnamese camellias that live in the limestone karst area of the country, and which are more amenable to alkaline soils.

Vietnam is also home to the endangered yellow camellia, Camellia chrysantha. Apparently breeders have been trying for years to get a yellow camellia which also flowers abundantly, and even in China and Japan they have largely failed – the yellow species tend to have small, downward-facing flowers, and to be extremely picky about where they grow.

Photo Two by By self - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3720312

Camellia chrysantha, the yellow camellia (Photo Two)

As you will know, the garden camellia is closely related to Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, and tea can be made with the leaves of Camellia japonica. For the full details of how to do it, have a look at the Taurus Rising blog here. However, as a synopsis, you need to pick the youngest three leaves at the top of a stem, rub the leaves between your hands to crumble them, and then sort out the stems from the leaves. The crumbled leaves are left for a couple of days and are moved around periodically to aerate them before they are dried in a low oven. The conclusion was that the resulting brew was pretty high in caffeine, and ‘delicate’ in flavour – the authors thought that the leaves could have been left for a few more days to mature and deepen the taste.

Personally, I still want my camellia to grow, so will wait a bit longer before I start nipping off the stem tips. Camellias grow fast (up to 30 cm a year) and can live a long time (there are camellias in Portugal that are thought to be 460 years old). In time, they can turn into a magnificent tree – there are a couple in a front garden in Tufnell Park that are absolutely gob-smacking, as tall as the second storey window and covered in red and pink blooms every spring. I don’t have a photo of those trees, but the one below, from Hyde Hall in Essex, gives you an idea.

Photo Three by By Acabashi (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Camellia tree at RHS Hyde Hall (Photo Three)

Or you can torment your camellia until it becomes a bonsai if you’re that way inclined. As I’ve mentioned before, I admire the skill and persistence that it takes to create a miniature tree like this, but I feel a kind of empathy for the plant, who surely ‘wants’ to be ten metres high.

Photo Four by Sage Ross (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Japanese camellia as a bonsai (Photo Four)

The flowers of the camellia have been used in herbal medicine to treat various blood-related ailments, and are also widely reported to be mixed with sesame oil as a salve for burns and scalds. I was always taught not to plaster burns with creams, but there you go. The seeds of the related species Camellia oleifera are used to create a cooking oil that is very widely used in Southern China, and apparently you can do the same with Camellia japonica.

In Japan, the Emperor carried a staff made from camellia wood to fend off the evil eye, and flowers are said to represent business success, virtue, happiness, fidelity, luxury, tastefulness, & a life concluding in the ease of retirement. In China, the flower is said to represent the union of male and female, with the petals representing the female principle, and the green calyx representing the male. Typically, when a flower falls the calyx remains on the stem, but in camellias both fall away together. It is said that both male and female attributes are needed for wholeness (as in yin and yang) and I’m not going to argue with that.

The flowers of the camellia have always been seen as expensive, rare, and slightly decadent. Probably the most famous literary representation of the plant is La Dame aux Camelias, by Alexandre Dumas. It tells the story of a young man in love with a courtesan, Marguerite Gautier, who is dying of consumption. In real life, the courtesan was Marie Duplessis, Duma’s lover. In the novel, Marguerite gets her epithet ‘the lady of the camellias’ because she wears a red camellia when she is menstruating (and hence unavailable) and a white one the rest of the time. The book rapidly became a play, and then the opera La Traviata. In the cinema, the role of Marguerite has been played by actresses as varied as Greta Garbo, Theda Bara (the original ‘Vamp’) and Isabelle Adjani.

Photo Five by By Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (work for hire) - [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18170161

Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor in the 1936 film ‘Camille’ (Photo Five)

As you might expect, in the pictorial arts the camellia has been a great favourite with Dutch still life painters. However, I also like the elegant depictions of the plant from China and Japan, such as this painting by Lu Ji from the sixteenth century.

Pheasant and Camellia shrub by Lu Ji (Public Domain)

Finally, for our burst of poetry this week, I’d like to present two poems. The first, by American poet Carol Snow, is short and simple, at least at first glance.

Tour

Near a shrine in Japan he'd swept the path
and then placed camellia blossoms there.

Or — we had no way of knowing — he'd swept the path
between fallen camellias.

—Carol Snow

The second is by French writer Honore de Balzac, and it seems to reinforce that theme of the camellia as a hothouse flower, suitable only for ballrooms and to grace the hair of beautiful women.

The Camellia

In Nature’s poem flowers have each their word

The rose of love and beauty sings alone;

The violet’s soul exhales in tenderest tone;

The lily’s one pure simple note heard.

The cold Camellia only, stiff and white,

Rose without perfume, lily without grace,

When chilling winter shows his icy face,

Blooms for a world that vainly seeks delight.

Yet, in a theatre, or ball-room light,

I gladly see Camellias shining bright

Above some stately woman’s raven hair,

Whose noble form fulfills the heart’s desire,

Like Grecian marbles warmed by Phidian fire.

For me, the camellia is a symbol of endurance, flowering in the earliest part of the year, before even the daffodils have gotten going. It asks for little, and gives so much. And it will always represent my father’s love, and his persistence, and his uncomplaining straightforwardness. It is the first thing that I see when I step into the garden from the kitchen, and it never fails to make me smile and feel grateful. It might be a ‘lily without grace’ to Balzac, but it’s full of grace for me.
Photo Credits
Photo One by Photo One by DickDaniels (http://carolinabirds.org/)
Photo Two by By self – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3720312
Photo Three by By Acabashi (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo Four by Sage Ross (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo Five by By Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (work for hire) – [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18170161

New Scientist – Adaptable Macaques

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Long-tailed macaques in Borneo (Photo by John Tomsett)

Dear Readers, when I read this piece in New Scientist this week I was transported right back to my 60th birthday special holiday in Borneo, when we watched long-tailed macaques playing alongside the river. I remember thinking how intelligent and dextrous they seemed to be. I was also very impressed that one macaque who had lost one of his hands (possibly in a snare, or from a predator attack) was doing very well, keeping up with the rest of the group and appearing to be in good condition. Clearly there are benefits from being a social animal.

Injured macaque, but doing very well.

Now, the report in New Scientist is about a group of long-tailed macaques who live in Thailand, on the island of Koh Ped. Normally these monkeys have a splendid life, as tourists visit the island by boat and often bring mangoes, cucumbers and nuts for the animals. The monkeys were also visited by a group of researchers led by Dr. Suchinda Malaivijitnond of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, who had been visiting the macaques for over a decade.

However, all of this came to a grinding halt in 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. No mangoes! No researchers! And when the researchers were allowed back to the island in 2022, they discovered something astonishing: the macaques were using stone tools.

The macaques had discovered that they could use stones to smash the shells of the oysters that occur along the beach. According to the researchers, they were using quite a crude method, raising the stone above their heads and then throwing it at the shellfish, but 17 separate monkeys were using the method to get themselves some much-needed food. At the moment it’s not clear if the monkeys came up with the technique individually, or if they learned it from one another. Nor is it clear what will happen now that the tourists are back with their fruit and nuts, but primatologist Jonathan Reeves, of the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, thinks that now that the oysters are part of their culinary repertoire they may well keep doing it.

Interestingly, a study on captive long-tailed macaques concluded that they couldn’t use tools. But why would they, when presumably they were getting food regardless? The monkeys on Koh Ped innovated because they had to, and because they had the intelligence and dexterity to figure it out. I think we often conclude that animals can’t do a particular thing because we didn’t offer them a big enough reward, or didn’t design the experiment well enough. For example, I remember reading a study that found that tortoises were perfectly capable of negotiating a maze provided it was wide enough for them to turn around the corners comfortably. Doh.

 

 

Nature’s Calendar 5th – 9th January – The Light Steals Back

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Long shadows and electric-green algae in Coldfall Wood, January 2024

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

Dear Readers, I have been neglecting my Nature’s Calendar over the Christmas period but here we are again, and today’s theme feels particularly apposite. I have friends who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, and for them this point in January, when the distraction of the festive season is over and it’s back to work (and in my previous field, accountancy, there’s often the year-end to cope with too). The third Monday in January has been christened ‘the most depressing day of the year’, admittedly by a travel company who was hoping for everyone to book their summer holidays. And yet, in the Northern Hemisphere (sorry Southern Hemisphere friends) we actually already have an hour’s extra daylight per day, depending on where you are.

In her piece in Nature’s Calendar, Lulah Ellender explains how it’s getting lighter in the evening rather than the morning (due to the differences between clock-time and astonomical time), but that the time between the sun dipping below the horizon and it getting dark is actually shorter at this time of the year, due to the angle of the sun. It’s all very confusing, but I do feel a slight quickening in the pace of life, especially in the garden. Two robins were beating one another up only this morning and the place seems absolutely mobbed with sparrows, who are enjoying the tangle of honeysuckle and bittersweet that stretches up into next door’s apple tree. Plus suddenly the days are crisp and sunny rather than wet and cloudy, which always raises my spirits a tad.

Long shadows in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

Ellender makes reference to British artist Gillian Carnegie, in the context of darkness not always being what it seems, so I had to have a quick look at her painting ‘Black Square’ (2008), shown below.

Black Square 2008 Gillian Carnegie born 1971 Presented by Tate Members 2010 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T12935

The painting is based on a night scene in Hampstead Heath. It follows in the grand tradition of ‘Black Square’ paintings, with the first one by Kazimir Malevich being painted in 1915, but Carnegie brings a much more naturalistic sensibility to her work. I can imagine myself back in Coldfall Wood looking for spiders, tripping over roots and getting everyone lost.

Kazimir_Malevich,_1915,_Black_Suprematic_Square,_oil_on_linen_canvas,_79.5_x_79.5_cm,_Tretyakov_Gallery,_Moscow

Here is another one of Carnegie’s paintings. She is described as ‘reclusive’, which to me means that we should leave her to get on with her work. She was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2005, much to her horror apparently. I always love it when someone puts their art first, a lesson to us all I think.

For Ellender, the point of Carnegie’s painting is that there is always much more to see in the darkness than you spot at first glance, and she’s right, of course. As the days lengthen in the UK, it’s nice to make the most of the darkness that remains, before the hectic springtime is upon us.

 

 

A Parakeet Invasion

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Dear Readers, I have a great fondness for the ring-necked parakeets that occasionally visit the garden – they look so cheerful with their red beaks, yellow tails and green plumage, and they are as talkative, boisterous and argumentative as any London crowd on a Saturday night. A pair started to drop in every morning to eat the seed that the collared doves, woodpigeons and squirrels hadn’t already munched through.

How cute! I thought.

Then another bird started to turn up. I wondered if this was a family. The male birds have the black and pink collars, but it’s harder to tell the sex of the younger birds.

And then things got a little bit out of hand…

At one point today there were six parakeets. The ones that couldn’t get to the seeds started to tentatively explore the suet pellets – this is slightly more of a worry as they can easily unpick the wire mesh. No harm done so far.

It’s interesting to watch the hierarchy emerging. A single parrot, or even a pair, can be seen off by a determined collared dove. We have a single feral pigeon who visits this feeder, and he went head to head with a parakeet, battering it with his wings for a good two minutes before flying off. En masse though they seem to be a match for anyone who isn’t a squirrel.

Honestly, it’s like Disneyland in my garden sometimes. There are flocks of sparrows, a small flock of goldfinches, the chaffinches are back and sometimes the jackdaws drop in, who seem to have learned how to get at the suet. There are starlings and wrens and the occasional blackcap. All in all it’s a very exciting time in the garden, and I couldn’t be happier.

Of course, come the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch (26th to 28th January this year) and I’ll be lucky to see a magpie, but never mind, I shall enjoy the company that I have now.

BTW, I didn’t get a photo of it, but a blue tit was pecking away at the flowers on my Mahonia yesterday, and I’m wondering if anyone else has noticed this behaviour? I know that they are known to actually pollinate Crown Fritillary flowers in the UK, and it would be interesting to know if they’re turning to other garden plants for a nectar boost at this time of year…

 

Mahonia flowers, minus blue tit.

BSBI Plant Hunt Update

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Dear Readers, on New Year’s Day we decided to enjoy some brief sunshine amidst the downpours and howling gales that had comprised most of the festive season, and to go and look for plants in flower. We went to Cherry Tree Wood, and to some of the surrounding streets in East Finchley, including my beloved unadopted road (always a fine location for ‘weeds’ of all varieties. In all, we found 9 plants in flower.First up, some daisies in the grassy verge around the Monkey Puzzle Nursery. Some of this area has been managed as a tiny wildflower meadow in the past few years, but if you don’t see anything else, you can bet your life that you’ll see a daisy, bless ’em. So far in the Plant Hunt, it’s the plant most often seen (on 1236 different hunts when I last looked)

Daisy (Bellis perennis)

Strangely enough there was nothing obvious in flower in Cherry Tree Wood as we strolled through, but on the unadopted road there were several fine patches of white dead-nettle (Lamium album). I do love a Lamium – there are so many wonderful plants in this genus and they are great for pollinators. Between the woundworts and the dead-nettles and the horehounds there are some great medieval names too. Currently on the BSBI list at number 5.

White Dead-Nettle (Lamium album)

Coming out of the unadopted road and heading along Baronsmere there were a variety of plants in flower growing out of the old walls. This area has always been a great place for weed-hunting, with some of the plants being obviously self-sown from garden plants, and others just liking the habitat. So, in quick succession we had two kinds of bellflower, Trailing (Campanula poscharskyana) and Adria or Dalmatian (Campanula portenschlagiana). Trailing bellflower comes in at number 38, but I can’t see Adria bellflower at the moment. These plants seem pretty local to North London to me, and particularly round where I live – it’s always interesting to see how plants take to some areas more than others.

Dalmatian bellflower

Trailing Bellflower

Someone had a very fine smooth sow-thistle growing in their front garden – the one in the photo is another plant, but you get the general idea. In at number thirteen!

Smooth sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus)

There is almost always some yellow corydalis in flower too, and here it was again, just about to put out some flowers. Such a delicate-looking plant, and if it wasn’t already growing up everywhere no doubt we’d pay for it in the garden centre.

Yellow corydalis (Pseudofumaria lutea)

And there was some ivy-leaved toadflax, one of my favourite urban flowers. You can spot it growing out of almost any wall that isn’t completely marble-smooth, and if you look very closely you’ll see that its flowers are like tiny miniature orchids.

Ivy-leaved toadflax (Cymbalaria muralis)

On the corner of Park Hall Road there’s a raised bed by the side of one of the houses that always has some interesting and unexpected plants. On one occasion I found some lucerne, which was rather puzzling, but this time there was some lady’s bedstraw in flower. Did someone chuck a handful of wildflower seeds here once years ago, and they’ve been sorting themselves out ever since? Very puzzling. The photo below is from Muswell Hill Playing Fields, where there is a similar wild patch, but you get the general idea.

Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum)

And finally there was some shepherd’s purse at the bottom of a wall on Durham Avenue. I’ve grown very fond of this little plant, which seems to be able to put up with the toughest of conditions (this is currently the tenth most-often reported plant)

Shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris)

So we found nine plants in flower in less than 45 minutes during our walk in what is mainly a pretty urban area. Some dedicated souls have managed to find over 100 species, and you can read all about what’s been found so far here. I will report back when the results have been analysed, but in the meantime do let me know if you did the plant hunt here in the UK or Ireland, or if you do something similar where you live.

And now, on to the Great British Birdwatch at the end of the month. How I ever found time to work I have no idea.

 

 

 

 

The Twelve Plants of Christmas Day Twelve (5th January) – Nordmann Fir

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Christmas trees waiting for disposal in East Finchley in Jan 2023

Well, Dear Readers, here we are again for another year. The decorations are down (or should be down shortly if we’re adhering to the old superstition that it was unlucky to have them up after Twelfth Night), the tree is (in my case) dismantled and packed back into its box, the Christmas pudding and Christmas cake have been eaten and my trousers seem strangely tighter than they used to (must have shrunk in the wash). Am I the only one who feels a small sense of relief that I’m getting back ‘to normal’? Friends are available for coffee and walks in the woods again, my course is kicking off on Monday (and I’ve managed to get a week or so ahead so I’m feeling very smug) and today there’s even an interlude between Storm Henk and Storm Isha, so there’s an unusual bright  yellow orb in the sky that I’d almost forgotten about.

But here, as my final piece in this series, is an ode to the most typical of UK Christmas trees, the Nordmann Fir, from 2017. See what you think. And yes, Tony’s Continental still sells Christmas trees!

Nordmann Fir (Abies nordmanniana)

Dear Readers, when you see the Christmas trees stacked up outside Tony’s Continental in East Finchley, you know that Christmas is well and truly on its way. Another indication is when you see Michael with an axe in his hand, ready to pare down the trunks and fit them into a Christmas tree holder. One conversation with a customer went like this:

Customer: ‘Careful with that axe, you’ll cut your leg off!’

Michael: ‘I’ve been doing this for forty years and I haven’t cut one off yet! But even if I did, I’ve got another one’.

Here is a photo of Michael at work. To be honest, it’s not his legs I’m worried about.

I am also much impressed by the Christmas tree wrapping contraption that is brought out every festive season. Just pop a tree into the metal tube, push it through and it comes out wrapped in a netting bag. It’s a kind of Christmas tree sausage machine.

60% of the Christmas trees that are sold in the UK are Nordmann firs, and I can see why – the tree has soft, child-friendly needles that don’t drop, and it is a good-value, long-lived tree. What it doesn’t have is any fragrance so you won’t get that delicious piney smell, but as this scent makes some people’s noses twitch, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Nordmann firs come originally from the mountains to the south and east of the Black Sea, and so are native to Turkey, Georgia, the Russian Caucasus and parts of Azerbaijan. They live in mountainous areas from 900-2200 metres and grow to a terrific height  – one tree in the Western Caucasus reserve has been reported to be 279 feet tall, the largest tree in Europe. They also live in regions which have a rainfall of over 1000 mm per year, which is a reminder to keep them well-watered while they’re in the house.

Photo One (Wild Nordmann Firs) by By Acidka on Flickr - Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5988580

‘Wild’ Nordmann Fir trees in Karachayevo-Cherkesiya, Caucasus (Photo One)

The trees at Tony’s are typically about six to seven feet high, and would be between eight and twelve years of age. The seed is normally taken from older trees, grown on in nurseries and then sold to Christmas tree farms when the saplings are three to four years old. Once harvested, they will have a brief life of a couple of weeks in the house, before being put outside to be recycled by the council. Here in Barnet, the trees are chipped and used as a weed suppressant on municipal beds, or on paths. The chippings can also be heat-treated and then used as a soil conditioner (in their native state, the needles produce a chemical which inhibits the growth of other plants, which is one reason for the almost sterile under canopy of fir plantations).

The debate about whether to have a live tree or a cut one, or an artificial tree, depends, as usual, on a variety of factors. A live tree in a pot, that can be used year after a year, is probably the most environmentally-friendly option, but the trees often don’t survive the sudden change in environment. A cut tree is the next best choice, but only if it’s recycled: if it ends up in landfill, it generates about 16kg carbon due to the methane released as it decomposes. ‘Real’ Christmas trees also provide a habitat for a variety of birds and insects as they grow, including goldcrests, firecrests and crested tits, although the serried ranks of fir trees, row on row, are much less biodiverse than mixed woodland.

Photo Two (Crested Tit) by By Ron Knight from Seaford, East Sussex, United Kingdom (Crested Tit (Parus cristatus)) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

A crested tit (Parus cristatus) (Photo Two)

An artificial tree takes ten years of use to become carbon-neutral, due the the plastics and oils used in its creation. I have an artificial tree that I’ve been using for twenty-three (now twenty-nine!) years this year, and in typical Bugwoman style the only decorations allowed are ones that relate to animals. I shall have to post a photo once it’s up.

Another way of dealing with your Christmas tree once the festivities are over could be to eat it, but sadly not if you’ve opted for a Nordmann fir. In the article here the authors describe their attempts to turn their tree into a delicious feast.  The authors describe their Nordmann fir mayonnaise as

‘….the worst of all our experiments. It It seriously made us question our abilities and the whole concept!’

The tree was quickly replaced by the more fragrant blue spruce (Picea pungens).

Interestingly, the needles from Christmas trees of all kinds can be used in the manufacture of the anti-viral Tamiflu, which was in the news during recent worries about a bird flu pandemic. In Toronto in 2006, residents donated no less than half a million Christmas trees, and the needles were treated and powdered, ready to create up to a million Tamiflu tablets a day in the event of an outbreak. Let’s just hope that they’re never needed (Hah! Note that this was written three years before the Covid-19 pandemic. Not that Tamiflu would have helped).

The Nordmann fir didn’t always have such a grasp on the UK Christmas tree market. When I was growing up, the favourite was the Norway spruce (Picea abies) which had little sharp pointed needles which seemed to drop off as soon as the tree came through the front door. I remember picking the needles out of the pads of our dog, Spock, who was the most accident-prone hound that I ever met. He once set fire to himself by leaning up against the electric bar heater, and was only rescued when someone caught a whiff of burning fur.

Christmas seems to be the time of the year when, in the UK at least, people yearn to bring plants into the house. For a month or so, our homes are staggering under the weight of poinsettias and amaryllises, Christmas cacti and hyacinth bulbs, holly wreaths and bunches of mistletoe, and that’s even before the tree arrives. Although the origins of the Christmas tree itself are said to be from Germany in the 16th Century, it feels as if something much older is going on, and indeed evergreen branches were brought into the house for centuries before the tree itself made an appearance. It seems to me that something very profound is going on: a need to remind ourselves that the darkness of winter is not forever, and that under the soil, life is still stirring. Plus there is something about a fir tree that reminds us of the resilience needed to survive outside in the harshest of weathers. I am curious about the choice of tree in other countries that celebrate Christmas. What’s the tree of choice in Australia, for example, or in California? Do tell, I am intrigued.

As you know, dear friends, I love to close these pieces with a poem.  I find that I am ambivalent about the folksy poetry of Robert Frost, although I love the one about riding through the woods with ‘promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep’ and I can even tolerate ‘The Road Less Travelled’. And so, here is something thought-provoking from the poet, which speaks of town and country, rich and poor, and the worth that we put on living things.

Christmas Trees

By Robert Frost

(A Christmas Circular Letter)

The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said,
“There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”

                                                     “You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north. He said, “A thousand.”

“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”

He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

Photo Credits
Photo One (Wild Nordmann Firs) by By Acidka on Flickr – Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5988580
Photo Two (Crested Tit) by By Ron Knight from Seaford, East Sussex, United Kingdom (Crested Tit (Parus cristatus)) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Twelve Plants of Christmas – Hawthorn

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Mexican Hawthorn (Crataegus mexicana) Photo by Tony Rudd at https://www.flickr.com/photos/tony_rodd/4887236725/

Dear Readers, we may not think of hawthorn as a Christmas plant here in the UK, but there are at least two reasons that we shouldn’t discount it. First up, the Mexican hawthorn (Crataegus mexicana) is turned into what looks like a rather delicious hot punch, or ponche, in Mexico: the plant is known as manzanita (little apple) in Spanish, or tejocote, which means ‘stone fruit’. The ponche also includes sugar cane, cloves, hibiscus, star anise, raisins and prunes, so you could  easily get a substantial number of your 5 fruit and veg a day. Did I ever tell you that when I mentioned this concept to my Mum, she asked if she could count lemon meringue pie, because it had lemons in it?

Ponche on sale in Mexico

Ponche is on sale at Christmas time, and on New Year’s Eve. For the Day of the Dead, the fruit of the Mexican hawthorn and candies made from the fruit are offered, and rosaries made from the fruit are part of the grave decorations. Candies called rielitos (because it looks like a tiny train track) is made from Mexican hawthorn fruit, sugar and chilli powder (though on further investigation I find that the commercial sweets are made with tamarind instead).

However! You do not have to go all the way to Mexico to find a link between hawthorn and Christmas. In Glastonbury there are hawthorns that come into flower at Christmas and then again in the spring: they are thought to be common hawthorns (Crataegus monogyna) but of the biflora subspecies, which means that they flower twice. This habit of springing into flower in the middle of winter has a long association with Joseph of Arimathea, a saint who was believed to have visited the West Country – in some tellings of the legend, he brought the young Jesus with him. In Cornwall, it’s believed that Joseph was originally a tin merchant, who came to Cornwall because it was a centre of the tin trade at that point. The legend of the Glastonbury Thorn, however, told that Joseph, bearing the Holy Grail and exhausted from his travels, leaned on his staff on Wearyall Hill outside Glastonbury, and the wood miraculously put down roots and burst into flower. This original tree was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War, but many trees had been propagated from it (including one that was on Wearyall Hill until it was vandalised in 2010).

Joseph of Arimathea was the subject of William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’.  It seems to have become a popular song at funerals, weddings, sporting events, the Last Night of the Proms, and at political rallies for the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Party. It has been voted as ‘England’s National Anthem’ on several occasions. And yet this is a strange and mystical piece, as so many of Blake’s poems are. When belted out at high volume it certainly rouses the spirits, but what is actually going on is far from clear. Don’t get me wrong, I love Blake with a passion, but it sometimes feels as if this is a song that can be weaponised to support almost any view of what England’s ‘Green and Pleasant Land’ can be.

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.

Anyhow, back to the Glastonbury Thorn! Some of the trees growing in the grounds of St John’s Church preserve the original double flowering, and every Christmas, children from St John’s Infant School gather around a tree in flower. They sing carols, and the oldest child cuts a flowering twig that is sent to the monarch in London.

Glastonbury Thorn in St John’s churchyard (Photo By michael ely, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13994476)

Incidentally, the variety of hawthorn that flowers twice probably comes originally from the Middle East, which is where Joseph of Arimathea would have travelled from. Coincidence? We’ll never know the full story of the Glastonbury Thorn, for sure, but we could all do with a few more miracles, and a magically regenerating tree from someone’s walking stick does it for me. Just imagine if all of our furniture decided that ‘enough’s enough’ and became oak trees and willows and pine forests again?

The Twelve Plants of Christmas Day Ten (3rd January) – Chestnuts

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Roast Chestnuts (Photo by By Peter Forster – Flickr: Caldarroste, geroestete Kastanien, roasted Chestnuts, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13139709)

Dear Readers, I have managed to get myself confused with which day I was writing about (too much sherry in the trifle I reckon), so I managed to do two posts for the Sixth Day of Christmas. After a bit of messing about (technical term) calm is now restored: today is Day Ten, so two more to go! And apologies for any head-scratching, though hopefully nobody has noticed except me. 

Dear Readers, I only have to hear the first few bars of ‘Chestnuts roasting on an open fire’ to find myself in the Christmas mood, though it has to be the Nat King Cole version. I just love the phrasing on this song, hopelessly sentimental as it is. And it immediately takes me back to my youth, when there were chestnut sellers at either end of Hungerford Bridge, which crosses the Thames at Embankment station. This was not the nice new high-faluting bridge that we’ve had for the past few decades, but the narrow scary one with the trains rattling up the middle. Ah youth.

I must have crossed this bridge a hundred times on my way to and from the National Theatre. When I was a student back in the 1970s and 80s, you could queue up for cheap tickets to see more or less anything, and so we did go to see more or less everything that was on. Stand out performances for me included a theatrical version of the Vietnam War book ‘Dispatches’ – performed in the little Cottosloe theatre, it was a terrifying experience. Every time one of the actors raised his gun the whole front row ducked. Yikes. I saw the first run of ‘Angels in America’ here too. It occurs to me that now that I’m retired I could be sneaking off to get cheap tickets again. Hooray!

Photo of Hungerford Bridge as was from A London Inheritance

Incidentally, the photo above is from the ever-excellent ‘A London Inheritance‘ blog, which is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the Capital – what a wealth of information this blog contains! Highly recommended.

And now, let’s have a little think about the sweet chestnut, a magnificent tree with many gifts of foliage, fruit and flower. Don’t miss the poem at the end of this Wednesday Weed post, from 2021.

Sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa)

Dear Readers, I confess a great liking for the sweet chestnut tree. It was introduced to the UK by the Romans, who loved its sweet, mealy fruit, and grew it not only for this purpose but also for its timber and perceived medicinal benefits (its Latin name sativa means ‘cultivated by humans’). I love it for its furry fruits, and for those shiny serrated green leaves. The tree can live for several thousand years, and can reach a height of 35 metres.

Sweet chestnut is not closely related to horse chestnut, although the fruits do resemble conkers – sweet chestnuts are members of the Beech family (Fagaceae), while horse chestnuts and buckeyes belong to the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It just goes to show that superficial differences, such as the ‘hairy’ nut cases and the leaves which spray out like fingers from a central point, do not indicate an actual family relationship.

The bark has a characteristic spiral pattern, which I noted on another sweet chestnut that I saw on Hampstead Heath, and the flowers are in long sprays that are said to smell strongly of frying mushrooms.

Spiral bark on the Hampstead Heath sweet chestnut

Photo One by Viascos, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Sweet chestnut flowers (Photo One)

Incidentally, the sweet chestnut catkins bear both male and female parts, with the female flowers at the bottom and the male flowers at the top. It’s the female flowers that will turn into chestnuts if pollinated. The tree is self-incompatible, which means that it can’t fertilise itself – the tree somehow recognises that the pollen grain from the male part of the plant is of the same genetic make-up as that of the stigma (female organ) of the receiving plant, and stops the process of fertilization. This prevents inbreeding, and is considered one of the most important mechanisms for ensuring the genetic diversity and health of a population. Who knew? Certainly not me. I am astonished pretty much every day.

Now, back to the sweet chestnut fruit itself. This is the quintessential chestnut that you smell cooking on braziers all over London at Christmas time, and very tasty the nuts are too. Apparently Roman soldiers were given chestnut porridge before going into battle, and look how successful they were! The French have a particular fondness for chestnuts (marrons) – they turn up as sweets (marrons glacé) and in Mont Blanc, a dish made from chestnut puree fashioned into vermicelli with whipped cream. Italy and Switzerland both claim the Mont Blanc as ‘their’ dessert, in much the same way that hummous is claimed by at least eight different Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern countries. I think that travelling the countries involved and sampling the dish in each region could easily be turned into a gastronomic travel book and if anyone wants to offer me a book deal to do such a thing I am open to offers once the pandemic is over.

Photo Two by By Honio - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8630026

French/Italian/Swiss/ Mont Blanc (Photo Two)

I thought that marrons glacé were  indisputably French, but apparently Northern Italy, a major sweet chestnut-growing region, also claims them.

Photo Three by By "passamanerie" / flaviab - https://www.flickr.com/photos/flaviab/2013678423/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4884657

Marrons glacés (Photo Three)

Furthermore, in Corsica polenta (or pulenta as it’s called) is made from chestnut flour, and the Corsicans also make sweet chestnut beer. Chestnut flour has no gluten, and so is useful for people suffering from coeliac disease.

Photo Four By Clément Bucco-Lechat - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22857997

Corsican chestnut beer (Photo Four)

Historically, sweet chestnut has also been used for timber – like other trees in the Beech family, such as hornbeam, it responds well to coppicing, and produces a good crop every 12 to 30 years. In his book ‘Woodlands’, Oliver Rackham describes how there are possible remnants of Roman chestnut orchards on the edge of the Forest of Dean, but it seems that in the UK chestnut timber was relegated to uses such as hop poles and included in the wattle-and-daub walls of medieval houses. Nonetheless, as noted earlier, if not coppiced these trees can reach an immense size and age. One ancient sweet tree in South Gloucestershire, the Tortworth Chestnut, was called ‘the old Chestnut of Tortworth’ in records from 1150 AD, indicating that it’s over a thousand years old.

Photo Five By Aliasnamesake - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107161562

The Tortworth Sweet Chestnut (Photo Five)

Medicinally, it’s the leaves of the sweet chestnut that have been used, in particular to cure whooping cough and other ‘irritable and excitable conditions of the respiratory organs’. The belief in the efficacy of the leaves as a treatment for coughs lasted until at least the Second World War, according to the Plant Lore website. Another use for the leaves, also recorded on Plant Lore, was by children playing at running a home – if you strip away the flesh from the leaves they apparently look exactly like fish bones, just the thing for dinner!

And finally, a poem. This is by Thomas James, who was born in 1946 and committed suicide in 1974, a year after this poem was written. I’ve read it over and over, and I see more with every reading, but it still refuses to be nailed down, which is, I think, how it should be with a poem. See what you think, readers.

“The Chestnut Branch” by Thomas James

There is something to be said for darkness
After all. My mother’s hands
Have been full of the dark all winter.

They are hollow boats not going anyplace.
They only pull the blinds
Or gesticulate at some ineradicable star.

Now the backyard unfolds its lacy pleats,
And I bring in a white branch
Because love is the lesson for tomorrow.

Will nothing cure the brightness in these streets?
A million strange petals touch
The panes. Is it a gift of snow?

Is it making up for lack of bandages?
Is it cold, is it hot–
Will it keep, should we put it on ice?

Should my sister sew it into bridal clothes?
Is it lingerie, or just a sheet
To pull across a used-up face?

Will it brighten up the arms of chairs?
It moves. It hurts my eyes.
I am not accustomed to so much light.

It is like waking after twenty years
To find your wife gone and the trees
Too big, strange white growths that flank the street.

Photo Credits

Photo One by Viascos, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Two By Honio – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8630026

Photo Three By "passamanerie" / flaviab – https://www.flickr.com/photos/flaviab/2013678423/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4884657

Photo Four By Clément Bucco-Lechat – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22857997

Photo Five By Aliasnamesake – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107161562

 

The Twelve Plants of Christmas Day Nine (2nd January) – Christmas Rose

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Christmas Rose on Mum and Dad’s grave in Milborne St Andrew, Dorset

Dear Readers, the Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger) has become very popular as a gift plant in the past few years, and I can see why – it’s delicate, pretty, and in theory at least you can pop it into the garden when it’s done. But for me, a prime reason for growing it is that any queen bees waking up from hibernation during a mild spell will find it very handy for a quick sip of nectar – the photo above was taken during a grave visit in December 2022. I  have never been able to get the plant to be happy in my north-facing garden – maybe the soil is too heavy, or maybe it’s just too dank and dark – but I always admire it.

And look, I found a poem, by no other than Cecil Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis was a staunch Christian, but I’m sure that the lines about ‘the death of innocents, the rule of fear’ will resonate for all of us. Also, for those of us who read a lot of poetry, the rhyme scheme seems particularly interesting. See what you think, and then let’s see what Bug Woman thought about the Christmas Rose back in (gosh) 2018.

THE CHRISTMAS ROSE

What is the flower that blooms each year
In flowerless days,
Making a little blaze
On the bleak earth, giving my heart some cheer?

Harsh the sky and hard the ground
When the Christmas rose is found.
Look! its white star, low on earth,
Rays a vision of rebirth.

Who is the child that’s born each year —
His bedding, straw:
His grace, enough to thaw
My wintering life, and melt a world’s despair?

Harsh the sky and hard the earth
When the Christmas child comes forth.
Look! around a stable throne
Beasts and wise men are at one.

What men are we that, year on year,
We Herod-wise
In our cold wits devise
A death of innocents, a rule of fear?

Hushed your earth, full-starred your sky
For a new nativity:
Be born in us, relieve our plight,
Christmas child, you rose of light!

Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger)

Dear Readers, it might seem a bit early to start talking about all things Christmas-related, but the flowers of the Christmas rose are so striking that I couldn’t resist. Spotted in a window box on the County Roads in East Finchley, they are not roses at all but hellebores, members of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae). That the Latin species name for this plant (niger) means ‘black’ when the flower is pure white is a little confusing, but it probably refers to the roots. The word ‘Helleborus’ comes from the Greek words ellos, meaning ‘fawn’ and bora, meaning ‘food’  – I love the idea of young deer munching upon it, although some commentators remark that it is deer resistant. The grazers would have to be careful though, because, like all hellebores, Christmas rose is poisonous, though probably less so than some other species. Handling the seeds can cause skin irritation as well. It is also toxic to dogs and cats, so be careful if you have pets and want to bring the plant indoors.

In spite of its poisonous nature, Christmas rose has been used medicinally, as a purgative following poisoning, and as a antihelminthic (a new word to me) for parasites in children. Too much hellebore, however, and it’s quite possible to kill the child. It has also been used as a laxative. I would strongly advise leaving it to look pretty in the garden in the dark early months of the year rather than adding it to a sandwich.

In the wild, Christmas rose is an Alpine plant, found in Switzerland, southern Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and northern Italy. I suspect that the flowers will be rather smaller in the wild than in our gardens. This can be a difficult plant to grow, preferring humus-rich soil and dappled shade, and disliking acidity, but when it’s happy, it’s delightful.

Photo One by By Robert Hundsdorfer - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19318105

Christmas rose in the Austrian Alps (Photo One)

Traditionally, Christmas rose was said to have arisen from the tears of a young girl who had no gift to give to the infant Christ. It often isn’t in flower by Christmas, but may be bursting forth by 6th January, which was Christmas Day under the old Julian calendar. Obviously the ones that I photographed hadn’t got the memo about their flowering date.  It is also believed that standing on powder made from the roots of a Christmas rose will make you invisible, which is a splendid idea, what with Christmas coming and all those crowds to navigate. Should you have the urge to dig a Christmas rose up you should, according to Pliny, make sure that you are not spotted by an eagle, because the bird will swoop down and cause your death (an unlikely event in East Finchley but then I’m extremely risk averse). Pliny also suggests that, having scanned the sky for any birds of prey, you should draw a circle around the plant, face east and offer up a prayer before picking up your spade.

No other luminary than Charles Darwin, with his usual close attention, noticed something unusual about the change in the Christmas rose once it’s pollinated. The pure white flower goes green, and its shape changes, as can clearly be seen in the photo below, where the blooms show the various stages of the change, from top to bottom. I’m not sure whether this a plant strategy to deter insects from trying to pollinate a flower that is already impregnated, or just a sign, as Darwin thought, that the plant colour is related to the production of nectar which is not required once the bloom has fulfilled its purpose. Of course, it could also be both. Nature is nothing if not complex and interconnected.

Photo Two by No machine-readable author provided. Migas assumed (based on copyright claims). [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

The fruit of the Christmas rose (Photo Two)

Although Christmas rose has no scent, that hasn’t stopped an Italian perfume company from knocking up a perfume that purports to smell like the flower. However, the bottle is very pretty, and the aroma includes lilac, jasmine and fig, so it’s probably very pleasant. On the other hand, having loved ‘smellies’ all my life, I find that, as I get older, I find most of them  faintly nauseating. I feel very sorry for anyone who has a more sensitive nose than mine, and also for the many people who find being in close contact with strong smells, even pleasant ones, overwhelming. Not that this is a new problem. My Dad, who was a bus conductor in his young days, said that the smell of women’s perfume on the top deck was sometimes so strong that it made his stomach turn.

Photo Three from https://www.erbaflor.com/en/shop/the-scents-of-nature/the-christmas-rose-en/christmas-rose-perfume-1-detail

Christmas rose toiletries from Erbaflor (Photo Three)

And here is a rather lovely poem by Michael Newman, published online by Acumen magazine.It seems to me to sum up the unexpected quality of plants that bloom in the midwinter. They always feel so precious, for being so rare.

Winter Colour

Blush-shy,
The flower rises
From the soil,
Then opens into white apparition,
Helleborus niger,
The Christmas Rose.

On such a grey and rain-rotten day,
I welcome this affirmation

Of unbridled joy:

 

Photo Credits

Photo One by By Robert Hundsdorfer – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19318105

Photo Two by No machine-readable author provided. Migas assumed (based on copyright claims). [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Three from https://www.erbaflor.com/en/shop/the-scents-of-nature/the-christmas-rose-en/christmas-rose-perfume-1-detail