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

When I was growing up, we had a blue budgerigar called Fella. He lived in a cage on our sideboard for his entire life. For most of the time, he seemed to be happy enough, as far as we could tell, although I suspect that keeping a single bird when, in his native Australia, he would have been a member of a flock thousands strong was tantamount to cruelty. Still, these were days when most people didn’t think about these things: we did our best to be kind to the animals that we kept, without ever considering whether we should have kept them at all.

Every so often, Fella would flap his wings frantically, sending a cloud of feathers and bird shit all over the carpet and driving the dog into a frenzy of barking.

‘He’s having a mad half-hour’, we would say, trying to shush the dog and sweep up the debris.

But what I remember is that occasionally, I would bring Fella some Chickweed from the garden. I remember the tilt of his head as he pulled it through the bars, the look of concentration on his face as he peeled off the leaves, the way that he used his beak with great gentleness and delicacy.  In such a stultifying life, I wonder if the Chickweed was a highpoint, something that gave him a sense of the world outside the bars, a tiny piece of the wild that he would never experience.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)

The Chickweed is coming into flower again at the bottom of the street trees on my road. It forms a kind of green ruffle, covering the chicken bones from the KFC and the cigarette ends. The leaves are so green, the flowers so tiny and star-like that it seems like a last taste of spring in the midst of October. The plant is a member of the same family as Ragged Robin and Red Campion, and, as you might expect from its name, it is popular with chickens as well as budgerigars.

In the spring, Chickweed is considered good eating by humans too, and may turn up amongst the salad leaves at fancy restaurants. It’s also the foodplant of the caterpillars of this beautiful moth:

Yellow Shell moth (Camptogramma bilineata) “Camptogramma bilineata” by Eric Steinert – photo taken by Eric Steinert near Munich, Germany.

Chickweed also has a reputation for being an anti-inflammatory, especially when turned into an ointment. The water in which Chickweed has been boiled is said, when sipped, to be a cure for obesity, and can also help with the symptoms of rheumatism.

In her wonderful website Plant Lives, Sue C.Eland describes how Chickweed undergoes what is known as ‘The Sleep of the Plants’ – at night, the leaves curl over any new shoots to protect them from the cold, like a chicken snuggling her chicks under her wings.

Chickweed also has a line of hairs on its stem that all point in one direction. These channel dew into a pair of leaves where the water is absorbed and helps to hydrate the plant in times of drought – as the plant often grows in exposed, disturbed areas, this extra fluid must be very useful.

You can just make out the hairs on the stem in this lovely shot by By Kenraiz Krzysztof Ziarnek (Own work)

As we go on this journey of exploration together, I am constantly surprised by the memories that these plant and animal companions unearth, and  what a new dimension being aware of them brings to my life. Going to the shops means pausing to see what is growing, and often involves a quick about-turn to collect a camera or a plant guide. Having a conversation with a neighbour may mean suddenly swivelling on a heel to watch an unfamiliar flock of birds pass overhead. The flora and fauna  that surrounds me is giving me roots, helping me to find my home here. The least I can do is to acknowledge and to celebrate them, in all their surprising and inspiring variety.

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

Yellow Corydalis (Pseudofumaria lutea)

Just as the cold nights are coming in,  Yellow Corydalis is putting on a last display of its yellow tubular flowers, which remind me  of the muzzles of Chinese dragons. It grows very happily in this dark corner, and the lack of soil seems to present no problem – after all, this is a plant which came originally from the Alps and is therefore well adapted for infiltrating its tiny roots into the gaps in ramshackle walls and footpaths. As it has been recorded in the UK since 1796, however, I think we can consider it a native.

The plant is a member of the Fumitory family, and I was delighted to discover that the word ‘Fumitory’ comes from ‘Fumus terrae’ – Smoke of the Earth, in tribute to the fineness of the foliage. The leaves remind me a little of the Maidenhair Fern that I had as a houseplant when I was a student. That too, was one tough plant, surviving beer, cigarettes, being accidentally upended and, on one sad occasion, being pooed in by the newly acquired kitten. Yellow Corydalis is also tough, putting up with all manner of pollution and trampling, and still bouncing back. It is also poisonous, but doesn’t have the seductive qualities of many toxic plants, with their delicious-looking red berries and interesting seeds.

This is one of those plants that is so attractive that, if it were not for its omnipresence in the scabbier spots of the capital, would undoubtedly be on sale in garden centres. As usual, once something is designated as a ‘weed’, it is seen, in general, as having no redeeming features whatsoever. Here at the Wednesday Weed, of course, we have no truck with such silliness.

Yellow flowers, yellow graffiti

This plant flowers more prolifically and grows more vigorously than anything else in the alley by the side of my house, and I am grateful to it for covering up the extremely uninspiring concrete path and the gravelly bit at the bottom of the fence. Plus, it provides cover for the froglets as they make their long and dangerous journey out into the big wide world. I could spend a lot of money buying ‘shade tolerant plants’ and be wholly disappointed with the results. Sometimes, we fail to see the beauty of what’s right there in front of us in our perverse desire for improvement and novelty. Certainly I’ve been guilty of grubbing up perfectly happy native plants and replacing them with showier organisms who were miserable from the second that they were planted, and faded away to a few pathetic leaves by the end of the season. But not this time! I am learning from nature, and it will be a life-long endeavour I’m sure. If something is perfectly adapted to its environment, covered in yellow flowers and dainty foliage,  why not treasure it?

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

Smooth Hawksbeard (Crepis capillaris)

Last Friday, I went for a walk in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery with my friend Jo.  At this time of year there are lots of plants putting in a last burst of enthusiastic flowering. We found a whole patch of Comfrey in full blossom, attended by the last of the Queen bumblebees who are fattening up before they hibernate. And we also found several patches of Smooth Hawksbeard, one of those ‘yellow compositae’ that are so numerous and so tricky to identify, what with all the Hawksbeards and Hawkbits and Catsears and Dandelions.

This is one of those plants that we take for granted. There are so many yellow-flowered weeds around, blossoming from the first dandelions (who often seem to appear as soon as the snow disappears) to the sow thistles and groundsel who, especially in cities, never seem to stop in even in the depths of winter. But a close look reveals how pretty it is, with its blunt-petalled flowers and long, hairless stems.

There are no great stories told about Smooth Hawksbeard, or at least none that I can find. I am even unable to tell you why it, and the other members of the family, are called Hawksbeards. What I do know is that the sunny presence of this unremarked little plant cheered us both up greatly, and that the hoverflies were delighted to find it in flower.

As I was researching this piece, I was also very happy to find another person who appreciated London’s weeds – the artist, Michael Landy. You might know him from his project ‘Breakdown’ where he meticulously catalogued, dismantled and destroyed all of his 7227 possessions, in public . I remember watching him going about this task in a defunct branch of C&A on Oxford Street. However, his weed drawings are called ‘Nourishment’, and here’s what the Tate website has to say about them:

“The etchings are all meticulous, life-sized studies of individual weeds the artist found growing in the street. Landy has described why he was drawn to these ‘street flowers’. He has said, ‘they are marvellous, optimistic things that you find in inner London … They occupy an urban landscape which is very hostile and they have to be adaptable and find little bits of soil to prosper’ (quoted in Buck). Weeds are hardy, thriving in often inhospitable conditions with very little soil, water or direct sunlight. They grow between paving stones or on waste ground in the city, tenaciously asserting themselves despite being overlooked by the majority of passers-by. Landy collected a number of these plants and took them back to his studio where he potted and tended them, making studies of their structures including detailed renderings of roots, leaves and flowers.”

To see his etchings of Smooth Hawksbeard and many other Bugwoman favourites (Herb Robert, Groundsel, Shepherd’s Purse) just click here.

I hereby dub Michael Landy as a honorary Weed Warrior.

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

This small, lilac member of the daisy family seems to be popping up all over the place in my half-mile territory. These photos were taken in Coldfall Wood, where it makes the dried-up winter pond look like an Impressionist painting. But this delicate-looking plant has had a long journey. It comes originally from North America (it was introduced to England by John Tradescant in 1633), and it is a prairie plant rather than a woodland one. Nonetheless, it seems to made itself at home in all kinds of damp and neglected places, bringing a wash of pale lavender amongst the green

This is not an easy plant to identify at the species level. We have Common, Confused, Narrow-Leaved, Glaucous, Hairy and Changing Michaelmas Daisies, and every possible hybrid. As I squint at my photographs, I suspect that my daisies are Confused . On a bad day, I know exactly how they feel.

The great thing about Michaelmas Daisies, as anyone who has planted them deliberately will know, is that they are full of energy and colour when most other plants are giving up. They seem to be particularly attractive to hoverflies, a creature that prefers flat, easily-accessible blossoms.

Until 1752, this plant was known as Starwort. But when the Gregorian calendar was introduced, it was renamed the Michaelmas Daisy because its flowering coincided with St Michael’s Day on 29th September. However, I rather like the notion of a patch of Starworts, flowering under the harvest moon in a tiny ancient wood in North London, just as they have done for hundreds of years.

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

Cuckoo-pint (Arum maculatum)

Cuckoo-pint. Lords and Ladies. Willy Lily. Cows and Bulls. Was there ever a plant that had so many names? And all of them are associated with sex – even the innocent ‘pint’ in ‘Cuckoo-pint’ is short for pintle (slang for ‘penis’). In the spring and early summer, the inflorescence looks like a combination of pale green vulva and purple phallus, and, as we will see, nothing about this plant is straightforward.

Diagram of the ‘flower’ of the Cuckoo-pint – “Diagram of Arum Maculatum” by Encyclopædia Britannica – Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, Vol. 2, Page 640. Via Wikipedia

The strange green inflorescence is not actually a flower – it’s called a spathe, and the true flowers are hidden deep inside the plant. Have a look at Figure 3, in the drawing above. You can see that at the base of the spathe there is a ring of tiny blossoms. These are the male flowers, and they produce the smell of freshly-deposited animal droppings. Plus, the spathe generates its own heat – it can be fifteen degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding air. This  attracts an insect called the Owl Midge, which normally feeds on dung.

The Owl Midge lands on the flower, and tries to find out where the droppings are. Once it has entered the ring of male flowers, it finds itself trapped overnight, and in the process of trying to escape becomes covered in pollen. When morning comes, the flies are able to escape and travel on to another Cuckoo-pint, where the same thing happens all over again.

The female flowers are below the male flowers, and it is these that turn into the scarlet-orange berries that I saw in Coldfall Wood last week. As I hadn’t previously noticed the flowers, they were a startling surprise:

Cuckoopint (Arum maculatum)

The berries are  poisonous, resulting in tingling and swelling of the tongue and mouth. As the plant is very common, they account for a large proportion of the people who turn up in Accident and Emergency following a little spontaneous foraging (23 people between 1996 and 1999, according to the wonderful Poison Garden website – only the nightshade family was responsible for more visits).  However, rodents don’t seem to be affected by the toxin, and, as they cache any berries that they can’t eat at the time, are largely responsible for the spread of the plant from one glade to another.

To add to the otherworldliness of this extraordinary plant, its pollen glows faintly after dark – they have been called Fairy Lamps and Shiners by the people of the Fens for generations.

One might think that a toxic plant would have few practical uses, but the root of Cuckoo-pint has been used as a replacement for arrowroot, although the sauces thickened with it tended to be bitter. The root was also used in Elizabethan times as a starch for ruffs, but was said to have caused severe blistering of the launderer’s hands. It seems to me that this is a plant which would really prefer to be left alone to get on with its life without interference, and has no compunction about saying so.