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.

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…..

Water Mint (Mentha aquatica)

On Sunday, I went for a walk in Coldfall Wood to see what plants I could find for the Wednesday Weed. As I reached the winter pond known locally as The Everglades, I could see that the area which was completely flooded in February…

The ‘Everglades’ back in February

was now a bog.

However, if I’d known nothing else, the Water Mint would have indicated that this was not a place to go walking without Wellington boots. Like most mints, it relishes damp, shady places. There are many different kinds of native mint, but the lilac bobble tops of the Water Mint are a dead giveaway.

In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey describes how the eighteenth-century botanist  William Sole published a survey of British mints. Sole wrote that the smell of Water Mint

‘..is exactly that of a ropy chimney in a wet summer, where wood fires have been kept in the winter time’.

Unfortunately I could not approach closely enough to see if this was the case, but if anyone finds Water Mint in a more convenient location, do have a sniff and let us all know. In the meantime, Water Mint can be used to make a delicately flavoured tea which is said to be good for stomach upsets, though I must admit that if I was feeling unwell, something that tasted of chimneys might be the final straw.

It was a real pleasure to find Water Mint growing so close to home. The last bumblebees of summer were feeding from those deep-hearted lilac blossoms, and as we head into September, it was good to see something so nectar-rich still flowering when most other plants are thinking of dying back. Most of all,  I love the exuberance  of those perfect lilac globes. They remind me so much of the psychedelic lightshades of my youth.

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…..

Duckweed (Lemna minor)

If you visit any still body of water at this time of year, you can be fairly sure to see a covering of tiny green plants. Sometimes, the whole of a pond or canal will be blanketed under the leaves, as if it were a bowling green – indeed, in the Second World War some people believed that this plant was grown on purpose to disguise the waterways. What we are looking at is Duckweed, one of the smallest flowering plants in the world, a prodigious multiplier and a great source of food for ducks (hence the name), and for pond fish.

Each group of leaves can split to form new plants…

The secret of Duckweed’s ability to cover whole ponds is down to its method of reproduction. Although it can produce flowers, it generally grows by division – each cluster of leaves can split into separate plants. This means that the plant can double its size in less than five days. One of the joys of the internet is that it allows anyone, whatever their passion, space to enthuse, and so, for a lovely little film illustrating how Duckweed grows, have a look at this from ‘The Charm of Duckweed’ site (click on the link to ‘Growth’ in the second sentence of the first paragraph).

Why does Duckweed sometimes grow so quickly? Well, it grows in ponds with high nutrient levels (particularly nitrates and phosphates). This gives me an indication that the falling leaves and other debris in my pond are starting to make the water a little too ‘rich’, and I should be a bit more meticulous about extracting them than I was last year. However, all is not lost – as Duckweed grows, it absorbs some of these nutrients, and so, provided I make sure that it is skimmed from the surface regularly, it’s actually a useful way of helping the pond water to become less of a stew. I always allow any plant matter that I remove to sit on the side of the pond for a few days, to allow the water creatures to return. After that, it’s excellent compost.

When Duckweed is removed from the water, it’s easy to see the long single roots that come from each cluster of leaves. It always reminds me a little of mustard and cress, and indeed it’s so full of fat and protein that it is grown for poultry and fish food.

One question that puzzles me a little is how Duckweed ended up in my pond. As I’ve mentioned before, it is a long way from any other bodies of water. However, when I was handling the weed I found it clung to my hands despite much vigorous shaking, and so it is likely that it will do the same to the legs of any birds who drop in to drink. It probably arrived in my pond wrapped around the ankles of a passing blackbird.

Although Duckweed is an annual plant, it is able to survive the winter quite comfortably. Once the temperature drops, the plant develops little starch-filled growths called ‘turions’ which fall to the bottom of the pond and spend the winter laying peacefully amongst the hibernating frogs and dragonfly larvae. In the spring, it floats back to the surface and recommences its reproduction. Once Duckweed has arrived in a pond, it’s very difficult to eradicate.

However, I am determined to love my Duckweed, regardless of its extravagant growth. For one thing, if it’s good enough for Shakespeare, it’s good enough for me:

‘The green mantle of the stagnant pool’ (King Lear, Act III Scene IV).

But the other reason is that, in previous years, I’ve spent a lot of time pulling blanket weed out of the pond. This is a thick, fibrous algae which wraps around everything, drowning insects and entangling tadpoles. This year, the Duckweed has shaded the pond to such an extent that I have no algae at all, and the water is much clearer. It’s much easier skimming off some little green leaves than pulling out great skeins of yellow-green slime. So, thank you Duckweed – as so often, a tiny, easily overlooked plant performs a big, meaty role in the ecosystem.

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…..

Pineappleweed (Matricaria discoidea)

I found this old friend growing by the side of the tarmac path in Cherry Tree Wood last week, and it brought back many memories of when I was a little girl. I grew up in Stratford, in East London, and our local park (the ‘Rec’) was full of Pineappleweed, growing up through the cracked surface of the playground and huddling along the pathways. I was entranced by the way that the crushed blooms smelled strongly of pineapple, and even today I couldn’t resist giving one or two of the flowers a little squeeze (just in the interests of research, you understand).

Pineappleweed is, in fact, a member of the daisy family , and is closely related to chamomile. If you take a good long sniff after making a cup of chamomile tea, there is a distinct pineappley scent, so this seems to be a family trait. Traditionally, Pineappleweed has been eaten in salads and used to treat uterine complaints (the family name, Matricaria comes from the Latin word for womb,  ‘Matrix’). Some people believe that the scent is closer to that of crushed apples, and the plant has the vernacular name of ‘Apple Virgin’,

As with so many of the ‘weeds’ we’ve investigated, Pineappleweed is not a native – it comes from north-eastern Asia and the western part of North America and ‘escaped’ from Kew Gardens in 1871. Since then, it has travelled to most parts of the UK, and the seeds are easily transported in the tyres of motorcars, which explains the many colonies of the plant in car parks and in the cracks of roads.

In North America, Pineappleweed was used by many Native American tribes. If you haven’t yet discovered it, can I recommend having a look at Plant Biographies by Sue C.Eland? Here is part of what she has to say about Pineappleweed:

“Babies in the Crow tribe could have a perfumed cradle as it was lined with the dried, crushed plant. The dried flower heads also provided a perfume for the Montana Indian and Blackfoot tribes, and they were an ingredient in a perfume mixture used by the Cheyenne.

Both the Kuskokwagmiut and Inuktitut Inuits enjoyed the scent in their steam baths, and Kutenai Indians,who used the dried leaves, also took pleasure from the scent and even made necklaces from the dried flower heads.”

We see, in this description, the way that a plant that is ignored and unnoticed in our urban environments has been used and enjoyed in a myriad ways by other communities.

Pineappleweed from Jan Kops ‘Flora Batava’

This humble little plant was one of the first to spark my interest in the natural world. I loved showing my friends how the plant not only looked like a pineapple, but smelled like one as well. This was enough to get me thinking about how plants are related to one another, and to start investigating the communities of animals that existed around these plants. Sometimes, a lifelong passion can be sparked from the smallest things.