Last day of March 2021

 It is warm but a thin mist hangs over the countryside on this last day of March.  The forecasters say it is partly composed of dust from the Sahara desert.  Here is the view from Churchland Wood across the plough to the distant Fairlight ridge buttressing against the sea.      

Birds are now very active nest building and, as I sit at my lap top, I can see the magpies coming and going from their nest in a rowan tree.  Sometimes the pair go and perch on top of the tallest tree in the garden, a wild cherry, from where they can get a 360 degree view.

Often the woodpigeons, who also nest in the garden, get there first.

We have a large area of lesser periwinkle (Vinca minor) under the hawthorns halfway down the garden.  This effective ground cover is currently sprinkled with flowers, but these seem to appear in much greater quantity around the edges of this periwinkle area. 

Two new arrivals

 In an obscure corner of the garden the light caught a small conifer maybe 5cm tall.  An adventurous seedling that is probably a yew, but possibly something else. The leaves go all round the central stalk, though I expect this is just a characteristic of a seedling. In Bean's Trees and Shrubs it says of the mature plant "leaves spirally attached to the twigs, but by the twisting of the stalks brought more or less into two opposed ranks."  This made me look more closely at the mature yews in the garden with their bipinnate branchlets unlike the newly found seedling.

Not far away from the conifer there is a mound, the remains of many bonfires.  Tana grew potatoes on this last year and there is a fine selection of weeds each summer, well nourished by the chemicals in the ash.  Wood ash is a variable substance but usually composed mainly of calcium carbonate.  However, there is often around 4% potash and 1% phosphate plus various trace elements.  But I digress, the find of the day was a solitary flower of coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) growing on the side of the mound.

Coltsfoot flowers appear at this time of year before the large leaves (shaped vaguely like colt's feet) and they are not at all common in our immediate area, preferring heavy clay soils.  I have never seen any in or near our garden.  A piece of root might, I suppose, have been brought in from somewhere else, but that seems unlikely.  As it is a native plant, arrival by seed would seem the most probable explanation. 

An infusion of the leaves was once widely used as a remedy for coughs and, in some places, the dried leaves were used as a substitute for tobacco and smoking it was said to help asthma sufferers.  The plant is also used to flavour coltsfoot rock made, over the last hundred years, to a secret recipe by Stockley's Sweets of Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire.  The aniseed/liquorice flavour is said to be 'strangely addictive' and it appears to be quite popular still.

Vole and daffodils

Tana put some scraps out on a log just outside our back door the other day and it was not long before they attracted the attention of a vole, a bank vole, Microtus glareolus, kindly identified by British mammal expert Dr Mark Hows  (It is not easy to distinguish them from field voles, Myodes agrestis.) It was a very nervous animal but I was just able to take a snap of it through the rather smudgy glass of the kitchen window. 

On my trip down the garden I was pleased to see a trio of wild daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) in flower.  They have slightly drooping two-toned flowers and mine have now survived for many years with no attention. Those below had arranged themselves together like Three Little Maids from School.

A few flowers

Still a windy day but quite pleasant, though cool, in the sunshine.  I noted several 'heralds of spring ' in flower today - lady's smock (below), alexanders and, above, early dog violets (Viola reichenbachiana).  Tana saw some wood anemones while on a walk.

Our colony of Tenby daffodils continues to look in good condition and, unlike other daffodils locally, have been unaffected by the recent gales.  The photo below shows that all the flowers face south.

March winds

There is some hopeful anticipation that the current boisterous weather will win the next storm name on the 2021 list - 'Evert' (a short form of the German name Eberhard most frequently used in Sweden and The Netherlands).  Here the wind came in strong gusts overnight and during the following day, with heavy rain showers. Sitting down the garden in the middle of the day, I was surprised that I could hear many birds singing over the deep roaring of the wind, like treble voices over a bass choir.

Great masses of air boomed over the garden from the south west keeping the tops of the trees in Churchland Wood (which I can see from my window) in constant motion.  Bright sunshine picks out much of the detail: there are fading hazel catkins, goat willow flowers and the magpie's nest in one of the rowan trees.  The birds are nowhere to be seen and may be sheltering in their insecure looking twiggy retreat, or perhaps they have a foul weather hideaway somewhere nearby.  Most mammals are hiding too but one grey squirrel went hopping over the roof of the hut.

The two tallest trees in the garden are a wild cherry grown from a fruit I found in Orlestone Forest many years ago and the silver birch in my Square Metre project,  The uppermost branches of the cherry are permanently bent over to the north, pushed that way by successive storms I suspect, especially as the trunk does not seem to move in the wind..  The birch, on the other hand grows ramrod straight though it sways, often quite violently in the wind.

An unusual effect of the wind is the way the path to the wood is strewn with pink camellia petals as though for some Oriental festival.  The petals are being blown down from a Camellia 'Garden Glory' which has been in bloom since early January and still has many more flowers to come.

The mouse and the cherry stones

Underneath a large wild cherry tree (Prunus avium), in a small open area enclosed by protruding roots, I found a large horde of cherry stones.  Each one had a hole chewed in the top.  These holes had been made by a wood mouse, or mice, (Apodemus sylvaticus) to extract the kernel within.  In summer the ground beneath this tree is strewn with fallen fruit and I wondered if the mice had collected these, maybe eaten the pulp, and then stored the cherry stones for later use.  Though there were no stones that had not been opened, considerable effort must have been involved in making such a large midden, so maybe each one was brought from a store concealed nearby and dropped outside once its contents had been consumed.

As well as wood mice, cherry stones can be holed by dormice and voles although the markings made by the animals' teeth around the rim differ for each species.  There are a several illustrations of this online; a good one is at: https://ptes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/chewed-nuts.jpg

Cherry stones have a reputation for toxicity as they contain amygdalin which converts to cyanide in the body if ingested.  The amount of amygdalin in the kernels seems to vary considerable and there is a wide range of commentary on the Internet as to their relative danger to humans.  One commentator claims that "A single cherry yields roughly 0.17 grams of lethal cyanide per gram of seed, so depending on the size of the kernel, ingesting just one or two freshly crushed pits can lead to death".  Others recommend they are used to flavour cherry jam.  

However, according to Adriano Chan et al., mice are more resistant to the effects of cyanide than humans (see https://tinyurl.com/2snymrvy) so it would appear that our wood mice have not been in danger of poisoning themselves.

An episode on the Isle of Sheppey

In February and March 2021 I read The Sea View Has Me Again. Uwe Johnson in Sheerness, a large book (733 pages) by Patrick Wright that plaits the life of the eminent German writer Uwe Johnson with a description of the past and present of the Isle of Sheppey in general and Sheerness, one of its main towns, in particular.

Uwe Johnson was born in Kammin on the Baltic coast in German Pomerania, (now Kamien Pomorski and in Poland). The area has had a complex history having been fought over by Germans, Poles and Swedes. During World War II German rocket launchers were stationed on Chrząszczewska Island (formerly Insel Gristow) that lies immediately to the west of Kammin and to which it is connected by a bridge. After the war, most Germans left Kammin and were replaced by Poles. The Johnson family moved to Anklam in German West Pomerania and also close to the Baltic with its winding rivers, lagoons and seacoast. These estuarine, rather bleak landscapes and equally bleak histories are thought partly to have attracted Johnson to live in a house in Sheerness overlooking the Thames Estuary for the last ten years of his life.

Patrick Wright is an author, historian and Emeritus Professor of Literature, History and Politics at King’s College, London. Among other things, Wright’s book (which has been highly praised by many critics) describes the numerous eccentricities of the Isle of Sheppey and its people, many of which did, or would have, attracted the interest of Uwe Johnson. I would like to add a Sheppey episode of which Patrick Wright is unlikely to have heard but which, I think, may have amused Uwe Johnson.

In the early years of the current century I took up the study of mosses and joined the British Bryological Society (BBS). Shortly afterwards I learnt that the BBS were conducting a survey of the bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts) of arable fields. Most of these are in decline due to changes in agricultural practices. In order to improve records of their current distribution I was invited, in 2004, to join a November field meeting to look for as many of these species as we could find in stubble fields on the Isle of Sheppey. The fields chosen were to lie fallow all winter with the bryophytes therefore undisturbed (except by visiting bryologists).

Our small party of half a dozen enthusiasts gathered on a cold but bright day in a stubble field to the south of Eastchurch in an elevated position more or less in the centre of the island. It was cold with a wind from the north east. To find and study the various bryophytes that flourish in stubble fields requires searching on hands and knees, high powered magnifying glass in one hand and maybe a handbook and/or notebook in the other. It is cold and uncomfortable work and I wondered how many people from Eastchurch or elsewhere were troubled at the sight of full-grown men and women crawling across the windswept fields in prayerful attitudes, especially as we were quite close to one of Her Majesty’s Prisons.

The day was made more exciting by the arrival of a group of researchers from the University of Lancaster who were studying people who indulged in unusual pursuits and, clipboard in hand, a young woman asked questions and took notes about my interest in almost invisible ephemeral mosses despite weather and other seemingly negative circumstances.

One of the target species for the day was Bryum klinggraeffii which I had never heard of. Nevertheless one of our party called out that he had found some and I went and inspected the moss that bore such an interesting name. And there on the bare soil were a few small tufts of green between the rows of the prickly cut ends of summer corn. After a quick dissertation on the visible and distinctive features of the tiny leaves and stems of this diminutive plant he drew my attention to the small, reddish tubers hiding in the moss and which, because of their shape and colour, had won it the English name of ‘raspberry bryum’. These tubers, only about ¼ millimetre wide, often occur only on the moss’s rhizoids below ground and have to be searched for in loose soil (sometimes known as the ‘diaspore bank’).

The specific name for this moss was coined by W P S Schimper, an Alsatian botanist, who formally described the species in Hugo von Klinggräff’s 1858 book Die höheren Cryptogamen Preussens (The higher cryptogams of Prussia). Klinggräff was a 19th century German botanist who specialised in bryology. Both Uwe Johnson and Hugo Erich Meyer von Klinggräff were born in neighbouring provinces of Pomerania with Baltic coastlines, both in places where Germans have been replaced by Poles and German by Polish. I like to imagine that Klinggräff would be pleased that people were finding ‘his’ moss in fields on the island where his celebrated fellow Pomeranian had once chosen to live. Had they met I think they would have had much to talk about and I think Uwe Johnson might even have made an entry in one of his notebooks.

A small memorial of this day’s moss hunting in the bare, winter countryside on this estuary island can be found on the National Biodiversity Network’s web page for Bryum klinggraeffii. If one zooms in to Sheppey there is a small cluster of dots marking records of the species made in 2004 in the arable fields around Eastchurch.

The old sallow tree in the middle of the garden died last summer and is now sporting a fine crop of Daedaleopsis confragosa the thin walled maze polypore or blushing bracket, the second name referring to  the pores (botanically described as 'daedaloid') on the underside that 'blush' pinkish if they are pressed with a finger.  The fungus is often found on willows and sallows (Salix spp.) but also occurs on many other trees where it causes white rot.

The fungus is named after Daedalus, a Greek architect and inventor who was commissioned by King Minos to build the labyrinth on the island of Crete.  Author James Joyce sometimes used the name Stephen Dedalus or Daedalus in an autobiographical sense perhaps referring, among other things, to the labyrinthine qualities of some of his writing.  'Confragosa, simply means 'rough' and refers to the upper sides of the brackets.

Enchanter's nighshade

Enchanter's nightshade (Circaea lutetiana) is once again flowering here and there in our garden and local woods.  It is a small and modest plant with delicate pink and white flowers followed by  small burrs, each containing a seed, which cling to one's trouser legs.

It appears to have very few virtues as an edible or medicinal plant but most people wonder how it came by its mysterious English name.  This has been much discussed in various online places but generally it seems to have originated in the 16th and 17th century when many of the great European herbalists were writing about the medicinal and magical properties of plants.  Among other things they explored the works of classical authors like Dioscorides (De materia medica, AD 50 -70).  He wrote of a plant called 'kirkaia' in Greek which becomes 'Circaea' in Latin and can be translated as Circe's (plant).  Quite what this was seems uncertain but enchanter's nightshade is one candidate.

The French name for Enchanter's nightshade was, at the time of the 16th and 17th C herbalists, 'circée' and this is still current in France, Italy and French-speaking Switzerland.  The herbalists assumed this associated the plant with Circe, the enchantress of Homer's Odyssey who attracted Ulysses's men with her siren song then used a magic potion to turn them into pigs.  The derivation of circée as a plant name may be correct but I have not seen any direct evidence that this was so.  There are, however, some accounts of the plant being used by women to arouse men, though this may not pre-date the 16th century.

When the French herbalists were writing they often called Enchanter's nightshade 'circée de Paris'.  This was not only because the plant grew commonly in the Paris area (and elsewhere in most of France) but to distinguish it from upland enchanter's nightshade (Circaea alpina) known in French as 'circée des Alpes'.  Circée de Paris was written in Latin as 'circaea lutetiana', the second word deriving from 'lutetia' a Roman name for Paris, and Linnaeus used this when formally describing the plant in his Species Plantarum.

All that more or less explains the enchanter's part of the name, but why 'nightshade'?  This is quite simply because the plant was thought to be a nightshade due to the shape of its leaves resembling woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara).  Gaspard Bauhin the 17th C Swiss botanist  called it Solanifolia Circaea (nightshade-leaved circée) for example. 

Things on hornbeam leaves

I seem to have been doing well with hornbeam leaves this year, especially as they do not normally seem to produce anything very exciting.  My first discovery was the tiny galls of the mite Aceria tenellus in the axils of veins in several leaves of the hornbeam cordon in my Square Metre, as well as on the edge of Killingan Wood up the lane.  There are only a few records of this species from Sussex and I expect it has been overlooked rather than being generally scarce.

My next discovery was of quite a few empty mines of the small purple hazel moth Paracrania chrysolepidella (it also feeds on hazel), an attractive, Nationally Notable class B, early flying micro.

While examining these I noticed a strange corkscrew  like gall on a leaf edge (see below) which turned out to be that of another mite, Aceria macrotrichus.  According to the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) there is only one British record of this (from the Midlands).  There were no Sussex records in the databases of the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre.  As well as the corkscrew-like structure there are vermiform swellings along the veins in the underside of the leaf and slits on the upperside from which the mites can leave

The next day I was looking to see if there were any more of these galls.  There were not, but I found the considerable mass of eggs (see below) that some insect had laid on the underside of a hornbeam leaf.  After arrival at home they started to hatch into tiny caterpillars, so I have put them on the hornbeam cordon down the garden in my Square Metre project.

Two comfreys

Part of our garden is carpeted with creeping comfrey, Symphytum grandiflorum.

The white, tubular flowers are very attractive to bumblebees and must be nectar rich.  This picture was taken on 5th April and the plant had been in flower for well over a month, helping the bumbles to get off to a good start.

Most species of comfrey have had many medical applications in the past, but these are best avoided as plants in the Symphytum genus have been shown to be somewhat toxic.

We also have a colony of Hidcote comfrey, S. x hidcotense, with blue and white flowers but the same creeping habit.  I think this must have been the plant Kenneth Grahame wrote about in Wind-in-the-Willows: "Comfrey, the purple hand-in-hand with the white, crept forth to take its place in the line."

Onion loops

One of the most delicately beautiful phenomenon of this rising spring are these arching leaves of wild onion (Allium vineale).  It seems to me an uncommon shape in our British flora.  These are just outside my Square Metre project and I think they may produce heads of bulbils this year.  The first wild onions appeared under the medlar tree a short distance away many years ago where their bulbils were probably dropped by birds. They are slowly advancing eastwards towards the Square Metre itself but have never 'flowered'.

A relaxing half hour can be had by contemplating these onion loops and listening to John Adams Shaker Loops at the same time.

Churchland

Churchland is roughly the area I can reach on foot from my home.  Further details will follow but my general intent is to make it a series of searchable notes on the small part of the High Weald lying to the north of Sedlescombe Street.  My house, South View, is close to the centre of a rough pentagon of tarmac roads at OS grid reference TQ782188.  It is on Churchland Lane which runs as a unmade road towards the village, then a footpath, then a made road through Balcombe Green and finally down to the main road through the village via Long Lane.  It more or less cuts the area I call Churchland in half while to the west there is a series of fields known generally as Churchland Fields and a wood to the east of our garden called Churchland Wood.

Plants (Plantae)

Flowering plants, conifers and ferns

In this flora of Churchland plants are arranged in alphabetical order in their groups by scientific name.  I have included wild plants and the cultivated plants that can, in most instances, be seen from the roads or the footpaths.  I will add to it from time to time but it will be ages (or never) before all the species that grow in Churchland are listed.  All a bit like train spotting.  Nomenclature follows Stace (2019).  The New Flora of the British Isles, 4th edition.

Aquilegia vulgaris - Columbine.  Occasional as a garden escape.  Along 90 metre footpath TQ78371938, in gateway on Hurst Lane TQ78211943.

Arum italicum - Italian lords-and-ladies.  There are two species of  Arum in Churchland.  This one and A. maculatum (see below).  A. italicum with plain leaves (often knows as subspecies neglectum) is found wild in Britain only in the southern counties, usually near the coast..  Unlike A. maculatum the leaves emerge in autumn.  There is also a variety with whitish veins in the leaves (often known as subspecies italicum).  Plants with both plain and veined leaves occur here and there in Churchland, often originating as garden throw-outs.  There is a patch outside Jessmond in Churchland Lane with both plain and veined leaves.

Anemone nemorosa - Wood anemone.  Common in many woodlands, especially on clay soils.

Arum maculatum - Lords-and-ladies.  Also known as cuckoo-pint and wild arum.  Unlike the above the leaves appear in late winter or early spring and often have purple spots.  It occurs in woods and hedgerows across the area.

Asplenium adiantum-nigrum - Black spleenwort

Athyrium filix-femina - Lady-fern

Asplenium scolopendrium - Hart's-tongue fern

Buxus sempervirens - Box.  Widely planted in gardens for hedging and topiary.

Chrysosplenium oppositifolium - Opposite-leaved golden-saxifrage.  Occasional in ditches and damp places.

Cupressus lawsoniana - Lawson's cypress

Cupressus x leylandii - Leyland cypress.  Common as a hedgerow shrub and sometimes allowed to grow tall, e.g. by the car port at Woodstock in Churchland Lane.  There is a variegated example with some creamy white shoots among the green in the hedge at Dino's in Churchland Lane close to the junction with Hurst Lane

Equisetum arvense - Field horsetail

Berberis - Barberries

Bergenia sp. - Elephant ears.  One plant on the edge of Killingan Wood.  Probably B. crassifolia from Siberia.

Blechnum spicant - Hard-fern

Calocedrus decurrens - Incense cedar

Caltha palustris - Marsh marigold.  Scattered in the wild in Sedlescombe.  Occurs in the pond in Tresco, Churchland Lane and the pond in Red Barn Field.

Chelidonium majus - Greater celandine.  Has occurred as a casual in Churchland Lane.

Clematis vitalba - Traveller's joy, Old man's beard.  Churchland Lane in the hedge where South View meets Little Oaks.  There are many garden Clematis species, hybrids and varieties grown in the area.
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Dryopteris affinis - Golden-scaled male-fern

Dryopteris carthusiana - Narrow buckler-fern

Dryopteris dilatata - Broad buckler-fern

Dryopteris filix-mas - Male-fern.

Ervilia hirsuta (formerly Vicia hirsuta) - Hairy tare.  I have only seen this in the garden at South View where it is a persistent weed in flower-pots.

Ervum tetraspermum - Smooth Tare.  Common in gardens and along hedgerow bottoms as well as in tough open ground.

Eschscholzia californica - Californian poppy.  Widespread in gardens.

Ficaria verna - Lesser celandine (formerly Ranunculus ficaria).  Common along waysides, hedgerows and field edges as well in more open parts of woodland where it can flower as early as mid-January.  There are four subspecies recorded in Britain.

Griselinia littoralis - New Zealand broadleaf, New Zealand privet.or kapuka in Maori.  An evergreen shrub often used for hedging, especially near the sea.  There is a mature hedge of this species (with some beech mixed in) by Churchland Lane along the front fence of The Pantiles.

Helleborus argutifolius - Corsican hellebore.  Only in gardens in Churchland.

Helleborus foetidus - Stinking hellebore.  Cultivated in gardens but not recorded in the wild in Churchland.

Helleborus orientalis - Lenten-rose.  Only in gardens in Churchland.

Hyacinthoides x massartiana.  This is the 'Spanish bluebell' commonly encountered as an escape in and around gardens.  It is a hybrid between the true Spanish bluebell, H. hispanica, and our native species.  Distinguishing the Spanish bluebell from x massartiana needs care.

Hyacinthoides non-scripta, bluebell.  A widespread and common species in most woodland in the area.  Its scientific name has changed several times over the years and there is also much confusion with the Spanish bluebell with which it hybridises (see above). Stories are frequently published about the danger to our native bluebells from this hybridisation but this does not appear to be a threat in Churchland.

Hylotelephium telephium ssp. fabaria - Orpine.  (Formerly Sedum telephium).  Grown in gardens but also quite widespread in local woods and hedge banks.  In Churchland it occurs in one place on the eastern bank of Hurst Lane.

Ilex x altaclerensis - Highclere holly.  Frequent in gardens, usually as one of the variegated forms.  A plant of the variety 'Golden King' (in fact a berry-bearing female plant) occurs in a hedge at Cherry Croft on the eastern side of Churchland Lane.

Ilex aquifolium - Holly 

Juniperus communis - Common juniper

Larix decidua - European larch

Mahonia - Oregon grapes.  Various species and varieties of Mahonia from North America are grown in Churchland gardens.  Their yellow flowers in autumn, winter and spring provide important nectar and pollen for the bumble bees that fly in milder weather in the winter months.

Lotus corniculatus - Common bird's-foot-trefoil.  Common in pastures and often on old lawns.

Lotus pedunculatus. Greater bird's-foot-trefoil.  Common in longer vegetation and damper ground than L. corniculatus.

Myriophyllum aquaticum - Parrot's-feather.  An aquatic plant from South America found in the wild in many ponds where it can suppress native plants.  Pond at Tresco, Churchland Lane (needs checking).

Osmunda regalis - Royal fern

Paeonia officinalis - Garden peony.  Several plants along Churchland Lane opposite Little Oaks gateway.  Widely grown in gardens.

Papaver somniferum - Opium poppy.  One plant occurred on a heap of brick rubble in the garden of Acorn Chalet in the early 21st century.  It did not persist.

Petasites pyrenaicus - Winter heliotrope (formerly Petasites fragrans).  A plant from the Mediterranean area with scented flowers in winter.  Only the male plant is known in Britain but it spreads vegetatively and causes problems on roadside verges and elsewhere as its large, round leaves suppress smaller native plants.  It is difficult to eradicate other than by using weedkillers.  Occurs in various places in Churchland and usually flowers well at the point where Hurst Lane joins the A2244.

Picea abies - Norway spruce

Pinus sylvestris - Scots pine

Pittosporum tenuifolium. Known as kohuhu, black matipo and tawhiwhi in Maori, but there does not appear to be an English name apart from New Zealand pittosporum.  There is a plant in the mixed hedge of Glendale in Churchland Lane. easily distinguished by the undulate margins of the bright green leaves.

Polystichum aculeatum - Hard shield-fern 

Polypodium vulgare - Polypody fern

Polystichum setiferum - Soft shield-fern

Pteridium aquilinum - Bracken

Ranunculus acris - Meadow buttercup.  Widespread in Churchland in open places.

Ranunculus auricomus - Goldilocks buttercup.  Scattered in woodland in Churchland.  This plant is apomictic and has a large number of agamospecies of which around 60 have been described but many more await description.

Ranunculus repens - Creeping buttercup.  Common everywhere often in dam open places.  A persistent weed in gardens.

Ribes nigrum - Black currant.  One plant recorded from Killingan Wood.  Widely grown in gardens

Ribes rubrum - Red currant.  Frequent in woods and widely grown in gardens.

Ribes sanguineum - Flowering currant.  One plant in Churchland Wood.  Widely grown in gardens.

Ribes uva-crispa - Gooseberry.  Recorded as a wild plant in Churchland Wood.  Widely grown in gardens.

Sedum album - White stonecrop.  A frequent escape from gardens on walls and gravelly paths.  Sometimes used on green roofs.

Sempervivum tectorum - Houseleek.  This and its varieties plus some other houseleek species are widely grown in Churchland gardens.

Symphoricarpos albus ssp. laevigatus - Snowberry.  Introduced from western North America.  The plant naturalised in Britain is ssp. laevigatus.  There is a vigorous plant in a garden at TQ78351927 to the west of the footpath.

Symphytum grandiflorum - Creeping comfrey.  Occurs in gardens and sometimes escapes.  Can start to flower in January and is very attractive to bees.

Symphytum x hidcotense - Hidcote comfrey.  Occurs in gardens.

Tellima grandiflora - Fringecups.  From North America.  Has sown itself for many years in the garden at South View in Churchland Lane.

Taxus baccata - Yew.  Widely self-sown into local woodlands and frequently planted both as a free-standing tree and for a hedge, or topiary.  There is an Irish yew, Taxus baccata 'fastigiata' by Churchland Lane on the boundary between South View and Little Oaks.

Viburnum tinus - Laurustinus.  An introduced evergreen shrub from the Mediterranean area that has pink or white flowers in the colder months of the year.  Itr is often ravaged by the viburnum leaf beetle beetle Pyrrhalta viburni. Laurustinus leaves have things called ‘domatia’ in some of the underside axils of some of the leaves.  These domatia consist of clumps of small white hairs and act as shelter for a species of mite called Metaseiulus occidentalis.  Apparently these mites eat the eggs of the red spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, which are very damaging to plants and laurustinus can therefore be of value to gardeners for control of this pest.

Viburnum x bodnantense.  A group of hybrids between Viburnum farreri and V . grandiflorum.  The first to be propagated was raised at Bodnant gardens in North Wales in 1935.  The pink and white flowers appear on bare branches in midwinter and have a strong perfume.  There is an example on the south west corner of The Pantiles' garden by Churchland Lane and also one in the garden of South View..

Vicia sativa ssp. nigra - Narrow-leaved vetch.  Common in hedgerows and rough grassland.

Vicia sativa ssp. segetalis - Common vetch.  Occasional in hedges and rough places.

Vicia sepium - Bush vetch. Common in hedgerows and rough places.
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The Square Metre 19 July to 22 August 2019

The photo below shows many of the features in the Second Meadow that are mention in this post.  The stone row  just to the left of centre is Cynthia's Ridge. Travelling clockwise the flat area to the right is the Dust Bowl. The dark circle at 3 o'clock is Second Meadow Pond.  Just below this is the singled Eastern Dandelion just above the ragwort plant both growing in what I call Conservation Lawn.  At about 7 o'clock there is the cardboard Amazon square and at about 8 the western dandelion between two non-interference grass tufts.  The grey brown area to the left of these is where the woodchip from the entrance path encroaches.  At about 11 o'clock past the fern and the irises the black bryony climbs up into the darkness and already has a few yellow autumnal leaves.
                            
                            In the top right hand corner the trunk of the mature birch tree growing in the original Square Metre can be seen

19 July 2019                Quite cool with rain approaching: its first intrusions could be felt in the wind.  A muscid and an ichneumon sat each on its own rock in Cynthia’s Ridge, presumably enjoying the stored warmth.  There was also a fragment of snail shell on one of the rocks indicating a thrush had been in action.  Second Meadow Pond was half empty again.  Many of the sorrel seedlings are marked with red to a greater or lesser degree.

20 July 2019                Heavy overnight rain has wetted the Dust Bowl and given the seedlings a better chance of survival.  There were two springtails on thePost settings pond and a cream spot ladybird, Calvia quattuordecimguttata, on a hogweed leaf.  One living feeler of ivy has reached Second Meadow Pond.

21 July 2019                Warm again – good growing weather.  Three Rhagonycha fulva, red soldier beetles, and a male social wasp on hogweed flowers.  A red blood worm tumbling through the water in Second Meadow Pond plus a dead burying beetle (Nicrophorus sp.) in the grass. I wonder what it had been burying.

22 July 2019                There are green aphids on some hogweed stems and a potter wasp on the flowers.  I am letting a few grass clumps develop naturally in the Second Meadow in the hopes that they will grow into an interesting feature.  The first harvestman of the year appeared in the vegetation north of Troy Track.

23 July 2019                It is getting very hot and the hogweed is drooping slightly.  Noted some worm casts in the Second Meadow.

24 July 2019                The hottest day on record in Great Britain.  Here it reached 32.5° in the shade.

26 July 2019                Thunderstorms overnight and heavy rain that refreshed Emthree after the heat.  Politics has been as lively as the weather with Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister and appointing what looks like a very right-wing cabinet.

28 July 2019                Much cooler and showery, irrigating much of Emthree.  There are busy gatherings of insects on the hogweed flowers now.

29 July 2019                Windy and rather cool.  The first knapweed is in flower.  There was a visit from a meadow brown butterfly.  The grass tufts in Second Meadow are now starting to differentiate but I do not think they will anthesise this year. 

30 July 2019                We have moved my little gardening seat back further into the Brambly Hedge area so I can get more into focus with my close-focus binoculars (now essential equipment).  There are many solitary wasps among the hogweed flower visitors and a scorpion fly put in an appearance.

1 August 2019             Light rain today. A large black beetle in the pond.  Creeping buttercup in flower.  I surveyed the area with my old Zeiss monocular which allows very close focus.  I selected a few more  plants of grass to be given a kind of zen landscape treatment.

2 August 2019             I have three square metres now: the original, what I call ‘The Waste’ to the south of it, and the Second Meadow to the west of these.  There are many insects jostling on the hogweed flowers and male and female Gasteruption seem more abundant than usual. I noted a marmalade fly, Episyrphus balteatus drinking from Second Meadow Pond.  The eastern dandelion leaves are being attacked by the rust fungus Puccinia hieracii but so far it does not look too debilitating.

3 August 2019             The seed pods of the gladdon irises in Medlar Wood hang like green hand grenades.  There was a visit from a speckled wood butterfly.  An ivy shoot has started to climb the trunk of the birch up a rough patch of bark.

  
A small hedge woundwort plant on the western edge of the Second Meadow has had most of its leaves eaten during the night.

4 August 2019             This would have been (and was) our 60^th wedding anniversary.  There was an orange rowan berry like a punctuation mark on the Conservation Lawn in the Second Meadow.  Meadow Pond was only half full.  The black bryony up its iron pole is quite splendid: a bright green column of leaves hiding still green berries.  Some of the leaves have dark brown blotches, probably caused by the fungus Cercospora scandens.

5 August 2019             Honeybees quite frequent visitors to knapweed flowers.  A large white butterfly made a visit.  The spindle suckers are heavily infested on their lower leavers by the yellow spots caused by the scale insect Unaspis euonymi.  There has been a small amount of rain and the eastern dandelion has, perhaps as a consequence, cocked up its leaves at an angle of about 45°.

6 Aug 2019                 Cool and showery but much action on the American willow-herb, Epilobium ciliatum with some aphids attended by a wrinkled ant.  The aphid is, I suspect, Macrosiphum tinctum.  There are a few yellow spots on some of the hornbeam cordon leaves, maybe a fungus – I will have to wait and see if they develop.

7 August 2019             The western and eastern dandelions in the Second Meadow are quite different in character.  The eastern has more shiny leaves that often stand up at 45°, whereas the western one has nearly matt leaves of slightly paler green that lie flat.  The eastern also has markedly red streaks on the midribs of the leaves, but there is little red in the case of the western one.  Cooler and showery.

8 August 2019             Still cool with mist and rain on the way.  I weeded out sorrel seedlings from the Dust Bowl and cleared round the self-heal plant near my seat.  Found another small ragwort plant near here.  This really is gardening with wildlife – but why not?  Co-operating with nature.

9 August 2019             Just before 3pm and earthworm emerged on Troy Track into the full sunshine of a warm afternoon.  It did not seem to like it much and hid most of its body under a low grass tussock.  Overnight there had been heavy rain which might have flooded the worm holes or otherwise tempted it out.  Shortly afterwards a young grass snake poked its head out, tongue flickering, from the bottom of Brambly Hedge and after it had tasted the air slithered back again.

10 Aug 2019               A summer gale with winds of around 50mph.  More sound than fury.  The tutsan berries are turning from orange-red to black.  With the continuing wet there are many small seedlings appearing in the Dust Bowl.

11 August 2019           The tallest stem of the American willow-herb has decided to lay flat on the ground but still looks healthy.  Troy Track is also developing a surprisingly g=rich flora despite regular trampling.  Calm after yesterday’s high winds but much leaf and twiggy litter.  The dead ash sapling must have broken at the base and is leaning westwards with its burden of small-flowered sweetbriar in the upper branches.  There was a black and scarlet Necrophorus burying beetle drowned in Second Meadow Pond (I would not have thought it had much to bury) and a 4^th instar green shield bug on one of the small ashes.

12 August 2019           Frequent overnight showers.  Ground quite wet.  Many hogweed flowers but little else.  None of the vast quantity of birch seeds on the ground seems to have germinated.

13 August 2019           Grass clipping across Conservation Lawn today.  I thought about taking up drawing and painting but decided the next day I would not be good enough.  The eastern dandelion I have named ‘Shuttlecock’ and the western one ‘Green Star’, this latter has the shorter leaves of the two and today a perfect white fluff feather was caught under one of the leaves.

14 August 2019           Heavy rain all day and very cool for August.  I stayed indoors.

15 August 2019           The Rosa sp. hip has turned greenish orange as it begins to ripen.  There are also some glandular hairs on the hip pedicel.  Sammy saw a grass snake in the garden to the west of Emthree and also reported a frog from the nearby tortoise pen potato patch.  The two dandelions continue to differ: the easterly is losing some of its leaves to the rust fungus (Puccinia hieracii): the western specimen has none of the fungal speckles and its leaves still lie quite flat on the ground.  Very mysterious the ways of dandelions.

16 August 2019           Incoming rain from the west.  The figwort in M3 is flowering again and another ’Lammas’ shoot has appeared on the cordon oak.  This particular oak branchlet has extended three times so far this season.

17 August 2019           At Emthree I am fishing for thoughts and like the sun on my back.  The eastern dandelion leaves are standing up even more proudly now, perhaps because of the wet weather.  Another difference from the western plant is that the eastern has slightly undulating lead surfaces whereas in the western they are completely flat.  The plant with shuttlecock leaves will direct rainwater to the centre of the crown more efficiently than the plants whose leaves lie flat.  There was a dead worm beside one if the self-heal plants.

18 August 2019           Emthree is getting more like an arboretum every year.  The hornbeam is still growing strongly and is over 2 metres tall (it will be cut back to 1 metre in autumn).  One of the hazels has extended nearly as much.  The rose hip has lost all but one of its sepals and a green shield bug is still about.  One of the hogweed  umbels attracted a congregation of solitary wasps.

19 August 2019           A small female sawfly, black with a yellow body, busily explored every leaf of the easterly dandelion.  Black muscid flies pursued their various dispositions on the stones of Cynthia’s Ridge – an ever-changing drill.  I caught glimpses of something blue beside the red stone.  It proved to be a chewed-up petal of some nearby flower.

20 August 2019           Flowers out: hogweed, knapweed, self-heal, Epilobium montanum, E. ciliatum, herb robert.  The rust fungus continues to pull down the easterly dandelion.  There was a small shining copper orange beetle on a knapweed leaf.  A flesh fly drank from Second Meadow Pond. Fifteen years ago the area was much busier and on 20 August 2004 I spoke of the grasshopper and ground hoppers that were abundant that summer.  There are none so far this year.

21 August 2019           A scarce snout-faced hoverfly Rhingia rostrata and a bumble bee hoverfly Volucella bombylans on knapweed flower (and another on 22^nd) and a black spider hunting wasp Anoplius nigerrimus resting (they are usually in perpetual motion) on a stone on Cynthia’s Ridge.  Warm and summery again.

                                    I have started a new experiment by placing a rectangle of cardboard 35 x 27cm (used to send me a book by Amazon) on the ground on the south west edge of the Second Meadow and where I can easily see it from my seat.  The idea is to study what happens to it.  Today a kite-tailed robber fly Machimus atricapillus rested for a while on the rectangle – a new record for Emthree.  I also noted some bright blue glittery thing in the grass nearby and discovered it was part of the thorax and body shell of, I think, some kind of fly, like an empty, blue crab shell on a much smaller scale..  I reflected, as I often have, on the large quantity of dead insects that must rain down to the ground every day to be hoovered up by flesh eating scavengers – birds, shrews, spiders and other invertebrates.

22 August 2019           Warm wind from the south-east.  There are many butterfly species about in the wider garden.  Emthree was visited by an exploring-for-hibernation-place peacock and there was a ragged large white on Brambly Hedge.  The first Lammas shoots on the oak cordon have been quite severely damaged by the  powdery mildew Erysiphe alphitoides. 

Highlights from June 2019

Despite the dry weather the fungus season seems to be starting with species like this petticoat mottlegill Panaeolus papilionaceus (the pair on the right) popping up in Churchland Fields, Sedlescombe (TQ7818).

It has been an exceptionally good year for flowers on the gladdon (aka stinking iris) Iris foetidissima that is becoming increasingly abundant in our garden.  Such a rich flowering should produce many splitting pods of bright orange seeds to enliven the winter garden.

There are two plants of  great mullein, Verbascum thapsus, by our front hedge and for a few weeks one supported about a dozen mullein moth, Cucullia verbasci, larvae.  These have a warning colouration so that birds don't go for them and feed openly in daytime.  They pretty well shredded the one plant of the two out there, but it recovered and flowered well after the caterpillars had gone to ground to pupate thereby ensuring a good supply of seed and plants for future moths to lay their eggs on.  When I see caterpillars like this it always makes me wonder how the moths find the right plants, especially when they are not very common..

The Square Metre, 13th June to 17th July 2019

13 June 2019               I found a bud on the small-flowered sweet briar, Rosa micrantha.  I had not expected it to have any flowers this year and it is very late.

14 June 2019               The more westerly of the two dandelion plants consists of two rosettes.  Myathropa flora rested on vegetation in the shadowy back of Submespilus Assart.  This sometimes known as the Batman hoverfly because of the pattern on the thorax  Not very convincing to my mind.  It is also called the dead head hoverfly, because of the resemblance of the markings on the thorax to  a skull.  The goosegrass is flowering.

15 June 2019               One of the roses at the back of the Square metre is affected by leaf roll ‘galls’ of the sawfly Blennocampa phyllocolpa (see below), while the rose at the front of Troy Track has many silvery leaves which may indeed be silverleaf caused by the fungus Chondrostereum purpureum, though the plant seems a little small to host this fungus.  I watched a flesh fly for some time as it foraged among the wood chip near my feet.  Eventually it came and settled on my leg and then on my hand.  Seedlings continue to increase in the Dust Bowl.

16 June 2019               I photographed the sawfly leaf rolls spotted yesterday.  One of the Epilobiums is in flower.  I make it broad-leaved willowherb, Epilobium montanum but there are many hybrids of this species with close allies.

17 June 2019               A spider has spun a very fine web across the terrine pond.  Underneath there was at least one springtail on the meniscus.  The seedlings continue to increase in the Dust Bowl and I found a colony of yellow Psyllids under a leaf of the cordon oak.

18 June 2019               Massive thunderstorms overnight.  Another stone for the stone row.  This time from Killingan brick pit.

19 June 2019               Quite warm and steamy.  A second hawthorn bug crawled about the vegetation.
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                                    Something has eaten most of the western dandelion.  One flower out on the small flowered sweet-briar.  Dust bowl now quite wet after heavy rainstorms.  The wood dock as been arched over by a clinging black bryony bine.  Lammas shoots (somewhat early) are developing on the cordon oak.

20 June 2019               The western dandelion has been further eaten down.  It was warm after overnight showers.  The water in Second meadow Pond is turning dusky green.  Ivy has become a dominant ground cover in many areas

21 June 2019               Another Midsummer Day but cool and cloudy with a frost warning for parts of Scotland.  Seedlings are now appearing in the Dust Bowl and getting away well in the damp weather.

22 June 2019               Much detritus in Second Meadow Pond.  Even the nearby empty snail shell had fallen (or been pushed) in.

23 June 2019               Little is now left of the western dandelion and the leaf eater has started on the eastern one.  Yellow is showing on the marsh bird’s-foot trefoil flower buds.  Very warm and humid.

26 June 2019               The marsh or great bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus pedunculatus) is starting to flower.

27 June 2019               Showed Clare Blencowe (manager of the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre) Emthree.  She collected macro and micro fungi and trampled on the dandelions and seedlings in the Second Meadow, but without doing any noticeable damage.  She found a couple pf toadstools on a chunk of chestnut wood in the Square Metre itself and was able to identify them (and have it confirmed) as the white-laced shank (Megacollybia platyphylla): a new record for the Square Metre.

                                    There are aphids on the knapweed and Clare found a blackbird’s eggshell in Second Meadow.

28 June 2019               The heat is gathering strength.  There are many mosquito larvae in the pond and I found a leaf mine on the figwort which might be Liriomyza huidobrensis.

29 June 2019               One of the hottest June days with the temperature here reaching 29.5°C but more elsewhere in UK.

30 June 2019               The end of another month and still quite hot.  I saw two white admirals (or maybe the same one twice) glide over brambly hedge.  With a pair of clippers I have been creating a ‘conservation lawn’ to see what permanently very short sward might do.  Essentially it covers the area I can reach easily from my seat and is the area on the southern part of the Second Meadow. 

                                    Today there was a light snow of birch seeds with every breeze and I found a leaf mine in a leaf of the easterly dandelion.

1 July 2019                 There was an interesting article in New Scientist of 22 June 2019 entitled A regular visit to the park is good for you.  It demonstrates that spending 2 hours a week in nature improves health and says “just sitting on a bench will do”.  With all the time I spend sitting in Emthree I must be astonishingly healthy.

Two birds, blue tits I think, flew up as I approached Emthree today.  They were I suspect, drinking at the pond in the Second Meadow.  Self-heal flowers have joined greater bird’s-foot trefoil along the Metre side of Troy Track.  The ragwort and eastern  dandelion on the conservation lawn have leaves touching now.  Closer to the westerly dandelion are two beautiful fallen feathers: steel blue on the narrower half, black on the wider, with a white central quill.

The pond surface is peppered with floating birch seeds.

2 July 2019                 A little cooler now.  I observed a white strap sober moth, Syncopacma larseniella, a gelechiid associated with great bird’s-foot, a plant that is currently flowering across The Metre³. This was recorded on 1^st July 2004 and its identity confirmed by dissection of the genitalia.  I am confident that this new sighting will be of the same species.

                                    There was also a brown darkling beetle (Lagria hirta) sunning itself on a hogweed leaf and an attractive, yellow banded sphecid was exploring the Troy Trackside jungle.  The beetle was a new record for Emthree.

3 July 2019                 If I am quiet, I can hear the breeze in the trees, small birdsong and the cooing of a pigeon, occasional wing flutters, the hum of insects, a distant engine.  There are also small clicks and tappings from the undergrowth roundabout of unknown origin, a tiny spaced out percussion.  And I can hear the swish of blood in my brain like an endless sea surge.

A fine cossus hoverfly (Volucella inflata) rested for a while on a leaf of the cordon oak.  It is said to be associated with sap runs and goat moth (Cossus cossus) trees and to favour ancient woodland. 

There are 18 flower heads of  greater bird’s-foot trefoil, mostly on the side of Troy Track that bring their own melody to Emthree.

4 July 2019                 The wood inside the cherry log decays faster than the outside bark leaving an undamaged tube of dark reddish brown marked with the characteristic cherry lenticels. There are also several pale brown, polished cherry stones scattered across the Second Meadow and brought, no doubt, from the wild cherry tree further down the garden. Lots of debris in the eponymous pond today and it was only half full again.

5 July 2019                 Leon came down to see Emthree today.  He has a major interest in grassland and owns three hay meadows in Ellenwhorne Lane.

6 July 2019                 Visits from a hoverfly, probably Merodon equestris, a large white and a small skipper.  Quite warm and dry.  I have not seen any rough meadow-grass, Poa trivialis, this year but there is plenty of Agrostis.  The side of troy Track is now dominated by knapweed, hogweed and marsh bird’s-foot trefoil.

7 July 2019                 Early morning rain has wetted the Dust Bowl and saved its seedlings from drying up.

8 July 2019                 I watched a black fly, a small muscid, running constantly through an area of short grass of Conservation Lawn.  It would stop from time to time, perhaps to feed, but made no attempt to fly.  One of the hazels has grown quite tall in the last month.  I shall grow it as a single stemmed tree.

9 July 2019                 No notes just a silent visit.

10 July 2019               Birch seed everywhere: on leaves, on bare ground, on stones, on water in Second Meadow Pond (which has an almost subterranean toadstool growing beside it)..  A young robin joined me briefly in Emthree.

11 July 2019               Quite warm and sunny. There is white powdery mildew Erysiphe alphitoides  on the new oak leaves.  Bent grasses in anthesis are at about their best and there are still a few red campion flowers dotted about.

12 July 2019                  The first hogweed flowers have opened.  They are pale pink rather than white.  Birch seeds continue to shower down and there  are drifts of them in some places.  They land on my clothes and even get into the eye pieces of my binoculars.  There is a tiny brown toadstool  beyond Cynthia’s Ridge, but the one by the pond does not seem to be developing further.  The decaying wood at the southern end of the new cherry log has been hollowed out but some creature and now is a drift of sawdust.

13 July 2019                  Cooler and cloudy but still pleasantly warm.  The Dust Bowl needs rain for the seedlings, but everything else is fine.  The Second Meadow Pond was half empty again.  The hogweed is more fully out and the flowers are now white rather than pink.  I clipped the grass on conservation lawn – I would say there are five or six grass species in the sward.  The easterly dandelion is picking up now with two or three small but uneaten leaves spreading outwards.

14 July 2019                  Something has once again attacked the dandelions reducing both to about a third of their former size.  Whatever has also eaten some of the new leaves of the ragwort on Conservation Lawn.  The Epilobium in Medlar Wood is flowering now and I identified it as another E. montanum.  While examining it I discovered a small but interesting colony of aphids on one of the developing seed pods.  They appear to be Aphis epilobii. 

15 July 2019                  No overnight visitor, so the pond remains full and the dandelions and ragwort have not been further eaten.  There are dark chocolate purple egg rafts of mosquitoes on Second Meadow Pond.

                                   

                                       Looking at a big pouch mine (probably Pegomya solennis)  on common sorrel I spotted towards the back of M3 some swollen, bright green, unopened red campion flowers.  These are caused by the Cecidomyid midge Contarinia steini.

16 July 2019                  Quite hot again. Visits from a red admiral, a pair of meadow browns and, on blackberry flowers in Brambly Hedge, a male gatekeeper.  The hogweed flowers attracted a greenbottle (Lucilia sp.), a solitary bee and a Gasteruption.  These latter are gangly parasitic wasps from the Gasteruptiidae family whose hosts are the larvae of solitary bees.

                                       I found a powdery mildew I think is Erysiphe heraclei on hogweed leaves.  Like frost on the undersides.

17 July 2019                  The first harvestman of the season made its way cautiously across the vegetation on the northern side of Troy Track.   In the Square Metre I photographed a constellation of birch seeds trapped in a spider’s web (below).

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