Stranger in a Strange Land – Part 2

Continuing the memories from the summer – with this second catch up from the 14 September 2013.

At the beginning of the previous blog I said I had been studying a couple of strange plants at the allotment, the second of these plants was hiding amongst the Celeriac. By the time I found this plant at the end of July it was about a foot tall and never really grew much taller than this. As with the Apple of Peru this plant had slightly lobed, diamond shaped leaves, but with out any purple colouring, above which were several cream trumpet shaped blooms. By the time I found this plant the central flower had already gone and a seed was forming at the top of the stem, a distinctively prickly seed that looked like it was going to form a bur of some sort. As for the identification – not so difficult this time as I’ve seen flowers like this before on greenhouse plants called Angel Trumpets, so I soon tied this plant down to Thorn Apple.

Thorn Apple – 17 August 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

I suspect that this is another plant that I shouldn’t have left in the allotment, especially as it was a poisonous plant amongst the edible crop of Celeriacs, but the delicate cream trumpets were very pretty and the bur covered seed pod in the centre of the plant was fascinating. This seed pod over the weeks from summer into autumn grew in size and by September had reached a size, that made the plant look like a matchstick man with the leaves forming the arms and the main stalk the legs, with the bur as the head. This plant also fascinated a number of the other allotment holders who also agreed with me that it looked like a matchstick man.

Ripening Seed Head – 13 September 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

As the summer ends this seed pod has continued to grow and finally begun to brown and ripen. I know that before the plant had got to the stage of having ripe seeds, I should really have removed it and deposited it on the compost heap, especially as the RHS web site says that the seeds can live for a number of years in the soil. All I can say was that I was totally fascinated by its development, it was almost as if it was animal rather than plant. It felt like I was totally hypnotised! Well thank heaven its not a Trifid and I’ve a trusty hoe that will keep it’s progeny under control.

Stranger in a Strange Land – Part 1

More memories from the summer – this catch up is from the 14 September 2013.

Over the course of August and into September I have been observing the development of several unusual weeds on my allotment, which first came to my attention back at the end of July when I returned from my travels.

The first of these plants were growing amongst the Tomato plants, at the time it was a leafy plant, with a deeply grooved stem which was stained a deep, rich, purple and that supported the slightly lobed, diamond shaped leaves. Above this was an inflorescence, formed from a number of individual bell shaped flowers; that were open when I first saw the plant at the beginning of the afternoon, but by late afternoon had shut tight. When open the flowers were a delicate lavender blue bell, with a white interior and distinctive blue markings that leaked out from the very centre, like ink on blotting paper. So with this picture in my mind, it was off to search for an identity that wasn’t very hard to come across as the plant really is very distinctive – as for the identification, it is the Apple of Peru also known as the Shoofly, and as the name suggests is native to Peru.

An Apple of Peru Flower – 18 August 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

So how does this stranger arrive here in my southern Scotland allotment? According to the information available it is sometimes a contaminant of compost and also forms parts of many bird seed food mixes from which it regularly escapes. Both of these situations could be the source of my plant, for the Tomatoes were brought in as seedlings. They then lived on the outside windowsill at home to harden off, where the local bird population are not unknown to hide seeds from the feeders in. More worryingly according to sources this plant is quite capable of growing to five or six feet in height, maybe not such a good idea amongst the Tomatoes, but at the time I had failed to read this part and the plant amongst the Tomatoes showed no signs of growing more than eighteen inches tall and if anything the Tomatoes where outgrowing the Apple of Peru.

Part of an Inflorescence – 14 September 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Shortly after the first plant was discovered, a second came to light, this time growing amongst the Perilla plants (a set of plants grown from seed this time in brought in compost, and harden off on the windowsill again) and this one once it reached eighteen inches just kept on growing and growing. By the end of the summer it had easily reached four feet and was well on the way to being nearly five feet tall! At this height it was a decidedly a stately and bushy affair, making a most magnificent plant, when covered with its lavender blue flowers, and especially when these flowers were in their full glory, early in the afternoon. Even when the flowers were opening or closing, the calyxes that would eventually develop into the seed pods were amazing structural elements in their own right. They were five sided pointed affairs that were again stained with this rich dark purple colouring.

Ripening Pods – 14 September 2013(Copyright Carol Jones)

As the summer has moved on these plants have grown and developed, and I had grown far too interested in how they would develop to take them out, especially as they weren’t really in the way of other plants. So they are likely to continue to grow and develop until they are killed by a sharp frost, which may mean that they set seed. I therefore wonder when next year comes, whether I shall rue the day that I let these plants stand, as I pull and hoe out their countless progeny!! But only time will tell and may well prove to be my folly of my ways.

The Never Ending Song

More on changing seasons – this catch up is from the 05 September 2013.

As the long days of summer headed into the shorter days of autumn, Blackpool Moss has remained green and bright but now it is separated from the more scruffy surroundings  as a strip of hay has been taken from around the moss, making it look as though the site has been tied up with a neat browning ribbon. Even so the greens of the moss have begun to gain a yellowish tinge and the summer polka dot pattern of colours has now decreased to just the occasional spot, most noticeable of which were the mauve heads of the Devil’s-bit Scabious and the odd white Sneezewort head.

Blackpool Moss – 05 September 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

The end of summer and the beginning of autumn is a strange time when the colourful beauties of summer have faded, but the wonders of autumn have yet to bloom, even so there are still sights to be seen. For me this day’s eye catching splendour comes in the form of the ever moving and richly coloured heads of the Common Reed. By September their inflorescences have a shine that is rich and luxurious purple in the day’s sunshine and by now they are also highlighted with the odd patch of white, formed as the seeds within the heads begin to ripen. In the breeze, that on Blackpool Moss blows almost continuously, the tall stalks sway backwards and forwards, as though pulled hither and thither by an invisible force, and this breeze makes the rich purples shimmer and shine, as the light catches the shine first from one angle and then another. On this day though, this continual movement made the heads an almost impossible feature to capture with any sort of satisfaction within a picture, as the movement was making it impossible to focus on all aspects and too much of the picture remained as a fuzzy mess. Still though the sight of this continual movement intrigued and fascinated, as the Reeds continued there strange dance to that never ending, but unheard song.

Fading Towards Autumn

Catch up – this time with the changing seasons dating from the 04 September 2013.

After a long summer of sunshine and heat, the vegetation of the Scottish Borders was beginning to tell a tale of hard times and had a distinctive look of tiredness to it. An evening wander round Lindean Reservoir didn’t tell a different tale, but highlighted the changes that were going on all around. Here the grasslands had changed from the various greens of summer that were spotted with masses of colours to a scene of varying browns with just one or two spots of colour from the remaining late summer flowers. These colours came from a few Knapweed flowers that produced splashes of purples accompanied by the occasional white inflorescence from Sneezewort and Yarrow. Just a few examples remaining to remind us of the glories of the summer that had begun to fade and head towards the changes of autumn.

The glories of the autumn that was coming, were already visible in some of the surrounding trees. The leaves of a number had already begun to change from the dark greens associated with summer to the browns and oranges of autumn. Furthest advanced were those of the Rowan, who were already well on the way to an autumnal paper brown, a colour that was highlighted by a heavy crop of bright orange-red berries, so that each tree was like a beacon of orange against the tired greens and browns of the grasses.

The Setting Sun Across Lindean Reservoir – 04 September 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

As I’ve mentioned before the approach of autumn means that sunsets become much more accessible as they come at sensible times in the evening, and my early September trip to Lindean Reservoir was not to disappoint on this front. As the sun continued its journey towards the horizon, the final rays of the days sunlight caught touches of cloud that were sitting just above the horizon and began to warm them into a gentle orange. As the sun dropped lower in the sky the clouds began to thicken and the reds continued to warm into a fiery blaze, changing into a cauldron of colour so that the clouds looked as though they had caught fire and were ablaze in the heavens, before fading rapidly into the darkness of night.

The Cauldron of Fire Above the Three Brethren – 04 September 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Bath Time

Catch up – this time dating from the 25 August 2013

As I’ve said before the activities of the birds around our bird table and feeders is great entertainment and to some degree has many repeating themes, in much the same way as the TV daytime soaps do but of course they are much more interesting. In this episode, the local population of House Sparrows take the starring roles.

House Sparrows are very sociable birds that love to do things together. In some ways they remind me of a bunch of teenagers that like to hang out on street corners. Their equivalent to a street corner is our garden hedge and they are often found in some numbers sitting within it, twittering to each other, where with time the levels of twittering chit chat increases, sometimes to almost deafening levels and where squabbles are not unknown. This day they were sat in the hedge, chirping and squabbling gently, as is their way, with individuals wandering out to feed on the nuts or head to the seed feeder, where they tend to throw out all but their favourite titbit. When at some point it seemed as though a group decision was made that the main active of the day was to take a bath, and six of them headed to the bird bath for a group splash around.

House Sparrow Bath Time – 25 August 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

At this point the bird bath exploded into a mass of water and feathers, with droplets flying in all directions, as the House Sparrows splashed about. It is hard to believe that birds the size of House Sparrows could send so much water flying in so many directions, without their feathers following as well. In the end the result of water and feathers flying, were that the House Sparrows all became well wet and soggy, and ended up sitting looking like bedraggled balls of feathers that slowly fluffed out as they dried.

Great Balls of Fire

Catch up again – this blog dates from the 12 August 2013.

Summer might still be here at this point but the evenings had begun to draw in enough to make star gazing a viable option for the evenings, especially so as the nights were not yet bitterly cold.

This evening the sky was beautiful clear and as it was also supposed to be the best evening to see the Perseids Meteor Shower, so we’d headed out in hope if nothing else to view a bright pass of the Space Station that was due. As usual we gone down the road to our favourite viewing spot, which has good open views to the south. Here while we were waiting for the Space Station to rise, we watched as the stars began to appear in the darkening sky, more each minute as the sky darkened. Then suddenly there was this ball of flames that seemed to shoot out of nowhere and streaked across the sky, like a flaming gob-stopper. I felt that I should have ducked and shielded myself from the searing flames coming off of this meteor, but of course I didn’t and there wasn’t any heat anyway. Instead I just stood there entranced as it passed rapidly over head and burnt up in the atmosphere. Wow! Have to say that until that point the number of meteor’s I’ve seen could be counted on one hand, and all of those were nothing more than shooting pin pricks of light, nothing as amazing or as bright as this was!

While still recovering from the sight of the meteor, the Space Station rose, as they say time and tide wait for no man or woman and the Space Station wasn’t going to wait for me to regain my equilibrium. This evening though must have been one of those occasions when sights where set to be awe inspiring, for this night’s passage was to be one of the brightest passes I’ve seen. Rising from the south west where it brightened slowly to its full brightness, much brighter than any of the stars tonight, moving ever onwards across the sky, it passed overhead and then slowly dulled into eclipse as it moved into the south eastern sky, before eventually disappearing from sight.

It was really a very beautiful night out, the sky was clear and the stars bright, with the wonderful splurge of the Milky Way, clearly visible and for me a new constellation as I tried to learn the stars of Hercules. To me Hercules seems to be a strange stick-like man as though draw by a child, and running across the sky like the Roman mythological hero that this constellation is named after. While looking at stars there were more meteors from the Perseids Shower shooting across the sky, all of these were small and nothing more than pin pricks of light shooting across the heavens. Distracting all the same and in no more than five minutes the number of meteors I’d seen in my life had gone from a handful to double figures and beyond. Wow!!

Creatures From the Moss

The next few blogs cover the catch up period of late summer and early autumn, between my return from North Wales and now in mid-autumn. This one dates from the 08 August.

Walking round the edge of Blackpool Moss, it was wonderful to see the bright new greens of the moss, after the browning, tiredness of the surrounding areas which are slowly being baked in the heat of the summer. Here on the moss, it’s as though the sprinklers have been turned on every day to supply a dose of water; as all the vegetation has a spring newness to its colour, just like the lawns in suburbia. Out of this brightness there sprouted a number of Wild Angelica plants with their white frothy umbels that are tinged very slightly with pink, standing out as sentinels in this sea of green. More statuesque though, was a tussock of Greater Tussock Sedge that poked out of the surrounding vegetation like a weird creature with some form of bottle brush hair style. Well named by a friend, who called them Dr Who monsters!!

Blackpool Moss – 08 August 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Surrounding this island of green, the grassland is browning and drying in preparation to be turned to hay, but amongst this brown there stands out a bright bank of purple, formed from a mass of Knapweed flowers. There were so many flowers that it was as if someone had taken a paint brush, dipped it in a paint pot and added a splash of colour across the grassland. This bank of flowers were also a great temptation to a mass of butterflies, the most I’ve seen this year in one place at anyone time. They were mainly Meadow Browns, flitting here and there, around the mass of flowers producing a mass of movement. Try as I might they did not settle for long enough to photo, all attempts at pictures where nothing more than a blur of movement, made worse by the gentle breeze that would set the heads of the Knapweed off in a swaying pattern all of their own.

Purple Edgings – 08 August 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Mysterious Seas

This is the twelfth blog from my time in North Wales, dating from the 18 July 2013.

Sitting writing this final entry to my summer holiday blogs with autumn now upon on us, with mornings that now have a decided chill to them, and trees showing distinctive signs of yellowing, it is hard to imagine that in mid July it was necessary to head up into the hills to escape the heat of the day, as the sun would beat down with unforgiving relentlessness.

For this final day we took to the hills to the west of Bala to escape the unrelenting heat and found this spot where the views across to Rhinogs were amazing. Stopping close to the top of a ridge and looking out across the valley, the Rhinogs stood silhouetted, broodingly dark against the brightness of the summer blue sky.

The Rhinogs – 18 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

In front of this dark and brooding scene, there seemed to be a sea of green that lapped against the dark wall of the mountains, seeming to swell and writhe in the breeze that blew. This feeling of movement was accentuated by the waving heads of the browning grass inflorescences that moved like large shoals of tiny fish, dashing first one way and then the next. Over this there moved the dark scudding shadows, produced by fluffy white cumulus clouds that were moving rapidly across the scene, like the hunting of large predatory fish lining up their dinner. On this swelling sea of green, a developing woodland seems to float free, with each element moving as an individual, at the will of the current and the wind, like paper boats being tossed head long down a mountain stream.

Closer to, the rich browns of this sea are made up by a multitude of grass heads from the rich metallic heads of Wavy Hair-grass that rippled with every breath of air, mixed with the loosely cigar shaped heads of Yorkshire Fog, which as the seeds were ripening had taken on a delicate brown hue. Out from amongst these various shades of brown there appeared amazing bright purple carpets, formed from the flowering shoots of young Bell Heather, regenerating amongst the grasses.

Carpets of Bell Heather – 18 July 2013 (Copyright Ross Lockley)

All this I thought I was observing harmlessly from a mountain road, within a felled forestry plantation that was beginning to regenerate into new woodland, and into which I wandered to look at various odds and sods. That was until we moved further along and came across a notice that announced for the area we were just leaving, “Keep to the road – Danger – Explosives”. Oh! You don’t see that every day!!

Y Ddraig Goch

This is the eleventh blog from my time in North Wales, dating from the 18 July 2013.

Mostly my blogs are about real wildlife not mythical creatures, but finding this statue of a Dragon outside a caravan site on the edge of Harlech, I could not resist including it. Maybe having looked for Giant Serpents the day before, its not so out of context, especially as Wales is known as the land of Dragons.

Dewi – 18 July 2013 (Copyright Ross Lockley)

Possibly the most famous of the Welsh Dragon myths is the story of Lludd and Llefelys that originates back in time to the Welsh Celtic mythology. Here the Red Dragon fights an invading alien White Dragon, during which the Red Dragon’s shrieks in pain as he begins to loose. These shrieks supposedly caused infertility, animals to die and general mayhem and madness in the land. Lludd, the Welsh King of Britain, seeks the council of his brother Llefelys, the King of Gaul. Llefelys advises him to dig a hole in the centre of Britain, fill it with beer and cover it with a cloth. Lludd does as he has been advised and the Dragons drink and fall asleep. Lludd then imprisons the sleeping Dragons and buries them still wrapped in the cloth in Dinas Emrys, in Snowdonia, considered to be the safest place in Britain to put them.

Dewi with Harlech Castle – 18 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Mythology – fact, fiction or a touch of both, I’ll leave that for you to decide. As for Dewi he is made out of 78 square metres of steel sheet that has been cut into many thousands of scales and welded on to a solid bar frame, which was then polished with 12 coats of lacquer, and the work of artist Anthony “Fred” Peacock. Wow! Impressive!

Exploring the Great Welsh Sea Serpent

This is the tenth blog from my time in North Wales, dating from the 17 July 2013.

Standing on top of a large lump of limestone rock on the outskirts of the genteel Victorian seaside town of Llandudno, it was hard to imagine that the old Viking name for for the Great Orme means Sea Serpent, for all you see are the burnt grassy pastures and the masses of tourists thronging the slopes. Away from the honey pot at the top, and down below the first outcrops of rock, where the modern road now runs round this headland, the story was very different. Here, even though the summer had been hot and dry, there was still water dripping out of the flushes and through the rocks. Add to this the effects of differential erosion of the rock, to produce a distinctive patterned of layers formed of green vegetation mixed with layers of white and grey rocks, accompanied by the shape of the headland as seen from out at sea, and the thought that this could be a slavering Sea Serpent might not be so unbelievable.

The Great Orme – 17 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Wandering along at this lower level, the edges are rich with species. Calcium rich flushes deposit areas of tufa as they flow over the rock surfaces, amongst which many lime green rosettes of the Common Butterwort are spattered, just like pustules on a teenagers face. Each of these rosettes are splattered with a good covering of flies, slowly being digested to provide nutrients for these plants that cling to the rock surface. Above which the purple flowers attract more insects for the requirements of reproduction, followed maybe by a bit of supper!!

Drier areas are green and grassy, especially where the soil depth is deeper, accompanied by an array of flowers through which flit a number of small blue butterflies, tempting and teasing by not sitting still. Now normally small rich blue butterflies are most likely to be just Common Blues, but maybe, just maybe, because we are on the Great Orme there might just have been a Silver Studded Blue amongst them. I only say this, because this was the Great Orme, where a distinctive sub-species of the Silver Studded Blue is found, but unfortunately all I could get to see clearly was the bright blue top of the wings, which when they hardly settled at all could easily have be either.

Amongst the drier areas where the soil was thinner and the vegetation generally much shorter and by now, after a number of weeks of hot, dry sunshine, were very much burnt off, there was one more surprise left to be found, in the form of the small prickly plants of the Carline Thistle. I love the Carline Thistle, as their inflorescences always reminds me of miniature Sunflower heads, that seem to point towards the sky and open and close with the weather. In dry conditions the straw-like bracts surrounding, the delicate yellow inner tubular florets open wide to soak up those rays and invite insect visitors to feed.

Carline Thistle – 17 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)