STREET PLANTS

Mexican Fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus) beside downpipe in garage forecourt.

June 12th 2014

Before the post proper - a big thanks to everyone who took part in the June Tree Following update - whether by writing about their own trees or by reading the posts of others. The characters of the trees (and to some extent of those following their progress) is emerging as the year passes - and it's fascinating. Some trees have found their identities or had them revised; it's easier to work out what they are once leaves have opened. Maybe by starting with bare branches we will all find it easier to identify trees in winter? Some trees have run into trouble. Some have burst out of iffy patches. Over the summer months we will need to become even more efficient as detectives - what is happening when nothing seems to be happening between now and autumn? I anticipate our July and August posts will be amongst the most creative and revelatory.

To see the branches of 'my' tree, I have to crane my head back - it's so very tall. So this week I thought I'd look down. The hedgerows seem high at present - with fennel being feathery and the umbeliferous flowers seeming like inside out umbrellas (except prettier). It's all a big green blur, for all the little flowers growing in the big plants' shade.

Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare)
June 15th 2014

So I looked to the streets - or, more particularly, to the car-parks, where plants are more likely to grow separately. Here, they are more distinct. And astonishing. And pretty.

And not just pretty (like the Erigeron (Mexican Fleabane)) above. Resilient and surprising like this Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare) behind the bins in a car-park recycling area.

Poppy by building site. See the buddleia to its left? Opportunists both!
June 15th 2014

Where there's a new building, there's often more new building in progress nearby. It's how towns spread! On the edge of the car-park belonging to a three-year-old supermarket, something else is being built. I don't know what. The ground is cleared. Machines are there. And pipes and chain link fences all around. Where flowers grow.

Faded beauty!
There were newly opened poppies too, bright red and with unblemished petals. But in this flower we see the seed pod forming. It's like watching a caterpillar turn into a chrysalis - the old and new entangled. But it's not just that..

Aren't the curls and dents, and wrinkles just as beautiful as the flat blandness of a young flower. (Say yes!) I'd be hard put to it to tell one new poppy from another. But once they begin to die - that's where their individual character creeps in. Or leaps in, in the case of a poppy, because the petal stage doesn't last long! 

For more Loose and Leafy posts about plants about town - click HERE.

For more about Tree Following - click HERE.

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OUT ON THE TOWN

One of my mantras - to look up. Another, once you are up - look down.

There are special places I return to over and over. Are the same plants there? Depending on the season, the answer is usually 'yes'; if not the original ones, new ones which have grown from their seeds or their roots. Town plants - the wild kind - are as predictable as their hedgerow cousins.

Another reason for returning is to have another bash at photographing plants which 'didn't come out well first time'. (Sometimes they never do.)

This fern is one of several growing on the outer side of a footbridge over a level crossing. The gates don't stay shut for long and it's exciting to stand by the track and watch trains rattle by so whether from patience, laziness or interest, shoppers usually wait till the barriers go up again. Sometimes there are people in carriages. (It's fun being a passenger looking out at the crowds.) Sometimes its a chain of trucks. Sometimes I too stand and wait but I don't like crowds, view climbing steps as a minor contribution to staying healthy - and like to visit the plants on the bridge.

I've never yet taken a really crisp picture of any of the ferns there. I have to reach the camera out over the brick edge and twist it down or back (safe with handrail so I'm not going to tip over) and focus at an uncomfortably short distance which sacrifices depth of field. (Remember, I'm well-pleased with my camera but I can't change the lens.)

Yesterday was no exception. Slightly fuzzy image. Odd angle. But . . .

The train has just passed and a huge column of pedestrians surges over the track in both directions . . . looking at the ground.

They do, of course, have to make sure not to trip on the rails . . . but it's more than that . . . when not looking in windows or checking phones, people do look down a lot when walking along. I do this too - watch my shoes pop in and out of vision. It can be meditative, give a sense of marching forward and purposefulness. Feet are awfully interesting! Hence my mantra - remember to look up.

Look up - and you'll see ferns.

Look behind things and you'll find leaves and seeds. (Even if they turn out at a jaunty angle!)

Look down .

Even underground . . . well, you already know my fascination with drains!

But don't neglect feet level.

Here under a backstreet tree by a multi-storey car-park among fallen leaves and old twigs - about four inches across . . . it pays as much to look down as up. 

And, if you look up - you may see me looking down! If you do - I'll wave.

_____

Tree Following News.

In my enthusiasm to keep the list up-to-date - I obliterated it. Bother!

But, to me, autumn is the beginning of a new year. It always seems more like new life than new death with everything getting ready for next spring and summer. Always very hopeful. So . . . new list!

Hollis is giving us a really good start with 'Autumn Strategies 1'.

Hollis Marriot blogs from Wyoming in the U.S.A. The terrain is profoundly different from the Dorset land-and-sea-scape I'm familiar with and the plants there often have to use different ways to deal with their environment - one which (it seems to me) is a pretty challenging one. 

Unlike Loose and Leafy - which rambles about discovering things without knowing anything - In the Company of Rocks and Plants gives you proper science too. (Of a very accessible kind.)

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IN THE GRAVEYARD - OCTOBER 2013

As part of my 'wild plants that grow in cities' project I recently visited an urban Churchyard.

When I was younger, I used confidence as a power shield. I wasn't stupid enough to imagine this made me invincible but it worked pretty well.

Hanging in my cupboard over the years, un-needed, underused, it's grown threadbare and moth-eaten. But that day I suddenly felt I could do with it again for when I went through the gate I realised the wooded area behind the Church was full of raised voices. I faltered. It was a good guess, I reckoned, that there would be bodies attached to the voices and they might not be friendly bodies.

I'm not a linguist but the voices sounded Polish. There are a lot of Poles in England nowadays. All the dentists at my local practice are Poles and every one of them has been a darned site better at dentistry than any dentist I've had before. They seem to be remarkably adept at treatment without pain. None the less, however good Polish dental schools are it seemed unlikely that these graveyard woods would be full of Polish dentists haranguing each other so, as I said, I faltered. All I could think of was that these were migrants who hadn't found work and had set up an encampment. Would they be happy to have an English blogger wandering through their dispute? I never found out. For all the time I was there loud voices floated from among the trees but I never approached and they didn't emerge to approach me.

I stood for a moment, should I walk forward? It was the third Churchyard I'd tried in an hour. The others hadn't had graveyards - just tarmac, gravel and well tended flower beds. So I gathered up the tatters of my shredded confidence, drew them round me - and walked on.

Within a few steps, I was, once again, disconcerted. A young couple rose from a grassy area between graves. They seemed to be pulling on their real clothes as firmly as I was tugging at my invisible protection. Forward still? Yes. Why not? I slid my eyes aside and walked purposefully up the slope. Steps. A tomb. Plants growing along the plinth. Great!

I was just about to crouch down to get them in frame when two young drinkers clattered round from the other side with cans and a bicycle. Now what? We greeted each other cordially. I explained what I was doing. They asked. if I would like them to move out of the way. I said all was fine. So they sat chatting with each other while I crawled around with my camera. (That's one of the troubles with plants. They mostly grow on the ground.)

I took my pictures, thanked them (after all, I had intruded on their space) and went back down towards the gate. Should I leave? No!

Skirting the voices among the trees, I found bittersweet (Woody Nightshade) on the edge of the wood.

And fungi near a contoneaster seedling (do you reckon?)

and more fungi. These yellow ones were several inches across. I didn't touch them to find out if they are merely shiny or slimy too.

I'm not going to attempt IDs.

But . . . after photographing more graves and ivy and a sweet chestnut shell . . .

I hurried away for the train back home - full of puzzles, pictures and a cheerful sense that, with a little bit of work - a stitch here, a patch there - my old and tattered cloak of (almost) invincibility could possibly be worn once again with pride.

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THE TREE IN THE DRAIN REACHES ITS SECOND SPRING

You may remember that as well as observing trees and bushes and plants in hedgerows and seeing what there is to see along the shore, I'm also interested in the trees and bushes and plants which grow and thrive in towns - and that one of them which fascinates me specially is the sycamore tree in a drain.

I first noticed it a year ago and wrote a post about it HERE.

This is how the tree was on April 16th 2012.

Its leaves were already quite large.

To see what it was like in  May 2012 - Go to the post

Tree in a Drain.

You will see it was already reasonably tall and healthy so talking about its second spring is not quite accurate - more, it's the second spring I've noticed it.

This post is a catch up. We'll leap from May 2012 to August - then see what's happened since. 

August 8th 2012

The tree grew so well, the space available to it became a little congested. At the top of the tree (which, I would guess, is about two feet high) leaves would rise above road level, only to be sheered off by the tyres of cars running over it. It isn't a busy street so leaves would have time to grow and poke up - but they never lasted. It wasn't an entirely healthy situation but . . . 

November 15th 2012

. . . it survived - and in November 2012 this little tree hit Autumn.

April 11th 2013

Like its larger brothers, sisters and cousins, it stayed dormant over winter. I wondered if it would grow again - indeed, for a while I mourned it, certain it wouldn't but - here it is on April 11th 2013 - leaf buds beginning to turn green. (Compare with last April - at the top of the page!)

April 23rd 2013

Towards the end of the month, the leaves are opening. Compared with last year, they are small - but the tree is older and taller so its leaves are emerging from the top of the drain sooner.

April 26th 2013

Very soon, the leaves are growing fast. The drain is filling with greenery - but above ground - little hope of rising tall. Already the leaves at its crown are squashed and torn. (See bare stalks sticking up in the middle and the flattened leaf above them in the picture?)

Pretty amazing, no?

I'm a Tree Follower - Are You?

For the same tree April/May 2012

- click HERE.

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LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO MY WOODLOUSE

I was out photographing dandelions when I found this one by a pipe leading from a meter box.

April 26th 2013

Of course, it may not be a dandelion. There are lots of yellow flowered plants which look a bit like this and have seed clocks and green leaves and . . . 

And if it is . . . what kind of Dandelion? Tim Rich of the National Botanic Garden of Wales left a note on an iSpot entry to say there are at least 235 species of dandelion in Britain so I won't even try to guess. Not that I mind much, this not knowing. I'm a dandelion fan. To see them is almost enough.

Anyway . . . there I was, crawling along the pavement, trying to get a good angle when I met, crawling towards me . . . a woodlouse. My shadow fell across it. It stopped. I moved back. The sun fell on it - and it continued on its way. I leant forward. The suddenly renewed shadow stopped it in its tracks. Lots of insects, I've found, react instantly to changes in light and shadow and will 'freeze' - or fly. (Not that a woodlouse is an insect - it's a crustacean. Isn't life complicated?) (And woodlice don't fly!) This (the light and shadow thing) can be handy to know if you want to take a photograph. Though it's not such a handy fact if your particular insect/crustacean will only stay still in the shade. Nor is it a long term handy-ness if your woodlouse learns to ignore these sudden changes in light and decides to barge on regardless - as 'mine' did.

So, what kind of woodlouse? Africa Gomez, of the University of Hull, has an interesting post about woodlice on her BugBlog where she mentions there are over forty-five British species of woodlice. Not quite as many as there are of dandelions but . . . still more than I can name!

I don't know whether it had anywhere particular in mind when it set out on its walk or if my leaning over it diverted it from its path but, fairly quickly, it decided to do a loop, march on through light and shade and head away towards the wall . . .

April 26th 2013

. . . where little plants have begun to grow beside a down pipe.

I know you are unlikely to take my advice and kneel on the pavement to see what you can see but . . . there's a lot going on down there.

April 26th 2013

There it goes!

P.S. This is a larger Rough Woodlouse I came across last August.

Rough Woodlouse - Porcellio scaber - August 19th 2012

Isn't it beautiful?

Thanks to Tim Rich (National Botanic Garden of Wales) we now have a link to a 'Plant Crib' on different kinds of dandelion. Click HERE.

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OH ALRIGHT - THERE ARE FLOWERS TOO!

While bemoaning grey days and bleak economics, one can't pretend that green plants and bright flowers aren't great lifters-of-spirits-ers.

There are the obvious ones for the time of year.

Like blackthorn blossoms that open before their leaves arrive.

And I am specially encouraged by flowers which spring open in city streets. Ones which live there despite the odds. (Or, perhaps it's odd that we don't expect them and sometimes don't see them there.)

March 26th 2013

This flower is growing at the top of a flight of underpass steps in Bournemouth city centre. (A city with a population of around 168,000.) It's a Speedwell. Maybe a Common Field-Speedwell (Veronica persica) (which can also be called 'Persian Speedwell' - pretty exotic name as well as pretty flower!).  Or it might be a Green Field-Speedwell (Veronica agrestis). Maybe I'll get a definite ID from iSpot?

March 26th 2013

This is the plant the flower is growing from. As you can see, there are quite a few buds waiting to open.

And between the cobbles of speed bumps in a Weymouth housing estate.

March 31st 2013

Common Whitlowgrass (Erophila verna). Each flower takes up about two square millimeters. These are not growing in a busy road - but dustcarts and cars do drive over them. I doubt (though I haven't stood there to check) that anyone (except me and people who've stopped to ask why I'm crawling around in the road) have noticed they are there.

Oh, and why not

March 31st 2013

notice the daisies? These are growing in an un-trampled area of a park. Unsurprisingly un-trampled because there is one basket ball hoop and one five aside goal. Not entirely inspiring when both are for team sports!

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THE UNDERPASS - AN IRREGULAR POST

It's gloomy. It's cold. Shivery cold. We wrap up and rush by. Not stopping to notice the flowers at our feet.

Everything's grey. Traffic lights about the only cheerful sight around.

The highways department - local council - county council . . . don't know! Some department . .  has planted bushes across the bridge. They are thorny and currently leafless with the remnants of red berries here and there. When trees on the left come into leaf, the atmosphere of the place will change.

Cars and lorries and buses and bikes cross the pedestrian underpass.

If we want to cross, we must walk down. Past the bushes the council has put there to hold up the bank. Where ivy and teasels and cleavers and seedlings have found places to go.

Through the tunnel - grass at the other side.

Where there are thistles and things. (This picture is clickable. As well as thistles and grass and moss I've found in it buttercup and groundsel, daisies and what may be dead-nettles, a long leafed plant that might be plantain but I'm not sure. There's clover and possibly pimpernel - or maybe the beginning of cleavers. And several seedlings of something. There may be more. If you find them - say!)

There are daisies in the grass.

I mention  grass - but there are lots of other plants too.

And grass growing on the wall.

This lichen may be Lecanora campestris.

Lichen too.

The black cushions in white cups are its 'fruiting bodies'.

It may be dull. It may be February. It may be noisy and trafficy and not exactly scenic - but there's lots going on around town.





(All photos taken on 27th February 2013.)

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THE PICTURE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

I realise it's silly to say this picture has changed my life when I took it only yesterday but it has. It's made me realise something I knew already - which doesn't make sense. Perhaps it's consolidated it, provided such a good example of what I mean, what I think, what's completely fundamental to my life, to my way of seeing things, it's like seeing it, realising it, knowing it again for the first time. Maybe all it is is that I now have an example that I can show you so I can say 'This, this is it. Do you see?'

Here is the picture.

Maybe you should take a moment to guess what it is, or reflect on it if you know its identity straight away.

Groundsel. That's what it is. Groundsel in a kerb. Below is a picture of the same plant.

The top left of the plant is what's shown above. In it you can see that the background is blue because it's in the shadow of a kerb and a garden hedge.

So what is the significance of this picture?

One is that it explains why my posts have become a little erratic. Each week I gather so many hedgerow pictures I find it hard to decide what to put on the blog. I'm not weary of hedgerows. It's that I don't want to weary my readers. After several years of Loose and Leafy, I don't want you to say 'Oh no! Not another hawthorn post!' or 'For heaven's sake, we've seen ragwort / chicory / dandelions already. Indeed we've seen them over and over again. Give us a rest!'. This is the trouble with seasons. They tend to come around a lot.

So I've been looking closer - and have become entranced by hoverflies. I'd thought they were all the same. They aren't. They are dramatically different, one from another.

I've been cutting up pictures; looking at wings

and bodies

This is getting nearer to the point. The closer you go, the more you see.

Back to the groundsel. My neighbour (Esther Montgomery) and I have been working on a project about urban wild plants.* I've been looking at the streets. She's been letting plants arrive in her garden by chance - seeing what happens. Of course, everyone knows what happens if you do this; the place silts up with weeds. And that is what has happened. I can see her garden from my window and to distant eyes it is, indeed, a mess. But the longer she leaves it, the more interesting it will be. Weeds need a few years to settle in, find a balance. Maybe they need protecting from bullies like blackberries but, apart from that . . .

In the streets, I've mainly been interested in finding out what's there. There's a lot. Occasionally photographs of these plants have crept into Loose and Leafy posts* but I try not to let this happen too often. I suspect most people want Loose and Leafy to show something rural, blatantly pretty. Why not? Some hardly ever get out of town.

Some people have never seen the sea.

But I sometimes feel that I'm straining at a leash. I want to show you what's where the cars are. What's there by the bins. So far, in the streets, I've mainly been concerned with noting, observing and doing a little loose and leafy cataloguing (and writing about it  of course, but not here ).

Back to the photo. I may be misjudging. I may be too hopeful that others will see through my ground level eyes. I've got so used to admiring the small, the neglected, the generally uprooted, maybe I'm putting too much weight on it. Will you - do you? see beauty in this groundsel? Please don't say, even to yourselves, 'It's all very well in the roadside but I wouldn't want it here.'. Try to set that aside. Imagine you don't know what it is.

Isn't she lovely? Isn't she beautiful?

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Try Stevie Wonder - Isn't she lovely?

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* Esther's up to 23,000 words. I have over a thousand pictures - and still climbing. She's a way to go. There will come a moment when I'll need to do some pruning!

*Examples of street plants posts.
Loose and leafy post about plants in a playground.
Loose and leafy post about gutters and drains.

P.S. You might like to know that Janet at Garden 65 has an interesting post which includes a diagram which plots and names the veins in a hoverfly wing - Oxen-born Bees - Fact and Legend