Fern Fever by Sarah Whittingham

I am currently reading Fern Fever by Sarah Whittingham.  It is a history of the Victorian craze for ferns (collections displayed in fern houses, rockeries and the the Watsonian Patent Fern Bricks).  This is the sort of book I love - it teaches you something entirely new, and you are a (slightly) different person after reading it.

If you want to see ferns I can recommend Abney Cemetery in north London.  Lushly luxuriant, delicately scented and soothingly green.  The stone angels seem to float above the foliage.

Many famous people are buried in Abney Cemetery, including the founders of the Salvation Army.  But it is the more ordinary graves, smothered in greenery, that are most poignant.  How confident these bourgeois Victorians were that a grave in Abney would ensure a high status for eternity.

Calocybe gambosum or St George's Mushroom

Opening the upstairs curtains this morning I looked down on the main lawn and saw a white blob in the middle of it.

Going downstairs and picking it up, it was a mushroom that had appeared overnight - surprisingly heavy.

I think it is Calocybe gambosum or St George's Mushroom.

Sunflower harvest

The annual sunflower harvest is underway in the county.  I found these towering but spindly examples on the edge of a field.  I think they had been left because the flowers were too small.

Potted sunflowers decorating the church porch before morning service.  Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are an American plant, brought to England in the 16th century as part of the bounty (and booty) of the New World.  Basically they are giant daisies.

Did you know William Blake wrote a poem about the sunflower? 

Hollow

The great stump of the oak tree, twenty feet high, has finally toppled over (and on a still night).

And it is completely hollow.

Best to leave it there.

Even in its ruined state it is the home for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of insects (in turn food for birds and hedgehogs).

The Pan-STARRS comet

The Pan-STARRS comet is supposed to be visible in the sky just after sunset all this week.

Driving home on Tuesday I stopped my car just as the sun was setting (in a huge ball of orange) and looked for the celestial visitor.

But I could not see anything.

Presumably the comet was veiled by the violet stratocumulus vesperalis clouds.

The wands of wild grass, golden in the fading light, were waved by a cold breeze.

The black earth stretched off towards the horizon.

The comet, on it's twenty-five thousand year orbit, missed our rendezvous.

Bleak but also lovely

Pausing on the bridge, the river looked more swollen than I have ever seen it before.  The normally clear water a muddy brown colour.  The water meadows were flooded, with rain water I think rather than the river bursting its banks (the field is higher than the river).

Bleak but also lovely - pearlescent greys, organic browns, muted greens.  The air mild, damp, fresh.  Blackbirds calling.

This is January 2013.

Caterpillar

Green caterpillar on a fallen autumnal leaf.

I think this is the caterpillar for the Angle Shades moth or Phlogophora meticulosa.

Press release from the Badgers Trust

I have been following the various developments in the planned trial badger cull, now abandoned (for good I hope).

The latest press release from the Badgers Trust:  http://www.badgertrust.org.uk/_Attachments/Resources/733_S4.pdf

I am concerned that policy is not being devised within Whitehall but is merely responding to lobbying.

I even managed a walk

And just as suddenly as it arrived my illness went, leaving me feeling weak and exhausted but otherwise fine.

I even managed a walk this afternoon - blustery winds, gleams of sunshine, occasional spots of rain.

Above:  the elder trees were heavy with fruit sambucus nigra.

Above:  the bramble blackberries Rubus fruticosus were mostly small, hard and unripened (an indication of the poor summer we have had).

Above:  along the grass verges that bordered the lane were little groups of the mauve common scabious - just seeing this wild flower made me feel happy (does nature have anything more charming?).

Verbascum thapsus or Common Mullein

Out of all our native wild flowers Verbascum thapsus or Common Mullein has the most beautiful foliage.  The leaves are covered with a thick downy Trichomes so that they look as if they are made of velvet.  The flowers are yellow and the plant is very prolific so don't let it loose in your garden!

Shooting of badgers

I am disappointed that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has allowed shooting of badgers.

Earlier I signed the e-petition created by Brian May urging the government to stop badger culling:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38257

Rosehips

One of the programmes I am really enjoying at the moment (along with Good Cop, Parades End and The Thick of It) is Wartime Farm on BBC2.

The latest episode told us about the health properties of rosehips, which made me look with new interest at the succulent rosehips on the dogroses along the lane.

I think I will put them in a blender and try a rosehip smoothie (along with some other fruit as I can't imagine they will taste nice).

The wild flowers have changed

I am not at work today - it is my birthday and I am having a quiet day at home.

Earlier, in the peace of the afternoon sunshine, I walked the dogs three miles along an unfrequented lane.

As usual, I looked at the wild flowers on the roadside.

Above:  the banks of the ditches are covered in convulvulus.

Above:  white convulvulus, also known as Field Bindweed.

Above:  convulvulus with a subtle pink stripe.

Above:  clumps of Achillea millifolium or Common Yarrow - the leaves are eaten as a boiled vegetable locally.

Above:  poppies among the corn.

Above:  a large thistle with the mauve flowers just beginning to come out.

Every time I walk along this lane the wild flowers have changed.

It is a reminder of how beautiful the natural world can be.  All this would be at risk if GM crops were allowed to go forward.  And yet this ever-changing show is the free heritage of all of us ("Bell notes alone ring praise of their own, As clear as the weed-waving brook and as evenly flowing").

Bullrushes or Typhaceae

I wasn't able to walk the dogs yesterday because of the rain.

When I took them this evening I saw that bullrushes or Typhaceae had shot up in the ditches alongside the lane.

Apparently used as food in the paleolithic age.

Pink campion or silene dioica.

Walking on the plain with the dogs I saw that clumps of pink wild flowers filled all the roadside ditches.

I think they are pink campion or silene dioica. 

Apparently a favoured food for moths and butterflies, although I have hardly seen either this summer.

Chrysanthemum leucanthemum or oxeye daisy

Walking the dogs yesterday I noticed huge drifts of wild daisies have suddenly flowered on a bank alongside one of the fields. I think these are Chrysanthemum leucanthemum or oxeye daisy, not Bellis perennis the lawn daisy.  Probably the incessant rain followed by a day of hot sun has created this profusion of wild flowers.

Prunella vulgaris

Have been at a small conference yesterday and today, looking after the Institute's stand.

Because of the dogs I had to drive home yesterday, then get up at 6am this morning to get back to the conference before today's sessions started.

So I am totally exhausted.

I only really had to be on the stand during the refreshment breaks and the lunch, and the rest of the time I mostly sat in on the seminars (which were very earnest and ever so slightly dull).

But I skipped one session yesterday and went for a walk.  The weather was warm and humid, torrential showers alternating with intense sunlight.  In the woods around the conference centre I found a wide clearing covered with bright blue flowers (see above).  I later identified these as Prunella vulgaris, a wild flower indigenous to northern Europe.  Apparently these little plants were used to flavour soups and stews.  The sap is antibacterial.

Elderflower harvest

We are in the middle of the elderflower harvest at the moment (Sambucus nigra flos).

Not just used to flavour yoghurts or make cordials, the flowers of the elder tree have many unique properties.

Terpenes, glucosides, rutin, quercitrin, alkaloids, tannins, vitamin C, mucilage, anthocyanins - the volatile oil defies analysis.

Urtica dioica

In the enervating heat of the early evening urtica dioica or the common stinging nettle.

An untouchable plant.

Bluebells in the back ground.

Cuckoo

I heard a cuckoo this morning.  First time I have heard this call for many years.  In 2009 the cuckoo was added to the RSPB's list of endangered birds.