Clissold Park, London: Wing Nut Tree

29th June 2012 

I arrived in London yesterday and arranged to meet Ellie and John at their second home, the Castle.  An imposing building and the place where it seems indoor climbing dreams come true.  By the time I got there, they were well into their routes so I took the opportunity to check out the vast gardens and mill around the extensive grounds, whose produce from the impressive raised beds and community garden, supplied the organic cafe inside for hungry souls. 

Less of a climbing centre, more of a mini-festival on Saturday, it was a lovely place.  Kids, dogs and grown ups all roamed about and seemed to be having a grand time in the sun.  My low attention span with climbing was momentarily aroused by the Tunnels!  Which were built for people to scramble around in the dark, behind the walls.  Much more my cup of tea.

We headed back and I was treated to a glorious barbecue with giant prawns, scallops, beer and a well overdue catch up with my very best friends.

This morning, John was hosting a foraging walk and talk around their local park.  I was asked to come along and take pictures for his website.  It was while heading over to meet up with the group that I came across a stunning tree that I didn't recognise:

The Wing Nut, a relative of the Walnut originating from Iran was introduced into the UK way back in 1782.  It is a brute of a tree with some specimens reaching over 38-metres high with a crown diameter of 35 metres.  It is a fast growing, large and broadly oval tree, which does well in most fertile, moisture-retentive soils, but is especially good for use close to rivers and lakes in parkland setting.  It has deeply furrowed bark and very long summer catkins, which produce two-winged nut fruits.

Clissold park is a wonderful place.  There are heaps of lovely things to look at.  For example, here is a Tulip tree in bloom and also a picture of a goat playing football:

Watching John in action as "Forage London' was very satisfying and I felt immensely proud of him as he held his audience's attention for almost three hours with his knowledge and anecdotes.  After the heat of the morning, we were ready for his well earned birthday picnic later this afternoon, back in the same park with friends and the gregariously gorgeous and GROWING, Oscar.

Such a lovely weekend, I have decided to stay another day or two and make the most of my time here.

Exeter, Devon: Bee Orchid

27th June 2013

Exeter, Devon: Bee Orchid

The past couple of days seem to have been ones where I have encountered things, where there might not ordinarily be things.  When I work in Exeter, oftentimes I'll take myself off to a tiny piece of nowhere at the bottom of the MET Office's land.  

Here lies a small and unremarkable piece of bog; where over winter lunch breaks I would occasionally watch a Moorhen wander about among stumps of rush.  I'd not followed the progress of this area in the past few weeks, but can report that yesterday, the rush stood tall among a cavalcade of Mugwort, Yellow Flag Iris, Spotted Orchid, Red Campion and courting Damselflies. 

This photo can't capture how lovely it was to come back to this once grim looking scene and see it looking so verdant.  I also managed to disturb a rabbit from it's snooze while I scaled the fence.   Happily I watched it's white bottom disappear into a thicket, while I stood beside this mirage-like place, most surreal among the industrial units and rows of car parks.  

It was while walking down to this area, which is just a few yards from my office that I found the Bee Orchids.  Magnificent little jewels!  It was as if someone had accidentally dropped them there, by the side of the road.

Anyway, I shan't bang on about Orchids again, having only just posted this-and-that about their qualities, but seeing as it's an entry about surprise happenings, I must mention the drive back from Widecombe tonight.  For when I drove Dilys and Keith back across the moor to Torquay, and while Bob Dylan played 'Simple Twist of Fate' on my stereo, a Barn Owl swooped an inch away from my windscreen, a Hare ran a whisker away from the bonnet and when I had almost made the home stretch, a black cat shot in front of my car with a Badger in hot pursuit.  Magic!

Sigford, Devon: Common Spotted Orchid

23^rd June 2013

It had been a weekend of action.  Starting on Friday at Haytor, then on to Saddle Tor - we danced the sun down in celebration of the Solstice.  A wild evening; the wind blew our tatters horizontally and whipped the feathers from our hats.  We roared and weaved with fire and brimstone in our bellies and with sticks of lashing flame, before retreating to our tents in Teignmouth for the start of the Folk Festival and a two-day marathon of showing-off-in-fishnets.

I was feeling weary and woebegone before I ran into this display last night as I drove across Dartmoor towards Milton Combe, where Olivia and friends had a little gathering of music and moon gazing for her birthday.  They seemed to be fighting for attention with their proud pink spikes and I felt happy to see them.  

The Common Spotted-orchid  (Dactylorhiza fuchsii).  The flower colour can vary from white to pale purple with purple spots, a symmetrical pattern of dark purple loops or dots and dashes.  Some colonies are highly perfumed, attractive to day-flying moths.

The ancient Greeks whose word orkhis means testicle, gave the orchid family its name, based on the appearance of the tuberous roots.  In classical mythology, Orchis, the son of a satyr and a nymph, was turned into a flower after his death. 

In his Materia Medica, the first century A.D. Greek physician Dioscorides hypothesized that orchids influenced sexuality and ever since, people have associated the plant with virility, fertility, sex determination, and other aspects of reproduction, inspired perhaps by the exotic appearance, fragrance, and erotic aspect of its flower’s sexual parts.  The English Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite supporter John Ruskin called the flowers “prurient apparitions.” 

Early Greek parents believed they could control the sex of their unborn children with orchid roots.  If the father ate large, new tubers, the child would be male; if the mother ate small tubers, the child would be female.  European scholars believed that orchids sprang from ground on which animals had bred.  They were thought to be the food of satyrs and powerful aphrodisiacs.  In modern times the genus Paphiopedilum was named for Phaphos, a temple where the love goddess Aphrodite was worshipped.

Orchids have been used as a source of food, medicines, religious charms, adhesives, perfumes, straw, and flavourings as well as aphrodisiacs.  They are thought to cure fever, arthritis, dysentery, cough, headaches, and wounds in many parts of the world.  They are made into a remedy for sick elephants in Malaysia and a kind of ice cream in Turkey (where its name means “fox testicles”) that is said to prevent cholera, heal the spleen, and ease childbirth.

The Orchidaceae family is large and diverse, comprising about 25,000 naturally occurring species and more than 100,000 hybrids.  Orchids are native to every continent, though most occur in the tropics.  They are not carnivorous or parasitic, relying for sustenance on symbiotic relationships with fungi.  Unlike most plants, both male and female reproductive organs are carried on the same structure of the orchid, the column.

Forde Park, Devon: Valerian

18^th June 2013

A sunset walk with Pippin into the dusk, at a park alongside my former nursery school.  Memories of hazy afternoons, cold milk being served in colourful, spotty cups and a busty piano playing teacher, thumping away at the keys with more energy (and hairpins) than a 4-year old had ever seen before.

Red Valerian seems to sprout from almost every wall, crack or un-weeded opening it can at this time of year.  Mum claims that its sleepy properties, wafting through the Devon air during these months are responsible for the ‘mañana’ attitude of just about every Devon-born tradesman she has every employed.

 Centranthus ruber, also called valerian or red valerian. Other common names include Jupiter's beard and spur valerian.

Flowers can be used as decorations, though some people can get a headache from the overpowering scent of the blooms.  This plant is more sought after for its roots which are used to make tea, tinctures, capsules and pills.  Fresh valerian root does not have a strong smell but the smell becomes stronger as the roots dry.  It is told the dried roots smell like smelly old socks.  The name supposedly comes from the Latin word “valere” which means “to be well”.

Valerian was as a medicinal herb in Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece and has a long history of an herb used to fight anxiety, shock and stress.  During the First World War it was very common to treat soldiers who suffered from physiological strain with valerian tincture. Using valerian for anxiety has advantages that commercial drugs don't have as it does not cause dependency and is non-addictive.  Cats are attracted to it as it has similar effects on them as catnip.  Some seem to go into a kind of delightful trance rolling around in valerian.

In Europe valerian was used to drive away witches.  Any sorceress who tried to enter the home would quickly turn around if it was hanging by the door.  In Northern Europe valerian was found hanging outside barn doors as there was a superstition that it would protect the farm animals from evil encounters.  

During the Middle Ages men were advised to offer the lady they were attracted to some valerian in red wine as this was supposed to make her notice him favorably.  A bridegroom should always carry a little valerian during the wedding ceremony as this would protect him from all the 'envious elves' lurking about.

A married couple who were caught arguing was given the advice to drink valerian tea.  Magically this drink would result in the couple making up.  According to folklore, woman giving birth should always have some valerian under the sheets as this was a vulnerable time in the woman’s life and she was believed to be an easy target for all supernatural creatures.  The valerian offers protection in time of need.

Dartington, Devon: Viola

15^th June 2013

Dartington, Devon

Tubs and planters of proud little faces of colour, bobbing out cheerfully from the earth while the grey and gloomy sky glowered above us at the Venus Café.  I had just been collected from a lovely birthday party in Week, nearby.  The sky reflected my pounding hangover after the evening’s sampling of Mr Fox and Carolan’s homebrew.  I should have thought twice before accepting half a pint of anything called ‘Dandelion Dance Destroyer’ (named after Will poured a gallon of scalding hot water on his foot and put himself out of action for the first half of last year’s Morris season).

Viola tricolor, known as heartsease, heart's ease, heart's delight, tickle-my-fancy, Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me, come-and-cuddle-me, three faces in a hood, or love-in-idleness.

As its name implies, heartsease has a long history of use in herbalism. It has been recommended, among other uses, for epilepsy, asthma, skin diseases and eczema.V. tricolor has a history in folk medicine of helping respiratory problems such as bronchitis, asthma, and cold symptoms.  It has expectorant properties, and so has been used in the treatment of chest complaints such as bronchitis and whooping cough. It is also a diuretic, leading to its use in treating rheumatism and cystitis.  

The flowers have also been used to make yellow, green and blue-green dyes, while the leaves can be used to make a chemical indicator.  Long before cultivated pansies were released into the trade in 1839, V. tricolor was associated with thought in the "language of flowers", often by its alternative name of pansy (from the French "pensée" - thought): hence Ophelia's often quoted line in Shakespeare's Hamlet, "There's pansies, that's for thoughts". What Shakespeare had in mind was V. tricolor, not a modern garden pansy.

Shakespeare makes a more direct reference, probably to V. tricolor in A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Oberon sends Puck to gather "a little western flower" that maidens call "love-in-idleness". Oberon's account is that he diverted an arrow from Cupid's bow aimed at "a fair vestal, throned by the west" (supposedly Queen Elizabeth I) to fall upon the plant "before milk-white, now purple with love's wound". The "imperial vot'ress" passes on "fancy-free", destined never to fall in love.  The juice of the heartsease now, claims Oberon, "on sleeping eyelids laid, will make or man or woman madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees."  Equipped with such powers, Oberon and Puck control the fates of various characters in the play to provide Shakespeare's essential dramatic and comic structure for the play.