July 2023 - Page 2 of 4 - A Year in the Valley

Wild Angelica Angelica sylvestris

Down in the stream, it’s a bit crowded this year. We usually clear an open path for the water, in case of any flash floods, but since finding the unconfirmed dead water vole, we have removed this job from our ‘to-do’ list for the time being. This is because they live in reed beds alongside water courses and eat grasses and herbs.

As a result the stream is now grown over with vegetation. Many are previously mentioned – Reed Canary Grass, Branched Burr-reed, and the odd Hemlock Water Dropwort. But there seems to be a new kid on the block.

Meet Wild Angelica. A robust clump with red celery-style stems and lush green leaves like a rose-bush growing in the stream. I was worried she was going to be a Hemlock variant and in a way, she is, being an Umbellifer with cow parsley style flowers.

However, the leaves are completely different – perfectly leaf-shaped, in pairs with a single leaf at the tip of each branch – and the hollow stem is crimson. Some of the HWD have red or red-mottled stems, but those ones tend also to have red-tinted leaves. However, here’s the thing, our Angelica is in a lot better shape than the HWDs, which have all keeled over by now. Her flowers are fairly feeble, but they are just coming into bloom. (I’m secretly hoping she will seize control of the valley from the army of toxic HWD, but it’s early days.)

In this picture, you can see how the Wild Angelica has taken over that part of the stream.

Also, you can see some of the white flowers.

Candied angelica used to be used as a cake decoration, but I’m not taking any chances with beginner’s foraging.

In this picture you can see another 14-spot ladybird with an aphid near the top of the right-hand branch.

Daisy D

21 July 2023

Flowers

Branched Burr-reed, Fourteen-spot ladybird, Hemlock Water Dropwort, Reed Canary Grass, Wild Angelica

Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris)

I have noticed some of the watermeadow wildflowers growing in our lawn. Selfheal is one of those. It prefers short grass, verges, or the edges of woodland. I noticed it first among the long grass alongside the pathways – and I have now seen the flowers in scrubby patches on our lawn. Looking like a kind of elongated clover, it’s one of those flowers that have always been there, but unnoticed. Yet as the name suggests it has a long tradition as a herbal remedy, particularly in native American medicine. It was used for digestive conditions, healing wounds and burns, and reducing fever. In fact, it is also called Heal-all.

Daisy D

20 July 2023

Flowers

Selfheal

Cut-leaved crane’s-bill (Geranium dissectum)

Walking back up the ramp, tiny shocking pink flowers caught my eye. Nestling jewel-like in a setting of green finger-like leaves, they were so minute that I had to look again, close-up to be sure I hadn’t imagined them. They are found on waste ground, roadsides, and rough grassland, so that describes our ramp. It has five notched ‘Barbie’ pink petals and the sepals, which are the leaf-like structures that cup the flower, have tiny red bristles on the ends. Some sources say the leaves are deeply-divided into seven fingers, but Collins Wildflower Guide makes no mention of this, and the illustration shows random divisions, just like the ones I have seen and photographed. It is in the same family as Herb Robert.

Daisy D

19 July 2023

Flowers

Cut-leaved crane’s-bill, Herb Robert

Grasshoppers and Conehead

In between showers on Sunday, we went for a walk round the watermeadow still trying to photograph flying things, like butterflies and birds. I definitely need practice at locating and focusing quickly. However, we spotted grasshoppers a-plenty – and managed to get photos of the Common Field Grasshopper and the Common Green Grasshopper. They were nestled in the undergrowth, which makes for confusing photos as you realise how good their camouflage is. On the internet, I found a guide to identifying grasshoppers: ‘Identifying Grasshoppers, Crickets and Allies in Beds, Cambs and Northants’ produced by the Wildlife Trust of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Northamptonshire.

I had to look at the antennae and the pronotal, which is a plate on the back of the head and upper back (thorax), edged by two lines. It’s the shaping of those two not-exactly-parallel lines, which is key to determining some of the grasshopper varieties.

In a simpler format the Wildlife Trusts website says, “The Common green grasshopper is mostly green, but sometimes has brownish sides.” It is supposed to be a bit scarce but is found in grass in wetlands – and we do tick that box. Also the pronotal lines are nearly parallel.

The brown one, then, is the Common Field Grasshopper. Brown with a green stripe. The above description could easily apply but look at the pronotal – it has a definite ‘waist’ marked by the pale stripe. This means that it should be the Common Field Grasshopper.

UPDATE PHOTO (02/09/23) – a clearer photo of the Common Field Grasshopper

But what about the feature-creature at the top of the post? That is not a grasshopper, but a Conehead – a type of bush cricket – with a cone-shaped head, obviously. This one, who looks as though it has one snapped antenna, is a Conehead nymph. I know this because of the thick black stripe down its back. It will turn into a Long-winged or Short-winged Conehead. The nymphs eat grass flowers and immature seeds, and the adults eat seeds of grasses and sedges.

Daisy D

18 July 2023

Insects

Common Field Grasshopper, Common Green Grasshopper, Conehead

Caught-out! Great Burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis ‘Pink Tanna’)

Looking quite at home on the grassy knoll under our weeping willow, this clover-like flower caught my eye. But what was it? I found out it was a burnet and struggled to decide whether it was the Great Burnet, which loves wet places but should have been deep crimson without the black-tipped white stamens, or Salad Burnet, which also didn’t look quite right and prefers dry chalky grassland, so not here then. Further investigation turned up a perfect match in Sanguisorba ‘Pink Tanna’, which was not in my Collins guide. Then I realised that this was one that we had planted. Sanguisorba Tanna is Korean Burnet and is native to Eastern Asia, particularly Korea and China.

Oh.

Well, it obviously loves it under the willow, it loves moist, well-drained soil in a partially shaded location. So we should really move it, but our top garden is very dry, so I don’t think it would do well there. I looked on the RHS website and it said that although it wasn’t native, it was suitable for Wildlife Gardens and Wildflower Meadows in the UK and that it was generally free of pests or diseases. It’s obviously not spreading, as we planted it in 2020 and it is still one little plant. So, I will leave it for the time being.

But I won’t count it on the Tally.

Daisy D

17 July 2023

Non-native

Great Burnet

Crane Fly

This is a Crane Fly because the sepia-tinted wings have clearly defined black veins and the body is segmented translucent-brown and flared at the tip. Other species of fly similar to crane flies have different body shapes, markings, and wings. There are also sub-species. This could be a Marsh Crane-fly.

I thought it was a bit early for crane flies, as I associate them with early Autumn. They are found near water, as they deposit their eggs in damp ground. The larvae, which we know as ‘leatherjackets’ hatch out two weeks later and spend their lives feeding on the roots and stem bases of grasses and decaying plant matter right round till the following May-June. Then they pupate in the soil, emerging from July to October to deposit their eggs within 24 hours, and only live for around two weeks.

Q: If they love the dampness of damp areas, why do they come indoors?

A: Simply because, like other types of fly, they are attracted to light and warmth and once inside they find it difficult to work out how to get outside again.

Daisy D

16 July 2023

Insects

Crane Fly

Which Willowherb?

I’m on a learning curve with plant identification and have been relying on cross-referencing websites to help me so far, but today I managed to formally identify the Willowherb using my Collins Wildflower Guide Key for the first time. This reference book is very comprehensive but uses botanical terminology in a flowchart style to eliminate different species. I knew I would need a bit of time to learn some of the terms.

With the Willowherb, the first bit was easy. Is the plant upright, or prostrate? Upright.

So I moved on to question 2, which concerned the stigma. I knew this was inside the flower. Was it 4-lobed or knob-shaped? I saw a white 4-lobed thing inside the flower.

“Go to >3”. This was about hairs on the stem. I had to look up ‘glandular’, ‘glabrous’ and ‘appressed’. Glandular means with glands i.e. raised like when you have goose-pimples. Glabrous means without hairs. Appressed means pressed close to, but not fused with. The stem was hairy and the hairs though fine stuck out from the stem, as you can see from the picture.

On to question 4. About the leaves and flowers. Interesting. Did the leaves slightly clasp the stem or not and were the flowers pale or deep pink? The leaves do slightly cup themselves round the stem and the flowers are definitely deep pink. In the photo they look more purply-pink.

Conclusion – It’s a Great Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum), also known as Hairy Willowherb, nearly 2 metres tall, hairy stalked with slim oval leaves and deep pink flowers. It loves a damp habitat, so pond margins, marshes and watermeadows are good.

I plan to go back over previous posts and check them out with the Collins guide just to make sure. I will post any updates and discoveries.

Daisy D

15 July 2023

Flowers

Great Willowherb

Beetle and bug

After a week of mild but cloudy weather with the odd shower, which has helped revive the garden and saved us from trudging up and down with watering cans, we now have a proper rainy day with stormy wind, so I’m digging into the ‘archive’ of photos I haven’t used yet. These are from when my camera was on the wrong setting last weekend, so not quite as many pixels, but I haven’t seen these two creatures since.

The Common Red Soldier Beetle brought back memories. This is the one we used to call ‘Bloodsucker’ when I was little. We thought it was red because it was full of human blood, obviously! I now learn that it is a common nickname. This beetle can be found on meadow flowers, as it eats pollen, nectar, and aphids. This one is on grass at the top of the bank. That’s probably because the larvae of the beetle feast on slugs and snails which live among meadow grasses. Because of its diet, the Common Red Soldier Beetle is good for the garden as it eats up the garden pests.

I’m always pleased to see a ladybird, but I thought all ladybirds which weren’t red with seven spots were invasive species. However, it turns out that there are forty species native to the UK, including this 14-spot ladybird. This ladybird is the most common yellow-and-black ladybird out of three. It has fourteen rectangular black spots which can merge into a chequered pattern. In this case, I wasn’t even sure which were the spots until I compared pictures. Another of the yellow-and-black ladybirds has twenty-two spots which are round and defined – I would love to see that in the garden!

This ladybird had a long hibernation and didn’t emerge till May. It lives in grasslands and gardens and along with all the other ladybirds, is good for the garden as they keep the aphids under control.

Although the Harlequin ladybirds are invasive, the advice from the RHS is not to attempt to control them, as although they are in competition for food and also have cannibalistic tendencies, they do mainly eat aphids and they are so easily confused with the many native species. L adybirds / RHS Gardening

Daisy D

14 July 2023

Insects

Common Red Soldier Beetle, Fourteen-spot ladybird, Seven-spot Ladybird

Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra) and Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

When is a thistle not a thistle? When it’s a Common Knapweed! Common Knapweed is found on grasslands, including roadside verges and clifftops, and is loved by butterflies. The flowers are actually flower-clusters at the top of the stems and the leaves are smooth and hairy, rather than prickly like thistles. It’s actually not in the thistle family, but in the same family as Cornflowers and if you imagine it blue, then you virtually have a cornflower! Common knapweed is also known as Black Knapweed. Knapweed is named after its shape as ‘knap’ means button, knob, or tuft in Middle English.

I’m including the ramp that we have built down to the watermeadow, because we are pretty much letting it go wild, apart from mowing a single track down for the wheelbarrow and lawnmower (we sometimes mow the watermeadow pathways for ease of access). We have a small bit of dry-stone wall that edges the ramp and stops it collapsing on the steps that we have cut into the bank. This has been known to house lizards, so I’m still hoping to catch one of them on my camera (fingers crossed!). Because the ramp is built of garden waste and turf, it tends to sink on a regular basis as the ‘foundations’ decompose, and we top it up with more turf and soil. The habitat on the ramp and the right-hand bank of the watermeadow becomes dryer as it rises up towards the garden, so this is where we find more meadow plants. The left-hand bank is in the shade, so still a bit damp and home to ferns and fungi.

On the ramp, I noticed a feathery plant with cow-parsley-style white flower heads. Yarrow comes in yellow or pale pink as well as white. It can be found in grasslands and disturbed soil, both of which apply here. It has many medicinal uses – Yarrow tea can be made into a poultice for wound healing and inflammation or drunk to aid digestion or mental health. In fact, Yarrow’s Latin name Achillea is named after Achilles, who used it to treat his soldiers’ wounds and millefolium means ‘a thousand leaves’ referring to their feathery appearance.

Daisy D

13 July 2023

Flowers

Common Knapweed, Yarrow

Branched Burr-reed (Sparganium erectum)

My camera had been on the wrong setting and recent photos were suddenly looking pixelated when I zoomed in to view close-up detail. I needed to re-photograph some of the flowers and bugs that I had previously snapped, so in between showers Mr C and I went for a walk to see what we could find.

The stream has become overgrown with grasses and other water plants. We usually try to clear a path for the water to flow easily in case of flooding, but this summer we haven’t managed to, so down in the stream, I have noticed some new plants, including this funny-looking one. Several stems with bobbles on were tucked in amongst the Reed Canary Grass, which grows both in and out of the stream.

The white-bloomed bobbles, which look a bit like coconut-covered chocolate truffles on their own branches, are the female flower-clusters and the smaller, more compact bobbles climbing up the stem are the male clusters.

Daisy D

12 July 2023

Sedges, rushes, grasses

Branched Burr-reed, Reed Canary Grass