These old Cotoneaster bushes are rooted in fissures in the limestone cliff behind Ashes quarry are Stanhope, in Weardale. Cotoneaster is a genus with many species, mostly from Eastern Asia, that has long been cultivated in Britain for its attractive berries in autumn; these plants would undoubtedly been of garden origin, originally arriving in the quarry in bird droppings. Although almost all berries in the dale have now been eaten by birds, this heavy crop remains almost untouched. This happens every year, and there is no obvious reason why birds should not have taken them. Maybe a flock of redwings or fieldfares will find them soon.

 

Monkey flowers: summer opportunists when river water levels fall

In summer, when the water level in the upper reaches of the river Wear drops, its gravelly banks are colonised by a natural rock garden of plants. This year, after a long dry spell, its flora is looking particularly attractive. Many of the plants are garden escapes, most likely from garden refuse swept down the river from upstream. 

The most eye-catching are monkey flowers, whose creeping stems become woven into the coarse gravel and resist the flow of the current when the river rises again. The most beautiful is the coppery monkey flower Mimulus x burnetii, a sterile hybrid between Mimulus guttatus and M. cupreus, both from western North America.

It isn't very common because it does not produce seeds and only spreads from vegetative fragments, but wherever it does appear its warm coppery tones make it very conspicuous. 

This is one of the parents, monkey flower Mimulus guttatus, which does set seeds and is a colourful feature of the river gravels all along the upper reaches of the river Wear.

Both plants are very easy to propagate - just a short length of the creeping stem with a leaf node will produce new roots and shoots very quickly.

Irises at Dawdon

This rather lovely iris, which I think is probably an old Iris spuria hybrid (not the typical I.spuria which is blue), is growing on the site of the old colliery at Dawdon on the Durham coast. There's a second plant growing on the cliffs nearby. 

It's tempting to speculate that these plants are survivors from the gardens of the old terraced colliery houses, which were demolished along with the colliery many years ago. The site is now open limestone grassland, covered with wild flowers.

To see some pictures of another unusual garden escape iris, Iris sibirica, on sand dunes on the Northumberland coast, click here

Lilium pyrenaicum

Here's a sight that brightened up a dull day at a bleak spot - a large patch of Lilium pyrenaicum, growing on a road verge near the Derwent reservoir (in the background of the photo) on the Durham-Northumberland border.

According to the New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora this handsome lily (which, as the name suggests, is native to the Pyrenees) was introduced into British gardens before 1596 and was first recorded in the wild in 1853. These plants were well away from the nearest gardens and looked like they'd been established for quite a while..... perhaps dumped with garden rubbish or maybe deliberately planted? I've seen this plant growing along the banks of the River Wear near Wolsingham for over 35 years and there are records of it from the Derwentside area in Gordon Graham's Flora and Vegetation of County Durham.

The orange anthers are particularly striking, as are ...

... the reflexed tepals and very pungent smell.