Plants on walls

 Chasmophytes are specialised plants that colonise crevices in bare rock faces - ivy-leaved toadflax is a notable example, that even produces seed capsules that grow towards dark cavities, planting their own seeds back into the wall. But there are a surprising number of plants that colonise the man-made equivalent of rocky cliff faces - either drystone walls or walls constructed with mortar. 

Here are a few of the accidental wall colonists that I've encountered recently.

Native wild strawberry on a wall top at Stanhope in Weardale, undoubtedly arriving as a seed in a bird dropping

Native dog violet in a damp retaining wall beside the railway line at Hexham in Northumberland. It has a ballistic seed dispersal method, firing out seeds when its capsule splits and contracts

Native shining crane'sbill in a drystone wall at West Blackdene in Weardale. This plant, a wall specialist, has leaves that turn bright crimson as summer progresses, perhaps induced by stress as conditions become drier.

Non-native trailing bellflower, on a wall top beside Quarry Heads Lane in Durham city. Escaped from a nearby garden.

Native wall lettuce, another wall specialist with plumed seeds that are carried on the wind. Growing here on a ledge below the parapet of Prebends bridge, spanning the river Wear in Durham city.

Moth mullein, a non-native, well established in the wild. Here, on old walls beside Sunderland Marina. 

Wallflower, doing exactly what its name dictates, growing in a wall beside Sunderland Marina. Cultivated since medieval times but well established on walls in the wild.

Drizzle

Wednesday dawned with the kind of leaden skies and grey drizzle that makes you want to stay under the duvet all day. But windless mornings with fine drizzle can work magic in meadows.

We are only a week or so away from the main period of haymaking in Weardale and Teesdale and the meadow grasses are in full flower. When that coincides with drizzly, foggy weather and there is not a breath of wind every grass floret catches a jewel of water and every grass stem is laden with rows of water droplets. One puff of wind and the effect would be ruined, but for a short time it is exquisite.

Definitely worth getting out of bed for!

A butterfly bank: second visit

About a month ago I posted some pictures of a beautiful magnesian limestone embankment along an old disused railway line at Trimdon near Durham city. This weekend we went back for another look and the flora was even better.

The viper's bugloss, which was only rosettes of leaves on our last visit, had now produced tall spires of flowers.

At the moment, this is just about the most flowery spot I know, with ....

...... bladder campion .......

...growing here with viper's bugloss ....

..... intensely fragrant burnet rose ......

..... eyebright, a plant that's partially parasitic on the roots of other plants....

..... greater knapweed .........

....... rock-rose .....

... and common spotted orchids that were too many to count, with numerous variations: this is an albino form.

Twayblade orchids, that are well hidden amongst the background vegetation..........

... and drifts of viper's bugloss, which bees can't resist.

Wild strawberries ..........

....... and wild thyme.

Magnesian limestone flora at its best!

A hat full of wild strawberries

We picked this hat full of wild strawberries Fragaria vesca yesterday afternoon - fiddly to pick but their taste and aroma are incomparable. 

It's a big mistake to eat strawberries with ice cream - they need to be warm, to release the full aroma. We had these on porridge this morning. Wonderful!

Wild strawberries and wannabe wild strawberries...

The easy way to tell wild strawberry Fragaria vesca, which has tasty succulent fruits, from barren strawberry Potentilla sterilis, which doesn't:

In wild strawberry the petals overlap,and .......

.... in barren strawberry they don't ...

How to Make your Urine Smell of Violets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They're fiddly to pick - I guess it would take most of the day to pick enough for a jar of jam - but sun-warmed wild strawberries Fragaria vesca have a wonderful flavour and aroma that's superior to the taste of most chiller-cabinet cultivated strawberries from the supermarket. According to the herbalist John Gerard, writing in 1597, ripe strawberries "quench thirst, and take away, if they be often used, the rednesse and heate of the face" - just the thing, then, if you're baking in the sun watching the tennis at Wimbledon. On the other hand, if it's raining, he also recommended water distilled from the plant mixed with white wine for "reviving the spirits, and making the heart merry" which I suspect had more to do with the wine than with the plant. Writing nearly 180 years later, the botanist and physician William Withering was clearly a strawberry devotee: "The berries either eaten alone, or with sugar, or with milk, are universally esteemed a most delicious fruit. They are grateful, cooling, subacid, juicy, and have a delightful smell. Taken in large quantities they seldom disagree. They promote perspiration, impart a violet smell to the urine, and dissolve the tartarous incrustacions of the teeth." The British native wild strawberry played no part in the parentage of the cultivated strawberry - which is a hybrid of North and South American species that you can read about here - and by the time that he wrote this, in 1776, Withering may well have been eating the much larger fruits of the New World species, which by then had become popular.