A Stitchwort in time

Many years ago, I did a week-long 'Science and Practice of Nature Conservation' course, in Dorset (a county on the south coast of England); it was pretty much a taster course given the wide range of disciplines involved.  We learned a lot in a very short space of time, and quite apart from quadrat surveys and identifying flora from keys, my 'stay-with-me' memories from it include seeing and hearing my first nightjars, using a bat detector, seeing and hearing my first Dartford warbler, seeing my first eyebright, tormentil and sundews, and visiting the Isle of Portland. The latter would come to be more important to me some time afterwards - I decided to do a degree to further my conservation career, and became fascinated by Earth sciences (rather than life sciences) during my foundation year, and I have seen a lot of Portland Stone since then.  I've never lost my interest in plants, though. We were just walking the short distance from the minibus to a quarry there whe

So, did he tour with Dave Brubeck, or was it Miles Davis?  Was he hip?  Not really...  Herb Robert might sound like it should a jazz musician, but if you Take Five (see what I did there?) and look at the photo above, you'll think in terms of a different branch of the arts.  To me at least, the leaves here look like a William Morris* design.   The small, pink flowers tend to be a good few inches apart but a large Herb Robert can put up a good showing. In the early autumn, the flowers become purple. The plant's appearance varies across the UK; in some northern parts of England, the flowers are white rather than pink, and in rocky places the stems tend to be red. One thing that seems not to vary is the smell of the plant - I have a typical ex-smokers lack of sense of smell, but I'm told that it Herb Roberts smells rather unpleasant. So much so, in fact, that it is also known as Stinking Bob**. It has not been unknown for people to crush the leaves and use them as mosquito repe

It's not every day that you go for a walk and encounter an archangel...  You stand a fair chance, though, with one that blooms between April and August! Mind you, you do have to be in the right sort of place  - deciduous woodland - to see it.  I first saw it quite locally to where we live, but I've seen it in several different places this year.  It's far less common in Scotland and Ireland than it is in England and Wales. I took this photo while I was out on a very long walk (by my standards!), taking in Castor Hanglands National Nature Reserve and Swaddywell, a Local Nature Reserve owned by the Langdyke Countryside Trust; I saw my first wild strawberry plants growing at Swaddywell, which was a bonus*.  I will say that I took a break at a local farm shop/country café where a cold drink and a slice of Victoria sponge were consumed.  I am planning to visit both sites (and the farm shop/café) again in a few weeks time. Incidentally, Swaddywell is also a Local Geological Site (

  In my last (and rather longer) post, ' A bug's eye view of cow parsley ', I said that an individual plant of it isn't the prettiest plant ever (or words to that effect).  Here, though, the view along the path this morning was amazing.  It made the walk to the shops really pleasurable! 

  At this time of year, the woodland edges – and many verges – around here in Cambridgeshire are billowing with frothy cow parsley.   You can’t miss it; it’s all green stems and leaves and umbels of tiny white flowers. It is an important springtime plant but unless the Sun catches it at just the right angle it’s not, taken individually, an attractive plant in comparison to some!   It’s an untidy-looking thing that only its mother could love. It is a member of the carrot family and is edible if rather ‘meh’; I've not tried it but apparently it tastes like a cross between parsley and something a little bit like aniseed.   It’s sometimes known as wild chervil.   Be warned, though – it looks very similar to other plants including hemlock (although hemlock blooms later, in the summer, than cow parsley.   In the UK, cow parsley is sometimes called ‘mummy die,’ a dire threat to dissuade children from eating it, so as to prevent them eating hemlock by mistake.   Socrates’ ghost would tell

I'm very much a country mouse.  We live at the edge of a city, so we're close to amenities, but I spend hours walking through local countryside. Most weeks, I see far more sheep and cattle than I do people -  and I'm more than happy for it to stay that way.  I see deer, foxes, the occasional weasel, loads of rascally rabbits, I hear skylarks singing, there are red kites circling overhead, kestrels hovering, flocks of titmice and charms of goldfinches, and the summer is full of swallows.  There are wild hops growing near the nearest village pub, and the hedgerows are full of blackberries at the right time of year.  We get an amazing variety of invertebrates - I'm not expert enough to be able to differentiate all the hoverflies, for instance, but some are easy to identify; the hornet mimics are amazing, and have abdomens with stunningly pure yellow stripes.  I love the marmalade ones - when I'm in the garden, the air is often full of them. Hoverflies don't have st