Wildflower diary
Sowbread (Cyclamen hederifolium)
Autumn 2024
Flowers of the ivy-leaved Cyclamen hederifolium (above) were particularly abundant this year, starting quite early in mid-September with dense patches of bright purple-pink blooms in many places in the village, from Lords Hill Common to Malt House Green. Also known as 'sowbread', this lovely plant is native to Southern Europe but has been found all over the UK in the wild since it was first recorded in Kent in 1778 - it was probably introduced as a garden plant some time before that.
Gardeners need to be careful when planting this - it grows from large underground corms and confusingly everything is produced from the upper surface of the corm, even the roots - normally you would put things in the ground with roots facing down, not up! (But the spring-flowering Cyclamen coum doesn't do that, roots on C. coum are on the underside of a much smaller corm).
As the summer came to a very wet end mowing on the Cricket Green had to be delayed, and as a result the chamomile which lives there all year round suddenly burst into flower in September, its feathery aromatic foliage becoming adorned with daisy-like flower heads. Chamomile is well known as a medicinal herb, said to help with insomnia and many other ailments, and it's a great lawn plant too as it doesn't mind being trampled and mown.
Bittersweet scrambling over a holly hedge
(Solanum dulcamara)
Fly agaric under birch trees on Blackheath
(Amanita muscaria)
Chamomile on the Cricket Green
(Chamaemelum nobile)
The beautiful but poisonous fly agaric has been very abundant in groups around birch trees on the heath this autumn. It gets its name because it contains ibotenic acid which not only attracts flies but also kills them, so bits sprinkled into saucers of milk make a very good fly killer!
Bittersweet is another dangerous beauty: its jewel-like red fruits are attractive to birds, but also possibly to unsuspecting humans. Birds eat it and spread the seeds this way and don't seem to be harmed by the poisonous alkaloids it contains, but it can make a human being very ill, especially a child.
A poisonous rarity: autumn crocus
(Colchicum autumnale)
In a little corner of Lords Hill Common we have two native species so uncommon in the wild nowadays that they have been given a rarity designation.
Botanists have divided the islands of Great Britain and Ireland into 3859 10kmx10km squares. If a plant is found in fewer than 250 of these squares it's designated 'R', and our little colony of autumn crocus falls into this category. But even rarer is the big patch of galingale growing nearby, which is designated 'RR' meaning that it is found in fewer than 100 of these squares.
We were really pleased to see the galingale flowering in September, having been given a rather drastic haircut in the spring! It's a distant relative of ginger, preferring damp or even wet ground in Southern Britain. Its triangular stems were once used for making paper, and a sweet oil is extracted from its roots for perfume.
Galingale
(Cyperus longus)
Our other rarity, autumn crocus, is native to damp meadows in Central and Southern Britain (but it is also a common garden plant so could be a garden escapee). It is very poisonous, even more so than bittersweet or fly agaric, and unfortunately its leaves are sometimes mistaken for those of the edible wild garlic or ramsons (Allium ursinum), with dire consequences. The poison it contains is colchicine, a chemical used (carefully) in the treatment of gout, but also in botanical experiments on plant chromosomes.
White dead nettle (Lamium album) still in flower at the end of November
Hemlock water-dropwort
(Oenanthe crocata) - dramatic remains of the seed heads
Purple moor-grass
(Molinia caerulea) glowing in the autumn sunshine
These last few photos were taken at the end of November when, even though there is much less in flower, there is still plenty to see on a nature walk:
Look out for purple moor-grass on Blackheath, so called because of its purplish flowering heads in the summer. In November the leaves die and curl, turning a lovely golden colour which glows in the sunshine, and the spiky flower stalks give it a very distinctive outline. It's more abundant in damper areas, but isolated plants grow alongside all the heathland paths.
Growing in or next to water you'll find hemlock water-dropwort (yet another fiendishly poisonous plant!) recognisable in autumn by the dramatic umbrella- shaped remains of its seed heads standing clear of the surrounding vegetation. This pattern of seed head is known as an 'umbel' and is typical of the carrot family to which this plant belongs, along with many other familiar species such as cow parsley, fennel, hogweed, and parsnip.
Lesser stichwort (Stellaria graminea)
Some plants are still actually in flower at the end of November, such as the white dead nettle shown here. This species will carry on flowering until well past Christmas, and so will many others but you may have to look a bit harder to find them. This little lesser stichwort still had plenty of open flowers, a bit raggy after the rain and cold snap, but doggedly hanging in there hoping for a visit from a passing insect in search of increasingly scarce pollen and nectar!