 HEMLOCK Conium maculatumThis umbellifer growing well over 8 feet tall and now in flower in the roadside verge between Avon Cottage and Carriers Crossing, is hemlock. Best avoided! Purple blotches on the stem give it the epithet 'maculatum' or spotted (cf Lords and Ladies further down this page). Eating half a dozen leaves can kill within a few hours, even eating animals that have grazed it can kill. It is more poisonous in spring than summer.
Image: Kerry O'Connor May 2022 |  Soapwort Wild TypeImage 1 of 3
Many hedgerow flowers have finished by late July and August, making Soapwort a welcome bloom, opening late in the season and late in the day. The leaves and roots contain saponins and can be used as a soap, as used traditionally on the Turin Shroud. The clump growing across the road from the school was featured on this site two years ago, (click to reveal a link).
kmoc August 2021 |  Soapwort Bouncing Bett Garden VarietyImage 2 of 3
These by Castle Cottage have a double set of petals. They are a mutation, the plant develops an extra set of petals instead of male parts, it then is selected by horticulturists who like the double head. This is Bouncing Bett, the garden variety of Soapwort and without male parts is sterile. This doesn’t bother the plant as it spreads by rhizomes, but can only do so locally, whereas the wild type can produce seeds too.
kmoc August 2021 |
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 CowslipsCowslips, Primula veris, like chalk but here beneath Old Sarum are growing on an old landfill site within the Avon Valley Nature Reserve. Daisy, Bellis perennis, flowers (bottom left) close at night and open in the morning, they are like the "day's eye" hence the name. |  The force that through the green fuse drives the flower..........*Who would have thought that this hollow shell of a willow trunk stump was capable of life, but new shoots spring from it near the Ashley Road playground.
(*Dylan Thomas)
kmoc May 2021 |  Striped hedgeBlackthorn produces blossom before its leaves and is named for its darker bark. Hawthorn produces leaves before its blossom and is named for its fruits, the haws. Both are used in hedging as they can be pleached. Where used together they can give, for a few weeks in spring, green and white striped hedges. Stratford Road.
Kerry O'Connor. April 2021 |
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 Lords and LadiesNine out of ten Lords and Ladies plants are “immaculate”, without spots or blemishes on their leaves, inherited dominantly, as the plant on the left here on The Avenue to Keeper’s Cottage.
But is the minority WITH the spots on the leaves, inherited recessively, as here on the right
that give this lily its specific epithet
Arum maculatum.
March 2021 Image: Kerry O’Connor |  Glory of the Snow(Chionodoxa, a section of Scilla, probably luciliae) in bloom in mid-March on a bank south of Salterton.
15 March 2021
Image: Kerry O'Connor |  A lone, early, Spanish bluebellHyacinthoides hispanica, is flowering at the gateway to the gas substation on Gradidge Lane. Perhaps it arrived in some fly-tipped garden waste and has confused a microclimate warmed by the gas station and sheltered by the old pit with some Iberian idyll. 14 March 2021
Image: Kerry O'Connor |
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 Gradidge Lane spindle treesSpindle (Euonymus europaea) is a native deciduous tree, often an indicator of Ancient Woodland but these specimens were planted fairly recently.
Image 1 of 3: Rosemary Winson
24 Aug 2020 |  Chicken of the WoodsLaetiporis sulphureus - between river and track from Mill Bridge to Avon Farm
June 2020 Kerry O'Connor |  Robin's PincushionRobin's Pincushion is chemically induced on the dog rose, Rosa canina, and contains many larvae, each wintering in its own chamber, of the Bedeguar Gall Wasp, Diplolepis rosae. The adults, 99% females, emerge in the spring.
Stratford Nature Reserve, Sept 2019.
Image: Kerry O'Connor |
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 RedlegRedleg or Redshank, Persicaria maculosa, has red lower stems and dark chevrons on the leaves.
By the footbridge over the Avon, Sept 2019
Image: Kerry O'Connor |  KnotgrassKnotgrass, Polygonum aviculare, is not grass. It is a weed but it is not knotweed. (Is that not clear?)
Stratford Nature Reserve, Sept 2019
Image: Kerry O'Connor |  White BryonyWhite Bryony, Bryonia dioica, though related to the cucumber, is poisonous. The southern slopes of Old Sarum, Sept 2019.
Image: Kerry O'Connor |
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 London Plane (collage)The London plane, Platanus × acerifolia, is a non native hybrid and the commonest tree in London. Above ground it copes well with air pollution, below ground with root compaction and concreting over.
The shade it offers and the beautifully patterned trunk left as older non-stretchy brown outer bark that scales off to reveal the greener stretchier inner bark, are bonuses.
Verge by Avon Farm, Sept 2019
Image: Kerry O'Connor |  Ganoderma applanatumGanoderma applanatum, along the boardwalk in Avon Valley Nature reserve. This rots the heartwood of trees and is known as the artist’s bracket as sepia images can be drawn on the white underside, scratching revealing the brown beneath. August 2019
Image: Kerry O'Connor |  Turnip, Brassica rapaTurnip, Brassica rapa, footpath to allotments, Aug 2019 . Turnips have been cultivated for 4000 years.
Image: Kerry O'Connor |
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 Bitter Vetchling Lathyrus linifoliusBitter Vetchling, Lathyrus linifolius. Avon Valley Nature reserve Aug 2019. The tubers were eaten in Scotland before potatoes and are supposed to reduce hunger. It is related to the sweet pea.
Image: Kerry O'Connor |  Horse Mint, Mentha longifloliaHorse mint, Mentha longifolia, road to Little Durnford Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor |  Fat Hen, Chenopodium albumFat Hen, Chenopodium album, footpath up to Devizes Road, Cathedral on horizon,
Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor |
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 Mugwort, Artemisia vulgarisMugwort, Artemisia vulgaris, on eastern slopes of Old Sarum with cathedral spire on horizon,
August 2019
Image: Kerry O'Connor |  Marsh Woundwort, Stachys palustrisMarsh Woundwort, Stachys palustris, on the village side of footbridge over Avon. Aug 2019 Image: Kerry O'Connor |  Lesser Burdock, Arctium minus. (1)Lesser Burdock, Arctium minus. With leaves like velvet (VELour), seeds with hooks (CROchets) it inspired a Swiss engineer to invent and name Velcro. Near Avon Farm. Aug 2019
Image: Kerry O'Connor |
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