Michael Peverett: Swindon in the rain

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Swindon in the rain

Red Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum). Swindon, April 8th 2018.

Lamium purpureum. I have never heard it called anything except Red Deadnettle, but Wikipedia lists several other vaguely credible names and one that's clearly an error: "Velikdenche" (which is actually the name of a village in southern Bulgaria). It's all over the internet now, of course.

Red Deadnettle is one of those plants you can reliably expect to see flowering in every month of the year, but it looks at its best in April, just before the deluge of other species gets going.

Poplar trees, Swindon, 8th April 2018

A group of poplar trees in TK Maxx car-park. Up close, the distinctively marked trunks are a gloomily impressive sight. They could be Grey Poplars, but I'm not sure. Though we're regular visitors to TK Maxx I only seem to notice the poplars in winter and I've never checked out the leaves.

In view of the incessant rain, after meeting Laura downtown at TK Maxx we reluctantly drove the van home to Westlea, then took a shortened walk out to Costa DriveThru beside Jct 16.

Danish Scurvygrass (Cochlearia danica). Swindon, 8th April 2008

Danish Scurvygrass (Cochlearia danica), growing beside Great Western Way. This salt-tolerant plant, originally coastal, is an abundant colonist of gritted roads throughout Europe. (Gritters use crushed rock-salt instead of sand and gravel these days.)

Prunus 'Accolade'. Swindon, 8th April 2018

Prunus "Accolade" in a front garden in Freshbrook, West Swindon. It's a cross between the Winter Cherry Prunus x subhirtella and the Sargent Cherry Prunus sargentii, hence it flowers a bit earlier than Sargent Cherry itself. (Though, in 2018, the compressed season means that lots of cherries are in bloom at the same time.) 'Accolade', a 1952 selection by Waterers nurseries in Woking, has become extremely popular and its semi-double blossoms are now seen more often than the single pink blossoms of Sargent Cherry.