Lucky finds

Rayed form of Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra var. radiata), with unusual coloration. Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

A few interesting plants I've found around Frome recently.

These were on a rough roadside that I decided to explore after seeing a flash of yellow plants as I sped by. It was one of those roadsides that's easy to see from a car but more difficult to walk to, and it turned out that sandals was definitely the wrong footwear: the place was a minefield of dewberry and bramble. The yellow plants (St John's worts) didn't prove particularly interesting, or at any rate I didn't spend much time looking at them, having soon found other things to look at. 

This is an unusual coloration of the rayed form of Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra var. radiata).  I didn't even know there was a rayed form. More correctly, the "rays" are the enlarged outer florets, which in the British Isles usually characterize Greater Knapweed (C. scabiosa) and are also rather common on Slender Knapweed (C. debeauxii), but much less so on Black Knapweed.  Anyway, the rayed form is a thing, though local and scattered according to the BSBI map. I'd better put this on iRecord.

The normal coloration is below.

Rayed form of Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra var. radiata), with normal coloration. Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

The Swedish name for Black Knapweed is Svartklint.

It isn't native to Sweden and is extremely rare, with only casual records except in a few sites in Västra Götaland and Skåne. (Apparently it's relatively common in Norway.)

Information taken from this article in Borås Tidning:

https://www.bt.se/bollebygd/svartklint-en-unik-blomma-i-hultafors/

The usual knapweed in southern and central Sweden is Centaurea jacea (Brown Knapweed, Rödklint), which contrariwise is a rare neophyte in the British Isles. 

Anyway, here's some more of the fancy blooms:

Rayed form of Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra var. radiata), with unusual coloration. Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Rayed form of Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra var. radiata), with unusual coloration. Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Rayed form of Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra var. radiata), with unusual coloration. Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Wild Basil (Clinopodium vulgare). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

On the same roadside, some Wild Basil (Clinopodium vulgare).

Included here as a blatant excuse for a link to my post about Keats' marvellous poem Isabella, Or The Pot of Basil.

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-pot-of-basil.html

 ...  which of course concerns an entirely different species!

Below, the same plant in context.

Wild Basil (Clinopodium vulgare). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Still on the same rough roadside, I started to notice groups of a tall grass, showing up as reddish in comparison to the intermingled False Oat-grass.

I didn't know what to make of it, but the consensus of the Facebook group (British and Irish Grasses ...etc) was that it was Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis, aka Bromus inermis).

I was a bit worried about the awns (after all, inermis means "awnless" in the context of grasses) but it turns out that Hungarian Brome sometimes has awns up to 3mm in length, like these ones did. And in the course of later poking about I did indeed find some awnless specimens. 

Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Short awns on spikelets of Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Flowering spikelets on Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Leaves of Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Leaves: rather light green, broad, basically flat but shallowly keeled below, midrib raised.

Ligule of Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

Sheath of Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

The leaf-sheaths were closed (not split), except just below collar.

Stem-node of Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

The stems were hairless except at the nodes.

A mainly vegetative patch of Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis). Roadside near Beckington, 7 July 2024.

The grass produces a lot of purely vegetative shoots, with the leaves quite closely packed in a sort of herringbone pattern. In some spots (above and below) I found it subsisting almost entirely as vegetative shoots.

I am not sure if I shouldn't be using the name Bromus inermis instead. According to one scheme, all Bromes (except False-brome) are treated as Bromus. 

In the other scheme there are four genera, listed here with some (but not all) of their differences. 

Bromus: annuals/biennials with short awns e.g. Soft Brome.

Anisantha: annuals/biennials with long awns e.g. Barren Brome.

Bromopsis: perennials with vegetative shoots,

e.g. the familiar native grasses Upright Brome (Bromopsis erecta) of chalk grassland and the gracefully drooping Hairy Brome (Bromopsis ramosa) of woodland.

Ceratochloa: perennials without vegetative shoots. All species in the British Isles are introductions: e.g. Rescue Brome, California Brome. 

Bromopsis inermis is native from Hungary all the way eastwards to China: a basic component of the grassland of the Great Steppe. It has been widely introduced for hay, pasture, habitat regeneration etc. In N America numerous cultivars have been developed, e.g. suited to different growing conditions in the north and south. It is invasive and has become one of the commonest grass weeds in the USA. Much more scattered in the British Isles, where it's no longer used as a fodder grass. Another one for iRecord....

It's a similar story in Sweden where Foderlosta ("fodder brome") was first tried in the 1930s but never really caught on. 

Vegetative shoots of Hungarian Brome (Bromopsis inermis), growing through a bramble thicket. Roadside near Beckington, 9 July 2024.

Pale Toadflax (Linaria repens). Frome, 2 July 2024.

Let's go into town. 

Here's a dozen plants of Pale Toadflax (Linaria repens) growing out of a concrete tree-base in the car-park of ASDA. 

Not recorded before in Frome, yet very familiar-looking to me, I suppose from seeing lots of it in Spain where it's a native species. 

I had the same feeling of familiarity when I saw it last summer in Sweden where, as here, it's an introduction. (The Swedish name is Strimsporre.)

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2023/08/august-around-stockholm.html

Pale Toadflax (Linaria repens). Frome, 2 July 2024.

Cave Hawkweed (Hieracium speluncarum). Frome, 11 July 2024.

On Manor Road trading estate, Frome. The luck in this case is not about finding this glorious patch of furry-leaved Hawkweeds (I've watched it for maybe twenty years) but about finding someone who could actually identify the species. I posted pictures on the Facebook group Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland, Tim Rich noticed the unusual feature of clasping leaves, and along with the numerous glandular hairs he had it nailed as Hieracium speluncarum, sometimes called Cave Hawkweed.

Records are very scattered, but as it happens there are several from around here. It has been seen in the disused quarry at Vallis, just a couple of miles from this spot. Also in Nunney (2002), and in Mells (an old record from 1905).

Hieracium speluncarum is reckoned an introduction to the British Isles (a garden escape according to Sell and Murrell). It's known to occur in urban locations. For example it's apparently quite common on the walls of Maastricht in the Netherlands. 

Over the years this patch has been gradually spreading, colonizing stony substrate and low dividing walls. I'd guess there are about 300 plants now, some in smaller patches nearby. There's probably more in areas of the trading estate that are not accessible to the public. 

Clasping stem-leaves and glandular hairs on Cave Hawkweed (Hieracium speluncarum). Frome, 11 July 2024.

Cave Hawkweed (Hieracium speluncarum). Frome, 11 July 2024.

Cave Hawkweed (Hieracium speluncarum). Frome, 11 July 2024.

Basal leaves of Cave Hawkweed (Hieracium speluncarum). Frome, 11 July 2024.

Cave Hawkweed (Hieracium speluncarum). Frome, 11 July 2024.

The beginning of June

Armenian Blackberry (Rubus armeniacus). Frome, 3 June 2024.

A vast bramble thicket in Frome beside the river, and the bees were going absolutely crazy.

Blackberries (Rubus fructicosus agg.) nearly always reproduce by apomixis: the gene-bearing part of the seed is produced asexually and the offspring are clones of the parent plant. Nearly always, pollen is not used to fertilize the ovule.

Nevertheless insect pollination is required to set viable seed, in particular to stimulate the formation of the endosperm (the seed's food bank). This is called "pseudogamous apomixis", because pollination is required. 

Some other habitual apomicts, such as dandelions and hawkweeds, apparently don't need insect visitors. (Nevertheless bees often visit dandelion flowers.)

The effect of apomixis is to throttle down genetic variation. New DNA combinations occur, but only rarely. 

Instead clonally identical family lines can be discerned and each can be treated as a species ("microspecies"),  e.g. from the point of view of ecology, habit, habitat, distribution etc.

Yet they are unlike species in two huge respects. 1. All individuals within a microspecies are clones with identical DNA. In a normal species there is DNA variation. 2. A species normally delimits a population which is preferential for sexual reproduction. But in this case sexual reproduction, when it occurs, is presumably just as likely to occur between different microspecies as between members of the same microspecies. 

[All this is what I've laboriously worked out from asking the experts and reading stuff online. I could easily have got something wrong, or stated something with more confidence than it really merits.]

This particular bramble microspecies is Rubus armeniacus, native to Armenia and N Iran. It ought to be called Armenian Blackberry but is more commonly (and inaccurately) called Himalayan Blackberry. It's invasive in the British Isles, especially in urban environments, where it's easy to recognize because of its vigour and size. 

It has spread widely in Sweden too (Sw: Armeniskt Björnbär), competing with native blackberries in those parts of the country where brambles can grow at all (the south and west coast, basically).

Armenian Blackberry (Rubus armeniacus). Frome, 3 June 2024.

Nipplewort (Lapsana communis). Frome, 3 June 2024.

Nipplewort (Lapsana communis) by the river. The English name refers to the shape of the buds. In accordance with the "doctrine of signatures" the plant was once used to treat cracked and bruised nipples.

The Swedish name is "Harkål" ("Hare-cabbage").

The young leaves are certainly edible by humans. I have no idea if they appeal to hares.

Wall Lettuce (Lactuca muralis). Frome, 3 June 2024.

Wall Lettuce (Lactuca muralis), appropriately growing on a wall. 

I always associate it with the preceding species, I suppose because both have small dandelion-like flowers, are similar-size plants and flower at the same time. 

But only a rank beginner could confuse them, even for a moment.... well, that was me in 1982.

The upper stem and buds of Wall Lettuce are usually a rich dark purple-red but I've seen photos where they're green (like Nipplewort). So also check the dissimilar leaf-shapes and the flowers of Wall Lettuce having only five straps, whereas Nipplewort flowers have about a dozen.

Wall Lettuce is edible (young leaves and shoots). Like all lettuces, it becomes much less palatable when it flowers.

Swedish name: Skogssallat (Wood Lettuce).... common as far north as Gästrikland, present though rare further north.

Leaves of Nipplewort (left) and Wall Lettuce (right)

Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus). Frome, 3 June 2024.

Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus). Lots of pods, and a couple of final flowers.

In the British Isles it's an archaeophyte (ancient introduction). It's toxic, but was valued for medicinal use. Originally for eye impairment; Dioscorides reports the legend that swallows used it to cure their young of blindness. As often happens with already available medicines it was then co-opted for numerous unrelated uses. Fans of the doctrine of signatures decided that the yellow latex made it a good treatment for jaundice.

A useful history:

Sylwia Zielińska et al., "Greater Celandine's Ups and Downs−21 Centuries of Medicinal Uses of Chelidonium majus From the Viewpoint of Today's Pharmacology", Frontiers in Pharmacology 9 299 (2018).

Swedish name: Skelört ("Swallow-wort"), also sometimes Svalört.

[To be pedantically comprehensive, the plant known in English as White Swallow-wort (Vincetoxicum hirundinaria) is called Tulkört in Swedish. "Tulk" is thought to mean a wading bird such as turnstone or redshank (SAOB Tolk).]

Common Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). Frome, 5 June 2024.

A single Common Spotted Orchid that's turned up on a Frome trading estate.

The Swedish name is Skogsnycklar ("Wood keys"). In Sweden it's considered a subspecies of Heath Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata, Sw: Jungfru Marie nycklar ("Virgin Mary keys")).

Common Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). Frome, 5 June 2024.

In early June

 

Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia). Frome, 3 June 2023.

In early June, the miracles come along so thick and  fast we easily miss them. Here's two. 

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, 

And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. 

(Matthew 3:1-4)

Most likely John the Baptist was living off insects, perhaps the Desert Locust (Schistocerca gregaria). (They are still a popular food, considered halal and kosher in the Middle East; you just need to avoid them if the swarms have been sprayed, or you'll get a nice dose of organophosphates and pyrethroids.)

ipse autem Iohannes habebat vestimentum de pilis camelorum et zonam pelliciam circa lumbos suos esca autem eius erat lucustae et mel silvestre

(Vulgate version of Matthew 3:4)

St Jerome, himself a desert dweller at one time, would have known all about eating locusts. Nevertheless, some time in the Middle Ages the idea arose that "lucustae" actually meant the pods of the carob tree (another useful survival food). Consequently, the name "locust" became attached to other pods and other pod-bearing trees, and that's how the beautiful tree in these photos acquired the name Black Locust (I haven't seen any explanation for what's black about it, though). It's native to two regions in the eastern USA, but is widely planted throughout temperate parts of the whole world, including the British Isles. I must admit I just call it "Robinia" (the Latin name is Robinia pseudoacacia). 

It's a tree with many aspects to it, as you can read on Wikipedia, but I just wanted to record its breathtaking beauty, especially in a good flowering year like 2023: the extended wet and gloomy spring must have helped. (In 2022, by contrast, we were in full-on drought conditions by June and the trees produced very few flowers).

Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia). Frome, 3 June 2023.

Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia). Frome, 7 June 2023.

Ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare). Chippenham, 2 June 2023.

My second miracle is even more commonplace: Ox-eye Daisies on a bank. 

If you were a newcomer to this uplifting sight, I think you'd be surprised that the rest of us make so little of it. 

Leucanthemum vulgare is native throughout the British Isles, also most of Europe including nearly all of Sweden, where it is called Prästkrage ("priest's collar", referring to the white ruff once worn by clerics). You would think that so showy and common a plant might have left more of a mark on our older literature, but so far I'm having trouble locating any references. Chaucer might have been referring to them -- but no, his daisies are "whyte and rede", so he must mean Bellis perennis, the lawn daisy. There is never any red in the rays of an ox-eye daisy. 

"Day's eye" refers to the habit of Bellis perennis (and many other Asteraceae species) of opening their flowers only during the day and closing them at night. 

However Ox-eye Daisies don't do this, and hence one of their other vernacular names is Moon Daisy. A field of them, fully open in the dusk and gazing at the moon, is one of the sights of our "white nights". 

One problem with looking for traces in older literature is that there is no settled name. John Gerard (1597) gives a good description, in Ch 203, "Of the great Daisy, or Maudlin-Wort". He supplies the Latin name Consolida media vulnerariorum. (Another of his plants,  the "White Oxe-eie", is described as looking similar but with compound leaves. -- That must be why, by the 18th century, the term "Ox-eye Daisy" had become established.) 

I haven't found any Middle English references to "Maudlin-wort". "Marguerite" or similar is mentioned in Lydgate, supposed to mean Leucanthemum vulgare. Likewise Middle English herbal references to "Whit bothen" or "Whit bothel"; "boþen" is an Anglo-Saxon herbal word, e.g. for Rosemary and similar herbs. "Orval" (usually meaning Orpine) seems to have also been applied to L. vulgare, at least once. I have only moderate confidence in these identifications.

Generally (based mostly on the University of Michigan's entry for "daies-ie")  you can derive a Latin herbalist scheme in which Consolida minor meant the "little daisy" (Bellis perennis), Consolida media or mediana meant the "great daisy" (Leucanthemum vulgare), while Consolida maior meant comfrey (Symphytum spp). But it's the last of these which is the normal meaning of consolida in Latin sources, and the extension to daisies may have been just local and sporadic. 

Ox-eye Daisy does have a herbalist tradition: Gerard witnesses to that, and Mrs Grieve , as ever, is helpful. The Ox-eye Daisy has an acrid taste and, according to Linnaeus, is avoided by cows and pigs, but eaten by horses, goats and sheep.

Ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare). Chippenham, 2 June 2023.

The common Cat's-ear

 

Hypochaeris radicata (Common Cat's-ear). Frome, 22 June 2021.

Some quite unsatisfactory shots of that common but lovely midsummer sight, a group of Common Cat's-ear (Hypochaeris radicata). (My copy of Stace gives the English name as simply "Cat's-ear", but that means the species has exactly the same vernacular name as its genus, which doesn't seem too clever.)

An easy plant to appreciate but not an easy subject to photograph. All the leaves are at ground-level, but the flowers are hovering high above them on elevated leafless stems. You can never photograph the leaves and flowers at the same time, except from a great distance with the kind of camera I don't have. 

Hypochaeris radicata (Common Cat's-ear). Frome, 22 June 2021.

In Sweden, where Hypochaeris radicata is called "Rotfibbla", it's reasonably common in the far south but it is certainly not the "common" Cat's-ear over there. That would be Hypochaeris maculata (Spotted Cat's-ear, Sw: Slåtterfibbla), which -- contrariwise -- is very rare in the British Isles. 

Maybe that's one reason Stace sidestepped the word "Common" in the name of Hypochaeris radicata. In the British Isles it's amply justified, the species growing pretty well everywhere (markedly unlike the two other Cat's-ear species). But now that English is a world language, it might not be very sensible for botanists across the world to be saddled with a name that alludes only to distribution in this local corner of it. 

Hypochaeris radicata (Common Cat's-ear). Frome, 22 June 2021.

There are lots of other dandelion-like Asteraceae around at this time of year, and the golden-yellow flowers of Common Cat's-ear can make lovely combinations with them: for instance the introduced Orange Hawkweed (Fox-and-cubs) in towns, or the lemon-coloured Mouse-ear Hawkweed on limestone slopes. But Common Cat's-ear can also light up a sweep of grassland by itself. 

I've never quite got my head round when the various Asteraceae species close up their flowerheads. Anyway, these photos were taken at 16:00, so Hypochaeris radicata is certainly not an early closer. 

Hypochaeris radicata (Common Cat's-ear). Frome, 22 June 2021.

Hypochaeris radicata (Common Cat's-ear). Frome, 22 June 2021.

Hypochaeris radicata (Common Cat's-ear). Frome, 22 June 2021.

Hypochaeris radicata (Common Cat's-ear). Frome, 22 June 2021.

Hypochaeris radicata (Common Cat's-ear). Frome, 22 June 2021.

Beaked Hawk's-beard (Crepis vesicaria)

 

Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.

Beaked Hawk's-beard (Crepis vesicaria, Sp: Achicoria). The young leaves and shoots are eaten, boiled, in Crete. A thoroughly Mediterranean plant that was recorded in Kent in 1713 and has since become very common in the southern half of the British Isles, but much less so in Northern England and Northern Ireland, and apparently Scotland is not an option. (Crepis vesicaria doesn't occur in Sweden either.)

In mid-May it produces breathtaking swathes of golden yellow, rivalling the peak dandelion blooming of late April or the ragwort frenzy of late summer. 

As it favours urban waste and roadsides, it's a characteristic sight of our modern May, though not the Mays of Chaucer or Shakespeare or Milton. But it's one that's rarely noticed specifically and still more rarely mentioned. 

I suppose most passers-by see plants like this as falling into the elastic category of dandelion-like and trouble no further. A name like "Beaked Hawk's-beard" is never going to take off in popular culture, no matter how common the plant is. 

*

Those English generic names Hawkweed, Hawkbit and Hawk's-beard come out of the learned tradition. 

The first of them is basically a direct translation of the classical word Hieracium, from the Greek Ierakion (Ierax = hawk). In Pliny and Galen it appears to mean an eye-salve, but Dioscorides used it to refer to a couple of plants that certainly sound like members of the Asteraceae.

The names Hawkbit and Hawk's-beard were extensions to designate genera that resembled (but were not the same) as Hawkweeds. That's all I know: the OED is disappointingly uninformative. (And in case you were wondering, no, hawks don't have beards . . .) 

Dioscorides' De Materia Medica (50 -70 CE), in the online translation by Tess Anne Osbaldeston (2000)

3-72. IERAKION MEGA 

SUGGESTED: Hieracium maius, Sonchites [Fuchs], Sonchus arvensis [Linnaeus] — Corn Sowthistle [other usage] Hieracium sylvaticum, Hieracium murorum — Wood Hawkweed, Wall Hawkweed 

The great hieracium produces a rough stalk — somewhat red, prickly, hollow. It has thinly-jagged leaves at distances, similar in circumference to sonchus [2-159]; and yellowish flowers in somewhat long little heads. It is cooling, indifferent, and gently astringent. As a result it is good applied on a burning stomach, and for inflammation. The juice is sipped to soothe pangs of hunger in the stomach. The herb (with the root) is applied to help one bitten by a scorpion. It is also called sonchiten; the Romans call itlampuca, and the Africans, sithileas.

3-73. IERAKION MIKRON 

[SUGGESTED: Hieraceum minus [Fuchs], Crepis tectorum [Linnaeus] — Hawksbeard [Mabberley] [other usage] Hieracium pilosella — Mouse-ear Hawkweed]

The little hieracium also has jagged leaves at distances. It sends out tender little green stalks on which are yellow flowers in a circle. It has the same uses as that previously spoken of [3-72]. Some call this sonchiten, others, entimon agrion, the Romans, intubus agrestis, and the Africans, sithilesade. 

Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.

In afternoon the flowers half close up. 

Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.

If you want to weed them out of your garden, these plants can often be pulled up with the whole tap-root intact when the soil is reasonably moist. 

Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.

Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.