Middlesex Meeting July 7th 2007
Agrostis castellana (Highland Bent)
Galega officinalis(Goat's-rue)
Medicago sativa ssp varia (Sand Lucerne)
Allium carinatum (Keeled Garlic)
Hypericum perforatum (Perforate St John's-wort)
Medicago sativa ssp varia (Sand Lucerne)
Ham River Lands: The Meadows
Over the footbridge and onto the Ham River Lands proper we started through the long grassy meadows soon beginning to argue about the various thistles just beginning to flower. Carduus crispus (Welted thistle) hybrid was my identification for a partially welted specimen but others thought it must be Cirsium palustris (Marsh Thistle). Who was right? Well I see Cirsium palustris all over our acid Cheshire meadow lands and unless it’s changed into southern counties holiday gear, to me that wasn’t it. But you can’t really know without detailed examination – after all plants seem determined to make fools of us all.
A little further along there were some rather battered flower heads of Allium carinatum (Keeled Garlic) but what grabbed our attention was an over large looking grass nearby. Looking like Agrostis capillaris (Common Bent) on steriods we noticed that the ligules changed size down the stem in each of the flowering spikes examined. Neither did there seem to be any stolons which ruled out Agrostis stolonifera (Creeping Bent). This was Agrostis castellana (Highland Bent) which unlike its name suggests is common in the South east specifically the London area but is hardly found at all in the Highlands of Scotland. This plant is under-recorded says Stace. (Incidentally how does one really know that a plant is under–recorded? By definition it hasn’t been seen and recorded but somehow we know it ought to have been). Later we saw plenty of the obviously smaller Agrostis capillaris (Common Bent) and sure enough the ligules were all the same size.
One of the features of any London trip is the expected abundance of a leguminous plant which really likes living in The Smoke. I refer to Galega officinalis (Goat’s Rue) which starts to appear on the banks of the south directing motorways just around the M25 and once you walk in lush meadows like the Ham River lands, is abundant. After the sun and rains the Galega was looking superb adding wonderful splashes of white and blue to the scenery. Near a particularly large clump grew a significant stand of Hypericum and examination of the leaves showed it to be Hypericum perforatum (Perforate St John’s-wort).
It was about this time that our leader suggested we look out for Medicago sativa species as all of them grew somewhere about. We soon came across pure Medicago sativa ssp sativa (Lucerne) which can be pale to dark blue and so started looking for the others. Medicago sativa ssp falcata (Sickle Medick) also grows here but today we weren’t able to locate any of this plant with pale yellow flowers.
Medicago sativa ssp varia (Sand Lucerne) is a strange plant in that it has species status due to its ability to live independently of parents but it looks exactly like a hybrid between a dark blue Lucerne and light yellow flowered Sickle Medick. The flowers of Medicago sativa ssp varia can be greenish, yellowish with blue buds or an unappealing mixture of blue and yellow described as vomit coloured by our leader. We found all these colour combinations all of which pointed to its hybrid origins. It occurred to me that a homeopathologist might recognise this revolting colour and be inclined to create a tincture of the plant, dilutions of which could be a prophylactic against a hangover.