Middlesex Meeting July 7th 2007
Hordeum secalinum (Meadow Barley)
Agrostis stolonifera (Creeping Bent)
Rumex pulcher (Fiddle Dock)
Lychnis coronaria (Rose campion)
Melilotus officinalis (Ribbed Meliltot)
Hieracium speluncarum (Cave Hawkweed)
Ham River Lands: towards Ham House
By the path two grasses caught our attention. The first looked like a member of the Agrostis genus and we found the long stolons which allow it to creep along the ground confirming it as Agrostis stolonifera (Creeping Bent). The second grass was the less common Hordeum secalinum (Meadow Barley).
Two plants which are sometimes confused are Lactuca virosa (Great lettuce) and the commoner Lactuca serriola (Prickly Lettuce). Both grew together by the path and althoiugh neither were in flower they were both over 2 metres tall. Each one had the same slightly glaucous foliage and sizeable prickles on the underside of the leaves but the L. virosa had most of its leaves deeply lobed while the L. serriola was unlobed.
A garden escape seen much more often these days is Lychnis coronaria (Rose Campion) and a few crimson flowerheads of this plant were found competing successfully with the tall herbs while a yellow Melilot nearby invited closer inspection. Size isn’t a guide to the identity of the yellow Melilots since the Melilotus altissimus (Tall Melilot) and often be quite short when young or on poor land. The fruits give the best clue to identity and the transversely ribbing suggested Melilotus officinalis (Ribbed Melilot) although they were too young to know whether they would be brown (M. officinalis) or black (M. altissimus).
Our chosen lunch site on the mowed grass fields not far from Ham House was bathed in pleasant sunshine as we settled down for a well earned rest and to enjoy our sandwiches. Not for long though. The various scents of opening WFS lunch boxes attracted several battalions of the notoriously quick moving black ant species (Lasius niger ssp buttynoshioides) and my sandwich box was swarming with the creatures only seconds after opening. You might think this was an opportunity to marvel at their speed of response, cooperation and ability to seek food for survival but you’d be quite wrong. I cursed quietly and squashed several of the little beggars with no remorse before we managed to find a different picnic place in the sun.
After lunch a tangle of dock like fruiting stems revealed itself to be Rumex pulcher (Fiddle Dock) a few of the lower leaves of which are said to be shaped like a violin. We found some of these and noted how unlike a fiddle and much more like the outline of a Space Rocket they were. Still calling it Rocket Dock would undoubtedly have these leaves harvested and produced as an expensive side salad in some London Restaurants so Fiddle Dock it is.
We made our way to Ham House where the tall walls usually play host to a previously identified species in a difficult plant group but the snag was that it was inside the grounds of this National Trust property. Some of us had remembered our cards but a few paid hoping to see this plant. Sure enough, high enough to be well out of gardening reach, there was a perfect specimen of Hieracium speluncarum (Cave Hawkweed).
In case you’re wondering where the English name for this Hawkweed has come from, in Volume 4 of the Flora of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by Sell and Murell, every one of the 384 known Hieracia of Great Britain has been given both an English and Latin name. I hope one day to see the Sombre-headed Hawkweed in the Cairngorms, the Memorable Hawkweed near Inverness (is any Hawkweed is memorable?) or the Noble Hawkweed which ought to grow on the walls of Buckingham Palace but can actually be found in the Lairig Ghru. After paying to come in and seeing the chosen plant so quickly, it seemed a shame not to look for more wild plants so in hope rather than expectation we chose to peruse the vegetable patches.