Heading South

At the beginning of February I headed down South to Carlisle to attend  the British Lichen Society AGM and a field trip to Carlisle cemetery. I found it more interesting than it sounds!  I was right out of my comfort zone though as many of the lichens were not ones I knew as it is a limestone area (and up here is mainly granite). Individual lichen species have preferences for the pH (acidity/alkalinity) of the surfaces they grow on and I am more familiar with the acid loving ones that like granite, pine and birch.

Carlisle cemetery was enormous and keen lichenologists can spend hours on one gravestone as there is so much to see. Here is a fairly typical sight!

I also managed to fit in a visit to Carlisle Cathedral - a wonderful place- both outside with intricate carvings:

 and inside with a star studded ceiling:

After the weekend, I headed further South to North Cheshire which was where I was brought up.  I did some casual lichen recording but it was mainly in car parks as I was there to see family.

Lichens on a car park sign

The area is too polluted for there to be many lichens. There are only two species on this sign, and they both seem to like the white paint more than the blue. Maybe it has a rougher more reflective surface? 

In contrast, here is a Newtonmore lamppost which has lots more species which I will talk about in another post.  Does that make it a post about a post?

I visited one of the areas I used to play out in as a child.  These were fields next to Brookfield House  (history link). Here is a portion of a (redrawn) 1844 tithe map of Cheadle which covers the area where I was brought up and which I have hanging on my wall. Some of the names are wonderful.  I lived near  Juny Greaves and Great Horse Stones which is a bit more romantic than the later name of Oak Road!

The fields (Mare Croft) and the house were owned by a series of wealthy manufacturers but in 1945 it was gifted to the council. The fields used to be like parkland but most of the edges were now covered in brambles and scrub, so not as I remember them. The green shaded area (messuage, orchard etc) was  a well kept garden with aviaries which we would regularly go and visit. ( I had to look up the meaning of  messuage and it is "a house together with its land and outbuildings.")

Now part of this is used by the council to store building materials and the rest is a bit of a jungle. I walked through it and found a plant that I did not recognise, now growing wild but presumably once part of the garden.  It turned out to be Viburnum rhtidophyllum, Leatherleaf, and it did indeed have leathery leaves and a furry underside. I sent the record to the BSBI county Vice - recorder who told me it was only the third record for Cheshire. 

Viburnum rhytidophyllum

Next time - the lamppost!

The Smooth and the Prickly

 I am a member of the HBRG (Highland Biological Recording Group)and an item in their latest newsletter caught my interest so I will quote it in full.

Recording Slow-worms in the Highlands and Islands

Cally Ullman-Smith, a researcher from Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) Trust, will be presenting an online talk on the findings of the 2024 Slow-worm Survey. Despite being a relatively common sight in many Highland areas, slow-worms remain under-recorded in the UK. This survey, spearheaded by Cally, aimed to fill gaps in data by engaging volunteers and citizen scientists to report sightings and habitat details. The talk will explore the patterns revealed by this unique approach, highlighting the value of community contributions to understanding slow-worm distribution and the habitats they rely on. As well as looking at the lives of these amazing creatures. Donations to the High Life Highland Countryside Ranger Service.

Thursday, February 27, 2025 · 7:30 – 9:00pm GMT

Book your tickets here.

It reminded me of the one time I have seen a Slow Worm, which was back in 2019 on the Speyside W near Loch Bogach which is opposite Loch Alvie on the other side of the railway.

A Slow Worm

It isn't a worm or a snake, but a legless lizard and you can see its scales in the photos. It obligingly was slow enough to let me video it. 

Very unprofessional videos (just my phone), but I was thrilled. So that deals with the smooth part of the heading.

The prickly part was the reason I was out there - to see a Welted Thistle (Carduus crispum) which had been seen near Alvie Church.  I had never heard of this thistle, let alone seen one, so I went to take a look.  It likes less acid soil so is not common up here.  It basically just looks like a very prickly thistle. So I won't be offended if you find it less interesting than the Slow Worm!

Welted Thistle

 

Cairngorm, Beavers and a tale of woe

 It has been a even longer time since my last post, so time to catch up before 2026 arrives. In early November, husband and I went for a ride on the Cairngorm funicular, open after many repairs and we were tempted by the £1 ticket concession for locals that week. Unfortunately, you can't exit onto the mountain  just take in the views from the balconies.  It was rather misty at the top (and cold) but just enough sun to get a rainbow.

View from the top of the funicular on Cairngorm looking North towards Glenmore

 At the bottom of the funicular, at the car park, the weather improved:

View from the carpark with Loch Morlich in the distance

 And as we got lower down to Loch Morlich it was positively sunny!

View of Loch Morlich through Scots Pine

 The sun shone through some fungi growing on a fence rail and there were plenty of lichens dripping off the trees.

The most surprising sight was evidence of beaver activity very close to the path.  Felled trees, gnawed trees and plenty of chippings.  I would have thought the area was too well used by walkers and would put off beavers.

Tree gnawed by beaver

Teeth marks

Tree felled on far bank

We looked for dams but did not find any. I am a bit ambivalent about the reintroduction of beavers to the area as the down side of their felling trees, is that they also fell trees with rare lichens.  The Aspen trees in the area host some lichens that are not found anywhere else, and Aspen is a beaver's favourite tree...

And now a short account of the tale(s) of woe.  My computer gave up the ghost and was irreparable. I had only had it for 18 months (a refurbished Dell) but decided to get a brand new replacement.  Luckily I could rescue the hard drives so could reinstall my data and all the programs  onto the new machine.  Then the new one crashed and the only option was a factory reset! Started all over again and it crashed again! Luckily I could reset it this time to a previous state. So blog posts were not a priority.   

Second happening was that I got the flu and felt very ill for a few weeks. However all is well now so normal service will be resumed!

More Autumn news

 It has been a long time since my last post so this will be a bit of a catch up on  what has been popping up in the garden.  A few more fungi appeared in my lawn. There was the very common Fly Agaric

and some Peppery Bolete which has pores on the underside  rather than gills. The yellow end to the stalk is another characteristic. They are said to be edible but I've never tried them.

All mushrooms are just the fruiting bodies of the main part of the fungus which is a web of threads called the mycelium.  The Peppery Bolete is parasitic on the mycelium of the Fly Agaric so if you see one, look out for the other.

Another fungus  in the lawn

was identified for me by Chris Grimbly who posts on Bluesky as @chrishroom.bsky.social

I thought it was a Panther Cap but apparently the spots need to be whiter than my buff ones.  The deciding ID feature is to look at the stalk where there is a white ring (annulus) of floppy material.  If it has striations (little ridges) that confirms it is  a Blusher, which turns pink when bruised.

I have been picking my apples (many of which had been "stolen" and eaten by Jackdaws).  The Bramleys survived and  those with flaws were peeled and processed for the freezer.  The wasps loved the pile of peelings in the compost heap.

I was trying to get a photograph of the face of the wasp as that helps to identify the species.  Not easy as they were busy crawling about and I did not want to kill one.  This is the best I managed.

The black mark like an anchor on its face means it is a Common Wasp - that's it's name not a judgement! If you look here you can see the faces of the other kinds of wasp.

I also found a ladybird resting on one of the apples.  I don't see many ladybirds in spite of there being news items about plagues of ladybirds down south.

It's not a very good picture but instead of black spots it has smeary white ones. It is the Striped Ladybird or Myzia oblongoguttata which overwinters in birch and pine trees (which both grow near the apple tree.)

We're going on a bear - oops fungi - hunt!

On September 7th 2025, Liz Holden led some keen Inverness Botany Group members on a Fungi Foray in Newtonmore.   In spite of a forecast for rain, it stayed dry while we walked around Loch Imrich and the adjoining Folk Park (finishing up at the cafe and picnic site for lunch).  Liz was a mine of interesting information about the fungi we found and their interactions with the tree roots. The familiar toadstools or mushrooms are just the fruiting bodies of the underground network of hyphae called mycelium (fungal threads) that are underground. 

 The first stop was at a dead Larch trunk which sported some very large Dyer's Mazegill (Phaeolous schweinitzii) and lots of Sulphurtuft (Hypholoma fasciculare).  When a UV torch was produced, the Sulphurtuft glowed eerily!

Most of what we found was not safe for eating with the exception of a very big Cauliflower fungus (Sparassis crispa). It is delicious if found when it is white rather than the brown state of the one we found at the base of a Larch, but was definitely the biggest fungus we found being at least 30cm across.

Liz next to the Cauliflower Fungus

Liz explained about the different kinds of veils or protective coatings that protect the developing mushroom and which leave a trace on the mature mushroom.  The universal veil is an a bit like a soft egg shell and the mushroom develops inside and then bursts through as it grows.  An example from my garden is Orange Grisette (Amanita crocea) which emerges from a white "egg".

Orange Grisette from birth to mushroom

In some fungi, like the Fly Agaric, the remains of the veil stick to the cap in shreds until they are washed off by the rain. 

As well as fungi, we walked past a large area of Dwarf Elder (Sambucus ebulus) which flowers much  later than the familiar Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) and does not become woody.  The scent of the flowers could be smelt from a distance.  We were not the only ones to notice it as this male white tailed bumblebee was enjoying a feed.

Dwarf Elder is not common in Scotland as the distribution map below shows:

In Inverness-shire, most of the records are along the Spey valley and there is a large population at Ruthven Barracks, Kingussie.

If you are interested in learning more about fungi, here are two books I own that I found interesting:

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

and

 Fascinated by Fungi by Pat O'Reilly

Entangled Life is more of a scientific account of fungi and the current research and uses, especially of the mycelium (the underground network of fungus that can produce mushrooms) though it makes more interesting reading than that sounds!  Fascinated by Fungi has lots of photos of different fungi and interesting facts about them.

Clovers, Lupins and Grizzly Bears!

On the same walk as the Woundwort post, I got the chance to compare different clovers. You are probably all familiar with the White Clover (Trifolium repens) which is very common in lawns, and the red one (Trifolium pratense) which is more likely to be in unimproved grasslands.  

White Clover

Red Clover

 There is a third one which looks at first glance to be Red  Clover but is a different species called Zigzag Clover (Trifolium medium).

Zig-zag Clover

It is a brighter pink and apparently has zig-zag stems but I can't say I have noticed that.  I find the easiest way for me to tell them apart, is to look just under the flowerhead. Red Clover has 3 small leaves right underneath the flower, but Zig-zag clover doesn't.

Zig-zag Clover on the left and Red clover on the right with the green leaves directly under the flowerhead.

There are many other clovers, most of which I have never found.  There is an agricultural version of Red Clover which is much bigger and has hollow stems.  I found it growing on an A9 embankment near the Wildlife Park which seemed to have been sown with a wildflower mix when they topsoiled it. Clover is good as an agricultural crop as the roots improve the soil.  They are able to fix nitrogen in nodules on their roots and nitrogen  in the soil improves leafy growth in plants.

Another plant that can perform the same trick is the lupin.  There is more than one sort of lupin too! The garden one comes in several colours, pinks and blues and purples, and can be seen growing in profusion on the side of the road near the Wildlife Park. Here are some in my garden, grown from seed that was labelled Russell hybrids.  They are being battered by Storm Floris which is raging outside as I write.

Garden lupins

But, on the side of the A9 again, there is a species called the Nootka lupin which is always blue.  It has a hairy stem and smaller leaves.

Nootka Lupin

 I collected some seed and it germinated in a few weeks. 

If you want to get to know a plant really well, nothing beats growing it yourself from seed.

I heard a story of how the Nootka lupin got its name when the Badenoch Gardening Club visited Logie Gardens.  Nootka is an island off the West coast of Vancouver Island.  Panny the owner tells a story that the natives shouted Nootka to James Cook when his boat came near and they thought it was the name of the island (where the lupin grows) but in fact it was a warning that they might go aground!   I was a bit doubtful of the story but it is  given here on the history site of Nootka Island:

In March 1778, Captain James Cook became the first European to set foot on British Columbian soil when he visited Friendly Cove on Nootka Island. While anchoring, the natives shouted "itchme nutka, itchme nutka", meaning "go around" (to Yuquot), but Cook misinterpreted their calls, believing the name of the area to be Nootka.

Yuquot, also known as Friendly Cove, was the summer home of Chief Maquinna and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people for millennia, and retains historic significance today as the site of the first contact between Europeans and First Nations people in British Columbia.

 Although the plant has been used to enrich impoverished ground because of its nitrogen fixing properties it has also become an invasive alien in Iceland.  More on that here. There is a fact sheet here which also gives the fascinating nugget of information that the roots are a favourite food of grizzly bears! (Better make sure my plants don't attract bears....)

Woundworts and flying ants

This weekend I was helping out at a Grasses workshop and needed to  collect samples of different grasses.  Many I could find in my garden but for some I needed a different habitat so went up Glen Banchor on a warm Saturday evening.  I was not alone.  The sky was teeming with flying ants which took an immediate liking to my car bonnet.

The photo does not do justice to their energy so here is a video:

The ants are all males who have developed wings and are in search of the much larger female Queen ant to mate with. Most will be unsuccessful and they all die within a couple of days. The Queen lives on to start a new colony. You can read more about it at the Natural History Museum page here. The warm weather triggers the flying day.

The day after the workshop was much cooler and I went for a walk by the Spey, along the Wildcat Trail.  To get there, I walked through Newtonmore Golf Course and a large stand of pink spikes caught my attention.

Pink Woundwort flowers with Hogweed and Valerian in the background

There are 3 species of Woundwort locally - Hedge, Marsh and a hybrid between the two and I was trying to remember how to tell the difference.  Helpfully, I found all three species on my walk so was able to name this stand as the hybrid, Stachys x ambigua. This is a cross between Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) and Marsh Woundwort (Stachys palustris).  If an insect visits one of these species and then goes on to visit and pollinate the other species, the seed formed will be of the hybrid and if it lands somewhere and successfully grows, the plants are then the hybrid species.  Hybrids are usually quite vigorous and this stand had hundreds on flower spikes. However, it can't produce fertile seed but can spread through its roots. Here is a closer picture of the hybrid:

Hybrid Woundwort

And here are the other two Woundworts: 

Left: Marsh Woundwort, Right: Hedge Woundwort 

The obvious differences are with the flower colour and the leaves. Hedge Woundwort has beetroot coloured flowers and wide leaves with a long stalk.  The Marsh Woundwort has paler bigger flowers and dark narrow leaves that have no stalks but are joined straight onto the stem (which is called sessile in botany terms).  The hybrid features are in between these two extremes so the leaf has a short stem, and is  neither  narrow or broad and the flower is somewhat between the two colours. The leaves also have a strong rather unpleasant odour, strongest in Hedge Woundwort and least strong in Marsh Woundwort.

Woundworts left to right: Marsh, Hybrid, Hedge

Woundworts left to right: Marsh, Hybrid, Hedge

Why is the plant called Woundwort?  "Wort" means it is used for medicine or food, and indeed it was used to treat wounds, or so Gerard tells us; you can read his chapter on Woundwort here, from his book published in 1567. It sounds as though he learnt its use from a peasant:

The leaves hereof stamped with Axungia or hog's grease, and applied unto green wounds in manner of a poultice, healeth them in short time, and in such absolute manner, that it is hard for any that have not had the experience thereof to believe: for being in Kent about a patient, it chanced that a poor man in mowing of peas did cut his leg with a scythe, wherein he made a wound to the bones, and withal very large and wide, and also with great effusion of blood; the poor man crept unto this herb, which he bruised with his hands, and tied a great quantity of it unto the wound with a piece of his shirt, which presently stanched the bleeding, 

It also seems that there was no such thing as a day off sick!

and ceased the pain, insomuch that the poor man presently went to his day's work again, and so did from day to day, without resting one day until he was perfectly whole, which was accomplished in a few days, by this herb stamped with a little hog's grease, and so laid upon in manner of a poultice, which did as it were glue or solder the lips of the wound together, and heal it according to the first intention, as we term it, that is, without drawing or bringing the wound to suppuration or matter; which was fully performed in seven days, that would have required forty days with balsam itself.