Bindweeds

 Bindweeds are those plants that twine around fences, trees and other plants - anywhere they can get a grip - and if nothing is available they carpet the ground.  There are two areas in Newtonmore where Large Bindweed (Calystegia silvatica) has taken hold and covered large areas - near the Clune Terrace Playpark and the Jack Richmond Memorial Park.

Large Bindweed near Clune Terrace, climbing a tree

Large Bindweeed at Jack Richmond Park

The flowers are large and white, a trumpet shape with green "bracteoles" - little green leaves- at their base.

Large Bindweed flowers

The arrangement of the bracteoles helps to distinguish it from another lookalike, Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium). In Large Bindweed the two big bracteoles overlap and look as if they are inflated.

Overlapping bracteoles of Large Bindweed

Where I was brought up, in North Cheshire, my route to Primary School went along a lane where Large Bindweed grew up the fence.  We called it "Granny-pop-out-of-bed".  The video shows you why (apologies for the sound, it was very windy when I filmed this.)

A similar Bindweed grows on the back path from the Golf Clubhouse to Curly's Lane. It is Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium).

Hedge Bindweed

From the angle of the photograph, you could be forgiven for thinking this was the same as Large Bindweed, but if you look from the side, you can see that the bracteoles (the green leaves at the base) don't overlap, so it is Hedge Bindweed.

Hedge Bindweed - non overlapping bracteoles.

In Hedge Bindweed you can also see the sepals, which are paler green and beneath the bracteoles.  In Large Bindweed, the sepals were completely hidden.

 I found a third Bindweed in my garden, and I think it must have arrived with some manure as I had not seen it before. Here it is among my courgettes.

Black-bindweed

It has tiny white flowers and is much smaller. It is Black-bindweed (Fallopia convolvulus). Apparently it has black seeds, but I have been weeding it out too soon to check that.  It had certainly managed to appear at lots of other places in the garden so I can't have been thorough enough.

Seeds of Black-bindweed, enclosed in green sepals

It is in a different family to the previous Bindweeds (which are in Convolvulaceae) as it is in the same family as Japanese Knotweed and Buckwheat.

Two nice finds

 During the recent warm spell, I have been walking on the Etteridge and Phones tracks, doing some botanical recording. (Phones and Etteridge are two Estates south of Newtonmore.)

 Most of what I found was fairly common but I was surprised to find this plant by the side of the Etteridge track:

Hemp-Agrimony

It is Hemp-agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum), which I have never seen round here before. The nearest recorded plants are in Nairn and Pitlochry. It's always a buzz to find something new to the area! 

Hemp-agrimony flower

The leaves are similar to Hemp (Cannabis sativa) leaves, hence the name.

Hemp-agrimony leaves

The second day I walked in from the Phones end, and saw these strange yellow tuning-fork structures amongst the heather:

The next photo gives you an idea of the scale, and the green branching stalks are the same plant.

Fruiting Stag's-horn Clubmoss

It is a Clubmoss, Stag's-horn Clubmoss (Lycopodium clavatum).  It is similar to another Clubmoss, called Interrupted Clubmoss (Lycopodium annotinum) which I have seen near Wolftrax.

Interrupted Clubmoss

They both seem to grow in heathery places and are only easy to spot when there is a bare patch of ground. If you are not sure which one you have found, look carefully at the "leaves" which are scales along the stem. the Stag's-horn Clubmoss has white hairs at the end of each scale.

Stag's-horn scales with hairs

Interrupted Clubmoss - no hairs

Clubmosses are not mosses, but belong to a group of plants that produce spores.  Nowadays you find clubmosses in mountainous areas and they are all small but millions of years ago there were tree-like Clubmosses that grew to 45m!  You can read more about Clubmosses here.

I put a sample of the Stag's-horn Clubmoss under the microscope to take a picture of the cones (the yellow parts that produce the spores).  

Close-up of Stag's-horn Clubmoss cones

I left the sample under the microscope and had a look at it just now - and got a surprise! The cone scales have opened up and released a little pile of yellow spores.

Spores of Stag's-horn Clubmoss

The spores are called Lycopodium powder or Dragon's breath and can be bought on the internet.  They are used in science experiments and cosmetics as they have two opposite properties - they don't get wet, and the powder can burst into flames explosively when sprinkled over a flame. Hmmm- what to do with my little pile....

Taking the pith!

 There are two kinds of Elderberries locally - one with black/dark purple berries and one with red.  I was familiar with the black berried one, Elder (Sambucus nigra), which grows all over Britain and Ireland apart from a few mountainous areas of Scotland.  As a child, I used to try and make ink from the berries, without much success. In Newtonmore, most of the berries are green at the moment, with the odd few turning black.

Elder

Elder has white flowers, usually appearing after the last frost, in a flat-topped "umbel," which can be used to make elderflower drinks. And, as is usually the case, I find that the really common things are the ones I don't have a photo of! (When I wrote the Wildflower Walks book, I found I didn't have a photo of a dandelion....)

The other Elder is Red-berried Elder (Sambucus racemosa), and I had not noticed it when I lived in Cheshire.  It is mainly found in  the North and East of Scotland:

Red-berried Elder

Its flowers look similar to Elder but are arranged differently, in a panicle - a loosely branched arrangement of flowers, rather than having a flat top like an umbel.  You can see what I mean in this photo of the buds, taken in April near the church at Loch Insh.

Flower buds of Red-berried Elder

The leaves of both trees are so similar that I could not tell them apart when there were no flowers or berries. However, there is an amazing book by John Poland and Eric Clement, "The Vegetative Key to the British Flora" - in other words - how to tell what a plant is when it doesn't have any flowers to help you. There was a useful tip on telling the difference between the two Elders:

Elder: "Twigs with white pith and fetid gravy odour"

Red-berried Elder: "Twigs with orange-brown pith, often with a faint blackcurrant odour"

Well, I can't say I noticed the smell but the colour of the pith certainly works, with one proviso which I'll come to in a minute.

Here's the  white pith of an Elder twig:

White pith of Elder twig

And on the left hand side is the orange brown pith of a Red-berried Elder:  

Pith of Red-berried Elder

Now for the proviso.  Choose your twig carefully. The first shoot I tried had white pith (the right-hand side of this photo).  That didn't seem right.   I knew it was a Red-berried Elder as I was standing next to the red berries.  But what I learned was that you have to pick a woody twig like the one on the left, (definitely orange pith) NOT a green shoot as the pith is still white in the new shoots.

There are a large number of Red-berried Elder bushes on the steep slope alongside the road between Newtonmore and Kingussie.

Rosebay Willowherb

 You must have seen Rosebay Willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium) wherever you walk as it is both striking and common, forming extensive stands wherever it grows. It is also very tall and with its bright purple-pink flowers can be seen from a distance.

The flowers are attractive close up and if it wasn't so common and invasive, it would be sold as a garden flower. (In fact, the white flowered version is sold as a garden flower.)

Rosebay Willowherb flowers

It forms a spike  with new buds forming at the top, open flowers below and then the seed pods lower down.

Rosebay Willowherb buds, flowers and seed pods

Every flower forms a seed pod and each seed pod splits to release lots of seeds with a fluffy parachute attached.

Seed pod splitting

Each bit of fluff is carrying a seed:

Rosebay Willowherb seeds

When you consider how many seeds must be produced by just one flowering spike, it is no wonder that  it manages to spread itself far and wide (Someone, not me, has suggested 80,000 seeds per flowerhead). It is quick to colonise bare and waste ground such as bonfire sites and bombsites.  The seeds are carried along railways by the air currents of passing trains. Once it has taken root, it will persist for years as it is a perennial.

Sow-thistles

  At this time of year, there are quite a few yellow dandelion-like flowers along the road verges and in the grass.  They are not always easy to identify.  One easy one that you can spot from the car is Perennial Sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis).  It is tall - up to 5 feet - and can be seen growing alongside the A9 near the kerbs.

Perennial Sow-thistles growing in a road verge

It has hairs sticking out from the stalk and under the flowers:

The hairs are a bit sticky as each one has a drop of liquid at the end. They are known as glandular hairs.

Glandular hairs on Perennial Sow-thistle

A few years ago I had only seen these plants by the Highland Wildlife Park and near Laggan.  With the building of the new A9 near the Park, the plants have now spread along the A9 and can also be seen in the verge by Pitmain Farm outside Kingussie.

Seed head

Their spread will have been though the fluffy wind blown seeds being carried along by the air disturbance from cars passing and seem to then grow quite well in the gravel drains alongside the kerbs.

There are two other Sow-thistles that are very common as they grow at the edges of paths and on waste ground. They both have smaller flowers that are a more lemony shade of yellow rather than the large golden flowers of the Perennial Sow-thistle.

This one is Smooth Sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) and is growing at the side of the path that goes from Newtonmore Main Street to Church Terrace.

Smooth Sow-thistle

Pointed leaf end of Smooth Sow-thistle

The leaves are quite thin and soft and not too prickly.

Note the pointed ends of the leaves as that helps distinguish it from Prickly Sow-thistle (Sonchus asper).  

 Prickly Sow-thistle is more common - lots of it grows alongside Newtonmore Primary School wall.

Prickly Sow-thistle

Prickly Sow-thistle has shinier, glossy and very prickly leaves. Also, the ends of the leaves near the stem are rounded.

Rounded ends to leaves of Prickly Sow-thistle

Rounded ends to leaves of Prickly Sow-thistle

When I lived in New Zealand, Smooth Sow-thistle was known as puha and was eaten. Apparently Captain Cook used this vegetable, boiled up to cure scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) affecting his crew.You can read more about it  here. I haven't tried it myself, but it can be cooked like spinach.

Links

The Herb Federation of New Zealand: puha

Around Dalwhinnie

 During the last sunny spell of weather, I went walking on the tracks near Dalwhinnie. Some of the tracks were put in for access for the new pylons and are not particularly walker friendly as they have locked gates.  Probably because there are still a lot of abandoned concrete structures - which now have tree saplings growing through them. I was surprised to find Common Centaury (Centaurium erythraea) on a track edge.

Common Centaury

  I have never found this in Badenoch before.  It is not common up here, in spite of its name. There is some growing at Ardesier in the old fabrication yard, and it is likely that the seeds were brought to the Dalwhinnie track in tyres or imported fill.  It will be interesting to see how long it persists.

Another uncommon find was on the Allt an t-Sluic  track just North of Dalwhinnie. Just one flower. Grass-of-Parnassus (Parnassia palustris).

Grass-of-Parnassus

It is growing through a small Scots Pine seedling and was near a man-made lochan.  If you see palustris or palustre in a plant name, it indicates that it grows in damp areas as palustris is the Latin for marsh. The rest of the name is from Mount Parnassus in Greece. It was recorded as growing on a mountain in ancient Greece, but isn't a grass.  The last time it was recorded locally was 1981 in Coire Chais in the Drumochter Hills.  If you spot any on your hill walks, I would love to see a photo and a grid reference (6 figures if possible).

Late Summer Blues

Some flowers are happy to bloom all season, but many have their own particular time.  Just now, the orchids are finished and Devil's-bit Scabious (Succisa pratensis) is making a sea of blue amongst the grasses.

Devil's-bit Scabious

I looked up how it got its name, and according to Wikipedia,  scabious plants were used to treat scabies and other itchy complaints, and the devil bit off the roots in anger.

Two other blue flowers are out at the moment.  they are not as numerous but make up for this with their delicate beauty.  The Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) is a bell-shaped nodding flower which grows in many places locally.

Harebell

Harebell

The other beauty is Field Gentian (Gentianella campestris) which is much fussier.  There are lots of them this year, near the Spey.  They are scarce further South, in England.

Field Gentian amongst Eyebright

Field Gentian showing sepals

To check that it is Field Gentian, you look at the sepals (the green "leaves" at the base of and surrounding the flower.It has two big overlapping sepals on the outside and two smaller ones inside them. You can see the arrangement on the topmost flower in the photo.