Two newcomers to the garden

 An unfamiliar plant popped up in the garden, near the compost bins.

Yellow flowered mystery plant

It had double yellow flowers and big lobed leaves.

A bit of research named it as Greater Celandine, the double flowered version. (Chelidonium majus "Flore pleno") I've never seen it before, either in the wild or anyone's garden.  How it got there is a mystery.  It is not much like the usual Lesser Celandine  (Ficaria verna) which is in the Butttercup family whereas Greater Celandine is in the Poppy family. Other poppies have sap called latex and Greater celandine has latex too when you break a stem - but it is a bright orange! The picture doesn't really do it justice.

Orange latex of Greater Celandine

Lesser Celandine

The name Celandine comes from the Latin and Greek words for swallow as it was supposed to flower when the swallows arrived and die when they left. This would make sense for the Greater Celandine, but not for the Lesser celandine which blooms in early spring. You can see the root in the scientific name of Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus as  chelīdonius  is Latin for "relating to the swallow."

Another nice surprise was under a log.

It is a baby newt.  It is very small, probably about 4cm (1.5 inches)long, as you can see by the old sycamore helicopter wings near it.   I have never seen newts in our pond, but maybe they are there after all.  Like frogs, they start off as tadpoles and then leave the pond.  The etymology of newt is interesting as it was originally "an ewt" but now we say "a newt." Even longer ago it was known as an eft. In some words the "n" has moved the other way: "an apron" was originally " a napron"

Busy, Busy, Busy

It has been a while since my last post - not because nothing has been happening, rather the opposite.  At the beginning of May I spent a week in Fife with other Lichen enthusiasts, most of whom I knew from Zoom sessions but had never met in person.  I had a brilliant time as up until now I have been a solitary lichener  and really enjoyed going out on field trips with others.  We also had fantastic weather as shown in this photo taken at Earlsferry.

I also got to see some new (to me) lichens such as cornflake lichen, a brilliant golden yellow coastal species.

"Cornflake lichen" Xanthoria aureola

And a less impressive one known as "Fag ash lichen"

Fag Ash Lichen Porpidia tuberculosa

I also got a chance to play with microscopes:

 - and will soon have one of my own as I have ordered one.  In the meantime, a kind friend has loaned me their microscope and I am having fun slicing up lichens and looking at them. 

Driving back from Fife, there was a traffic queue on the A9 and I amused myself by spotting Danish Scurvy grass on the road verges!

With the warm weather, plenty of plants have started to flower. On Newtonmore Golf Course and up Geln Banchor, there is a tiny yellow flower that looks like a miniature version of gorsewith small pea type flowers and tiny spikes. Its name reflects that as it is called Petty Whin (Genista anglica).

It just manages to peep above the grass.  To get an idea of its scale, here it is next to a sprig of Broom.

While waiting for a friend, I also did a bit of botanising in Kingussie.  The field next to the Bowling Green had 3 kinds of Speedwell.

Left to right: Thyme-leaved Speedwell, Germander Speedwell, Slender Speedwell

Danish Scurvy grass (again), a fern and a lichen

 A large patch of Danish Scurvy Grass (Cochlearia danica) is flowering opposite the Balavil Hotel just now (1 May 2023). It is the biggest patch I have seen in Newtonmore Village.  There was a previous post about this plant here, but I couldn't resist mentioning it again. It is a coastal plant as it tolerates salt, but as the roads are salted in winter, it has found a niche  alongside the roads. Its flowers are white but the buds are an attractive shade of mauve.

Easy to find! Under the bench and to the right.

Last weekend, I went to the Spring Meeting of the Highland Biological Recording Group which was held in Spean Bridge.  There were some interesting talks, including one about Loch Arkaig Pine woods which we were to visit in the afternoon.  However, to get there, you have to cross the  Caledonian Canal at Gairlochy where there is a swing bridge.  Unfortunately, by the time I got there the bridge had broken down, with half the party on the other side and half still on the Spean Bridge side!  So that trip was abandoned and I made my way back home.  Not wanting to waste the drive, I did some lichen hunting on the way back.  First stop was by Pattack Falls. A well as lichens, there was a nice patch of a Polypody fern on a rock, with the sun shining through it. The sun showed up the little brown circles on the underside of the fern.  These are called sori and hold the spores that ferns use to reproduce.

Common Polypody

There was also a lichen on the same rock, that was unfamiliar to me. Round crusty patches, white at the edges and beige in the centre.

There are little circles in the centre which are fruiting bodies (apothecia) and close up they look like mini-volcanoes.

I did some testing - which involves adding a very small drop of two chemicals and seeing if there is any colour change. Bleach went red and Potassium hydroxide went yellow. This helps with ID.  I think this lichen is called Diploschistes scruposus. Unfortunately there's no easy name!

Leaves and catkins and Common Whitlow grass

 We have just had a week of stunning weather - clear blue skies and sunshine - and spring seems to be here at last.  The tadpoles are wriggling in my pond, our garden blackbird is gathering worms, the blue tits are investigating the nest boxes and I am gardening - sowing seeds and weeding. Only the larches have green leaves but it can't be long before all the trees green up.  If you want to get to know your tree leaves, there is a FREE poster available at https://microcosmic.shop/products/tree-leaves-poster-free-download

You download the pdf file for free to print yourself or you can buy a paper version from them.

Most of the willows just have catkins at the moment and I was shown this photo of some unfamiliar catkins near the Calder.

After a  bit of research, I think these are the female catkins of the Grey Sallow (Salix cinerea) which is a Willow.  Male catkins are the yellow fluffy ones. Willows are dioecious which means that plants are either male or female, not both, so the male and female catkins are on different plants. There are many varieties of willow (at least 23) so only some are on the poster above.  They also hybridise with each other so giving a  hybrid tree an exact name needs an expert - or at least someone with more experience than I have.  To make things even more complicated, some species have variants called sub species.  So best just to settle for Willow!

Now is a good time to see a small white flowering plants called Common Whitlow Grass which is one of the first plants to flower.  It is tiny but easy to spot.  If you are passing Newtonmore School there is lots of it at the base of the wall near the children's entrance.

Common Whitlow Grass

It isn't a grass but a tiny crucifer (the cabbage family) and has white seed pods like miniature versions of Honesty. It has a rosette of leaves at the base and then some small stems with flowers  at the tips. It does not mind poor soil, and is adapted by being small and disappearing before the soil dries out in the summer.  It is an annual so its seeds remain, ready to germinate in the spring (and foiling the school Janny and his weed killer!)

There are more photos in a previous post here.

UV fluorescence - what causes it?

 I have been intrigued as to how UV (ultra-violet) fluorescence works, so have been doing some research on the internet to find out.  Before I attempt to explain the science, there will be some general information and pretty pictures.First of all, what items fluoresce? You already know about lichens, but there are some common but unexpected things that give results under UV light. Here's one - eggs!

Eggs: left normal light, right UV light

The chemical in eggs shells that fluoresces is called PPIX ( Protoporphyrin IX) which gives eggs their brown colour.  You can see that the bluer egg in the box is not quite as fluorescent. There is a lot of information about fluorescence in eggs here and the diagram explaining the science is further down in this post.

The other commonly occurring chemical that fluoresces is chlorophyll, the green compound found in plants that allows them to photosynthesise (create food from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water).  I now think this is the source of the  unexplained bright red fluorescence in the previous post, shown again below, which was probably algae. 

That stick again!

You may wonder why the glow is a red colour when plants look green.  In fact, plants absorb the red wavelengths and reflect the green light (which is why they look green). When I was cleaning my greenhouse this week, I did wonder why they make greenhouse shading green - it would be better to make it red as the plants want the red light not the green! 

The explanation for the colours under UV involves some science so stop here if you are not curious...

Every atom or molecule has electrons  surrounding it.  Each electron has a certain energy, called its energy level. However, it can absorb energy and become "excited" and jump up to another energy level.  It can't just be any amount of energy though.  It needs to be a precise amount to lift it to the next energy level. Imagine a set of stairs.  To get to the next higher step, you have to step up the precise amount.

UV light has a lot of energy and causes the electron to jump up more than one step.  When it then falls down the steps, it gives out the energy as heat or for its final step down the energy is given out as light - fluorescence. The colour depends on the height of the last step down. Different chemicals have different energy levels (step heights) so fluoresce  a colour specific to that chemical.

 Here is a diagram showing the process for eggs which is from here

A similar diagram for chlorophyll in plants is called the Jablonski diagram - google it if you want to know more. Basically, the last step down is the amount of energy in a red photon, so there is red fluorescence.

As lichens produce many different chemicals as part of their defence against sunlight, predators (slugs and snails) and other lichens encroaching their space, different lichens can glow different colours under UV. Here is one  on a rock by Pattack Falls that glows a beautiful bright blue:

Sphaerophorus globosus: normal light on left, UV on right

Technical note.  The UV torch used had a wavelength of 365nm.

To see a world in a grain of sand...

 As William Blake said, there is a wonderful world to be seen if you look closely at small things. I think this is part of my fascination with lichens - there is always something new to be seen if you look closely, preferably with a hand lens or microscope. And if you have a UV torch, the world becomes even more colourful.

Last month, I had lunch at a restaurant on the Beauly Firth, The Storehouse (I can recommend it!). It was a beautiful sunny calm day.

Beauly Firth shoreline

As always, I had a look for fallen twigs, just in case there were interesting lichens...

It all became much more spectacular under UV light.

The yellow lichen (Xanthoria parietina) fluoresces bright orange under UV.  Different chemicals in the lichen cause the fluorescence.  In this case the chemical is called "parietin" and acts as a sunscreen.  I don't know which came first, the name of the chemical or the name of the lichen. I have no idea what is causing the deep red fluorescence between the 2 orange patches, as there is nothing visible on the bark. The small patch of pale orange to the bottom right is a lichen called Lecidella eleochroma.

The array of grey lichens along the bottom of the branch are more difficult to name but I decided  it was about time I tackled these grey "jam tart" lichens which I have avoided so far.  I picked up another fallen branch by Loch Imrich. Here it is:

I decided to look at the patch of lichens just above 18 on the ruler.

The "jam tarts" I mentioned are the round structures with white margins - just like jam tarts with a jammy middle and a white pastry case. I could see 2 different lichens; on the left, brown jam tarts (apothecia) on a white background  and on the right, frosted jam tarts which looked as if they had icing sugar on them (it's called pruina botanically) with a yellow background. When I looked a bit further along there was a third tiny green lichen, only a few mm across.

 In my quest to find a name for these lichens, I measured them, noted the different colours and tested them by putting tiny drops of chemicals on then looking for any colour changes.  Then armed with a book by Dobson, tried to key them out - with no success! So no names at present. Looking at them  with the UV torch was interesting.

The bright yellow and turquoise patches are where I applied a small amount of chemical, usually abbreviated to K (though it is actually KOH, Potasssium hydroxide).  As none of the lichens looked orange under UV, this ruled out some IDs and I still can't name the lichens. I think I will need some help! But I enjoyed the investigation.

Hazel catkins

 Last March I wrote about finding hazel catkins (here).  These yellow danglies are the male part, producing pollen, but the pollen grains have to land on a female part if they want to produce seed (or in this case, hazelnuts).  I did not notice the female structures last year, but told myself I would look more carefully this year.  So I went up Strone again today.  It was a beautiful still, cold but sunny day with snow on the hills.

I was reminded to look out for the little red structures after seeing a video by Leif Bersweden here. I came across Leif when he gave a talk on how to improve your phone photos of plants, and he is a man of many talents. He posts regularly on Twitter (@leifbersweden), has just released a book called "Where the Wildflowers Grow" and has been trying to educate us on how to identify ten common mosses with #couchto10mosses.  I've not got far yet but maybe mosses will be another post in the not too distant future.  There are certainly plenty to find locally.

To get back to the Hazel... Here is one of those miniscule little red flowers.

To get a sense of scale, here is another photo with a catkin and a hand.

And a closer look

The little red strands (stigmas) are sticky to catch the pollen which is carried by the wind from the catkins. Once they have caught the pollen, they turn black and the pollen burrows down to the base of the stigma and waits for a few months until an ovary has grown which it can then fertilise. The process was new to me but it was explained in these research papers:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266867884_Hazelnuts_in_Ontario_-_Biology_and_Potential_Varieties#pf3

https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9074/html

 So there is a lot more to a hazelnut than I thought!