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.

 

Surveying up Craggan

 I have mentioned before that I do annual surveys for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme so I thought it was time to get on with this year's surveys. Three of the squares that I monitor are on Craggan, two in boggy areas and one in the birch wood. The bog cotton was out and made a lovely  display.

There weren't many wildflowers but there were other plants that are typical of moorland.  One is a grass called Mat-grass (Nardus stricta) which looks like a clump of black needles.

A clump of Mat-grass

It is a perennial grass and comes back every year.  Last year's growth is the white strands at the base. Once the grass heads open they no longer look like needles but remind me of fish bones.

Another "non-flower" that you find in wet places is Black Sedge (Carex nigra).  It actually does have a flower but not with petals that you get on most wildflowers. Instead there are two sorts of spikes, the male ones at the top  that produce pollen and the female ones lower down that produce the seeds.

2 stalks of Black Sedge

The next site I monitor was already occupied by a red deer, probably a 1 year old stag looking at the antlers.  It was not keen to move but lumbered off when I got closer.

The third site was not particularly interesting, but there was an interesting rock outcrop nearby that I took a look at as I had checked it out a few years ago and knew it had an interesting lichen called Peltigera brittanica. It looks like green speckled leaves, and is not very common.

The rock outcrop

Peltigera brittanica

There were a couple more interesting lichens on the rock that resemble corals - they are both Sphaerophorus species and to distinguish between them, you have to look at  the thickness of the "stalks" when they branch. If they stay the same width when they branch, it is S. fragilis, but if they get thinner as they branch, it is S. globosus.

Sphaerophorus globosus (on left) and Sphaerophorus fragilis on right

Finally, a wildflower!  This is Bog Stitchwort (Stellaria alsine) which I found on the way back.  It is tiny and, as you might expect, grows in boggy places.

I saw sawflies!

 It has been a month since my last post as the glorious dry warm weather meant that I did lots outside rather than sitting indoors writing a blog post, but a few coincidences have inspired me to write about sawflies.

In the garden, one of my gooseberry bushes has been mostly reduced to a skeleton of its former self,  and in spite of waking past it most days, I failed to notice the hordes of caterpillars eating the leaves. Being green (like the leaves) they are well camouflaged so it is easy to miss them until the damage is done.   Most of the caterpillars have now been picked off and left for the birds to eat. 

Left - gooseberry with leaves, middle- leaves have been eaten, right- the culprits

The caterpillars  start at the bottom of the bush and eat their way up.  They are the caterpillars of Gooseberry Sawfly, though I have never seen the fly, just the caterpillars.  Apparently, sawflies are called that because their ovipositor (egg laying appendage) is saw shaped.

A similar fly lays its eggs on  the flower called Solomon's Seal.  I have just checked my plants and they are fine just now, but I have seen the caterpillars in previous years.  The fly drills little holes along the stem to lay its eggs.

A row of empty sawfly holes and the caterpillar

The flies seem to come and go unnoticed, but I saw one that could not be missed.  It was sitting on some insect netting that I was about to put over my veg.  It couldn't be missed as it was an inch long! It was also rather sluggish and stayed put while I took photos and then moved it elsewhere.  It wasn't actually any safer as our resident blackbird then  nabbed it and fed it to its youngster! I looked it up and it was a Birch Sawfly.

25mm long Birch Sawfly

It was underneath the Birch trees at the end of the garden so maybe it had worn itself out laying eggs...

To finish on a more photogenic note, the shore of  Uath Lochans on a sunny day had a lovely display of Hare's-tail Cottongrass (Eriophorum vaginatum).

Apologies for the out of focus shot but it does show how delightfully fluffy they are!

A brace of squirrels and 2 lichens

 My squirrel surmises were proved when I went to empty the  kitchen compost, to see 2 squirrels chasing each other in the garden.  In front of my eyes, they ran into the rabbit trap and were both cross at being cooped up with their rival.  Luckily for them, as I had seen it happen, they were soon released.  It was difficult to get a photo as they were very active, but I did get a few seconds of video before I let them go and they both scampered up a nearby birch tree.

The season is feeling increasing spring like, with the Wood Anemones out, Dandelions blooming and Danish Scurvy Grass flowering alongside the road (opposite the Balavil in Newtonmore).  This is the plant that enjoys (or tolerates?) the salt that is spread on the road each winter.

I spent some time in Grantown-on-Spey recently, and while waiting for a friend, had a wander around some of the streets looking for lichens. Many of the large older houses had low stone walls separating the gardens from the pavement, and the old sandstone capping stones were worth a look.  Two distinctive lichens caught my eye.  The first one had huge black apothecia - well, huge for lichens - when you consider that sometimes the fruiting bodies are just fraction of a millimetre across.  These ones were about 3mm across. Its name is Porpidia macrocarpa.  Macrocarpa means big fruits. 

Porpidia means "pore in a ring" but I don't know why,  However, another lichen on the same wall was more deserving of the "in a ring" description.  Here it is, with the black apothecia in concentric rings:

This is Rhizocarpon petraeum.  To check, I had to find some spores by slicing one of the black apothecia and looking at it under the microscope. I was glad I did as they are an amazing shape.

I've made the photo big so that you can see the spore structure.  The spores are the boat shaped things and their insides are broken up into lots of little compartments, a bit like a brick wall, which is why this structure is called "Muriform" - muri means wall (think of mural). This was the first time I was sure I had found this species, but if you look at any stones up Glen Banchor you are likely to see another really common Rhizocarpon lichen: " Map lichen" (Rhizocarpon geographicum).

A walk in Glenmore and bloody lichens!

 Success! The rabbit was tempted by some cauliflower leaves and has now been relocated to Glen Banchor, no doubt to its relief as it will no longer be on its own, and definitely to mine as I can now get on with planting out  the flowers I have been nurturing all winter.

Rabbit awaiting relocation

The sunny weather has been perfect for tackling the overgrown areas of the garden and as I have been digging, I am finding buried hazelnuts in their shells.  As there are no hazel trees nearby, I assume that someone is feeding the squirrels and then they are burying the nuts in my garden.

One sunny day, we went to Glenmore and had a walk up a forest track.  There were several wood ant nests which look like mounds of pine needles.  Scotland has its own species of wood ant which is not found elsewhere in the UK. The ants were gathered in groups on the surface of the nest presumably absorbing the warmth of the sun, as on the way back we noticed they had moved further round their mound to keep in the sunshine.  Like all insects, ants are cold-blooded and cannot generate their own body heat.

Alongside the track was a dead Scots pine, a granny pine which had grown in its natural shape rather than the straight up and down trunks that you get in a plantation.

There was a lichen on one of the branches, a white background with black spots,

This turned out to be the Bloody Heart lichen (Mycoblastus sanguinarius) as when you scratch off the black spot ( apothecium) there is a red colour underneath.  Here is a thin section of one of the apothecia, in water so these are the natural colours.

This lichen also grows on the birch trees in Glen Banchor. You can see the red colour peeking through.

There is another lichen in Glen Banchor that grows on the rocks - the Blood Spot lichen.  This time it is the apothecia that are red. Given the shape, maybe this one deserves the name of Bloody Heart lichen!

Wildlife in the garden

 Apart from the rabbit, which I am hoping I will manage to transfer out of the garden so I can plant out  my plants safely without them being its dinner, I  love seeing wildlife in the garden. I have managed to take a few videos which I will share.  First of all, a red squirrel:

 Whilst  I was gardening, the blackbird was having a forage in the compost heap:

Those of you who have read earlier posts will know that I do a regular hunt around the garden to remove New Zealand flatworms (which eat native earthworms). They rest during the day under anywhere dark and damp.  I disturbed a whole nest of field mice and was not quick enough to video them all, but one seemed unaware of the dangers of sitting out in the open and was undisturbed by my taking out my phone to video him/her having a wash! This is quite a long video but it seems a shame to shorten it. There's a photo if you don't want to use data to watch the video.

A field mouse having a wash

STOPPRESS! Frog spawn has appeared in the pond.

More happenings in the garden

 It seems as though Spring is trying to appear as there are bulbs starting to flower in the garden.

Crocuses, irises and snowdrops

However, not all the bulbs have succeeded in flowering this year as some have been cut off or dug up in their prime.

Remains of the crocuses

Something has dug them up.  I am a bit puzzled as to the culprit as they have not eaten the flowering shoots and I can still see most of the bulbs.  The suspects are:  a rabbit, a pheasant or a squirrel, all of which have been in the garden. I have put some of the discarded shoots in water to see if they will flower, but I am not very hopeful. Time to set up the trail camera to see if I can catch them in the act!

In my last post, I mentioned a small yellow lichen that I had found on a garden branch.  I was not sure what it was and have had (Zoom) discussions with more knowledgeable lichen people. One reason I had confused myself was that there were actually two different yellow lichens, both tiny.

The first one was  just a tiny bunch of yellow lobes with even tinier bumps on the edges. There are two examples in the photo, and the lead from a propelling pencil is an easy way to give an idea of the scale.

The pencil lead is 0.5mm wide

The brown discs with white rims at the bottom of the picture is a different lichen, probably Lecanora hybocarpa. The discs are apothecia (fruiting bodies that produce spores), whereas the yellow lichen did not have any.  A help when trying to name yellow lichens is to put a drop of potassium hydroxide (KOH) on them and see if you get a colour change.

A red reaction with KOH

This red reaction rules out a whole group of yellow lichens in the Candelaria family.  It looked as though this little one was a Xanthoria and eventually it was named as either Xanthoria candelaria or Xanthoria ucrainica.  I won't go into the details here but the two species are hard to distinguish from each other.  Even more confusingly, they have now been renamed as Polycauliona instead of Xanthoria!

The second similar lichen  was on the same branch but these ones had apothecia, and turned out to be Xanthoria (now Polycauliona) polycarpa.

The ruler is numbered in cm with mm divisions

 I rather went to town with some microscope investigations. I cut a very thin section of an apothecium to get some spores. The spores are dumbbell shaped inside and have the tongue twisting description of polarilocular. 

Microscope photos

I have more pictures but I expect that is enough detail for most of you!