Calendar September 2015: Bramble

September: Bramble (Blackberry)

Tempting behind the prickly leaves

(Rubus fruticosus, Order: Rosales, Family: Rosaceae, Genus: Rubus )

Bramble is, according to Adele Nozendar (The Hedgerow Handbook, Square Peg, 2012), originated from the Germanic word 'brom', which means 'thorny shrub'.  I know that blackberries are called 'Brombeeren' in German.  Bramble is also called blackberry, which is named after the glossy deep purple black berry.

The berries start ripening at the beginning August, at first light green, then gradually red, and dark wine red, eventually turn deep purple black.  We can enjoy the decent harvest still in September, possibly in October.  I think blackberries are one of the most common wild food for free here in the south Wales.  

The fruit is actually not 'berry', a cluster of drupelets.  A single drupe, stone fruit, has a seed in the middle of the fruit such as peach.  An individual blackberry's drupelet has also a tiny but stubborn seed.  The seeds are resistant about the acid in stomach.  It means that seeds survive through the animal's digestion and are transported to other places.  Bramble is also regarded as ancient species.  'The pips were found in the stomach contents of a Neolithic man'!  (The Woodland Trust website)  These strong species survived through many years, even thousands years.

That's why we can find the brambles everywhere, in meadows, hedgerows, wastelands, woodlands.  They are so hardy, or rather invasive that they come into your gardens.  While the prickle tangled stems and leaves keep away from us, human and many animals, they give some other animals benefit to be protected.  Small birds like wren and robin and mammals can nest within the bush, keep away from their predators. (The RSPB website)  

After the sunny warm days, we stroll into the meadows with a big container, where the berries grows undisturbed.  The ripe blackberries on the sunny spot are really sweet.  You have to be careful with the hooked prickles on the stems.  Once you are trapped in the tangled stems, you must struggle to get out!  A proper clothes (a sturdy long sleeved shirt, a pair of sturdy long trousers and a pair of sturdy outdoor shoes with thick soles) are highly recommended.  Even with armed outfit, we usually get scratches on our hands.  Alas, we cannot wear gloves as we cannot pick the soft berries only with bear fingers..

We collect the ripe fruits as far as we can, but most of the best juicy soft sweet berries on the top of the prickly piles, from which prickles prevent mammals including human, are left for birds.  They can enjoy the feast until the end of September, or even later.

My husband makes blackberry jam every year.  He sieve the berries to remove the seeds to make smooth texture.  Last year, I have tried to make blackberry cordial, inspired by making elder berry cordial.  But I didn't know that blackberries have high level of pectin, like apples, which caused 'clotted blackberry cordial'.  Luckily my children liked the cordial and all the bottle were consumed.  (However, I won't make one any more!)

Blackberry and apple crumble is on our autumnal pudding list.  They both get on well with crumble.  I usually use muesli and chopped nuts such as almond or hazel nuts for crumble dough, which makes crunchy texture.  It's our favourite autumnal desert, which can be made quickly.

September begins with, often, rain.  Today, September the 1st, was between sunny and cloudy, and there was a sudden shower in the afternoon.  But fingers crossed, hoping a dry warm autumn so that we can enjoy the sweet aromatic blackberries.

Calendar August 2015: Red Clover

August: Red Clover

Scented pretty flower in the midsummer meadows

(Trifolium pratense, Order: Fabales, Family: Fabaceae, Genus: Trifolium )

In the middle of August the meadows in the midsummer has still colourful wild flowers but there is a subtle autumnal feeling.  The colour is turning a little bit hazy as the grasses are turning yellow. The seeds of the carrot family such as hemlock, wild carrot, wild parsnip etc. are becoming brown or yellow.

Among the other wild plants, red clover is flowering here and there in the meadows to attract its benefactor like bees, butterflies and other insects throughout the summer.

Red clover has been so common as well as white clover that almost everyone knows this pretty flower, but we (at least I) know very little about it.

The flowerhead is consisted with a lot of slightly purplish pink flowers although it is called 'red' clover.  Individual flower is a small version of pea's one.

The leaves are trifoliate and oval, and each leaf has a white crescent-shaped mark.  White clover has also trifoliate leaves with white crescent-shaped mark, but the leaves are round.

Red clover, like other pea family, is nitrogen fixing and used as green manure crop for enriching the soil  in the cultivated lands.  

These features are well-known, but I didn't know their flowers and leaves are both edible. (Cultivated sweet pea's flower is poisonous.)  Though, they are the favourite forage for the cattle.  Why not human can eat them?

According to 'The Hedgerow Handbook' (by Adele Nozendar, Square Peg, 2012), flower heads can be used in salads.  It sounds normal, like using other edible flowers for salads.  But I cannot imagine how it looks and tastes when the flower (divided into individual flower with a little sugar and salt) is put into a cooked rice.  I took a flowerhead of red clover in one warm evening in a meadow, and suck its nectar.  The subtle sweet taste and aroma came into my mouth.  So, the flower rice probably has a delicate pleasant fragrance.  It gets on with grilled meat, I imagine.

Leaves can be cooked with  garlic and onion.  Pea shoots has become popular.  I imagine clover leaves might taste like the pea shoots.

Also there are recipes in the book, 'Red Clover Lemonade' and 'Redo Clover Almond Biscuits'.  Both recipes use generous amount of flowers.  But you can easily collect them for free from the meadows.  (I attach the two recipes at the end of this blog.)

An interesting finding of this section in this book is about a two-leafed clover.  Well, it doesn't have to be red clover, but also white clover.  Adele Nozendar cited from an old tradition. that a two-leafed clover is connected with marriage when an unmarried girl find a two-leafed red clover.  Take it home and after that when she see a man, she will marry the man.  How romantic it would be!

(Added on 23. 8.2015)

I found a poet of the red clover fairy on Cecily Mary Barker's The Complete Book of The Flower Fairies (Edition 2002, Warne).

The Song of The Red Clover Fairy

The Fairy:

O, what a great big bee

Has come to find my honey.

He's come to find my honey.

O, what a great big bee!

The Bee:

O, what a great big Clover!

I'll search it well, all over,

And gather all its honey.

O, what a great big Clover!

A red curly haired little girl with hazy pink dress and scarf on a leaf is looking curiously at a bumblebee collecting the nectar (Barker used 'honey', but technically nectar is right.  Honey is the processed product of nectar by honeybees) of red clover.  

***** Recipes from Adele Nozendar's 'The Hedgerow Handbook' *****

Red Clover Lemonade:

Makes approx. 1 litre

750g fresh red clover, plus extra to garnish

500ml water

500g honey (or sugar)

Juice of 2 lemons

1. Simmer the clover blossoms in the water, in a covered pan, for to 10 minutes. No need to boil.  Then add the honey or sugar and stir until it's dissolved.

2. Cover and let the mixture steep and cool for several hours or overnight.  Steeping makes the infusion strong, increasing the potency of the calcium and other nutrients in the clover.

3.  Add the lemon juice and chill in the fridge.

4. Strain, then serve poured into tall glasses over ice, garnished with a chunk of lemon and a couple of clover flowers.

Red Clover Almond Biscuits

Makes Approx. 25 biscuits

380g wholemeal flour

3tsp baking powder

100g almonds

100g butter

2 eggs

120ml buttermilk

1/4tsp almond extract

287g red clover flowers, plucked out of the flower head

1. Preheat oven to 230 C/gas mark 8.

2. Whizz the flour, baking powder and almonds in a food processor until everything is finely chopped.

3. Add the butter and pulse until you have a crumbly texture.

4.  Add the eggs, buttermilk, almond extract and the red clover flowers.

5. Whizz once more until you have a lump of dough.

6. Roll out the dough (no too thin) on a lightly floured work surface.

7. Cut into 5cm squares. Transfer to an ungreased baking tray and bake for 10-15minutes, or until the biscuits are golden brown.

Calender July 2015: Long-headed Poppy

July: Long-headed Poppy

Angel in Ancient Woods

(Papaver dubium, Order: Ranunculales, Family: Papaveraceae, Genus: Papaver )

When we moved to this house, I bought a packet of seed of 'wild meadow flowers'.  As a lazy naturalist, I chose having a wild flowers' garden.  Well, our garden isn't so big, though.  One day in July, a scarlet tissue-paper-like flower appeared in the sea (or a pond) of the green.

The poppy family has variety of species.  The victorian naturalist and illustrator, Cicely Mary Barker drew the poppy fairy in her Flower Fairies of the Summer (first published in 1925).  The flower she drew was common poppy, which had gorgeous red and black appearance.   The fairy has long black hair and wears read and black dress.   

 There are also rough poppy and prickly poppy.  Why all three have gorgeous appearance is, entirely of my view, because they have bigger black blotch base of petals.  The black in the middle of the scarlet petals makes a vivid impact.

Long-headed poppy, contrast to these three,  has no black blotch, and has light green stigma, which gives a mild natural impression.  The four petals are scarlet but slightly pinkish.

The name of 'long-headed' comes from its narrow, elongated capsule.  The capsule is hairless whereas the capsules of other ones are hairy.

In the book of The Bumper Book of Nature (by Stephen Moss, 2009, Square Peg) I found  a list, in which flowers of poppy should be first seen in each year around the 20th of July of the St Margaret Day.  (The author, Stephen Moss cited this from another book, Weather Lore by Richard Inwards, 1893.)  Maybe the saints' days are connected with the vegetation in Europe.

Carpets of the summer flowers are seen in our town at the marina throughout the summer.  There is an open public space where people can go for a walk and various flowers bloom throughout the summer.  I remember there used to be a just abandoned field with a lot of tubes, which I couldn't know what for.

I searched on the internet and found a newsletter by the Welsh Government through our county council website.  Now I know what those tubes on the field were.

The field used to be a landfill site.  The land has been owned by the Welsh Government since 2000.  They completed the project to improve gas and leachate management.  The tube I saw there were to be used to replace the wells and pipelines, which now underneath the wildflower meadows.  After completion of this work the wildflower meadows were created.

The meadows include a lot of popular common wildflowers, of course, poppies, cornflower, daisy, marigold, redshank etc.  They are beautiful, alas, cultivated, not entirely wild.

Calendar June 2015: Yellow Archangel

June: Yellow Archangel

Angel in Ancient Woods

(Lamiastrum galeobdolon, Order: Lamiales, Family: Lamiaceae, Genus: Lamium )

June is a transitional month, from the early summer to the summer.  When the carpets of bluebells and white wild garlic flowers faded toward the end of May, woodlands are settled in the colour of green.  Around woodlands, hedgerows, and meadows are gradually filled with colourful flowers.

Yellow archangel grows at edges of ancient woodlands or shady hedgerows.  It's more often seen than herb-paris, but one of precious wild plants.

I find them at some road banks near by woods and at the edge of my favourite woodland, just alongside dog's mercury, red campion, ground ivy and some other wild plants.  The yellow flower brightens up the shady place.  

The leaves, crinkled with tiny hair on the surface, have similarity to lamiaceae family such as basil, mint, marjoram etc.  They are also look like stinging dead nettle, but are not stinging.  Two leaves attach to the stems like a pair of wing, one above the other.  If you look the plant from above, each two-paired leaves descends by 90 degree to the bottom, which look like a lot of propels.  The flowers sit in between.

The flower buds are like tiny cream-yellow balls.  The flower looks like a cream-yellow armchair with a roof.  The flower clusters are somehow like a tower of armchairs.  Flower fairies would rest their wings on the chairs....

Yellow Archangel....., I have looked my Edith Holden's books (See my blog in March), The Nature Notes of An Edwardian Lady and The Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady, whether she mentioned this plant in her book.  Almost overlooked her small water-colour illustration with the name, 'Yellow Weasel's Snout'.  (The author, Edith Holden was a naturalist and illustrator in the early 20th century.)

It is resemble to yellow rattle in her books.  But yellow rattle grows mainly in sunny meadows, while yellow archangel prefers shady places like at the fringe of woodland or in shady hedgerows.

Weasel'a snout, a plant, is also in Lamiales Order as yellow archangel is.  The plant has pink flowers, but the shape is resemble.  I try to imagine a snout of a weasel of animal, though, it looks hardly like this pretty flower!

In olden days this plant would be commonly called yellow weasel snout.  But I like call this plant ' Yellow Archangel' The name just suits the appearance, like an angel with a pair of green wings, don't you think?    If you look at the upper half, an angel with a yellow clown to be fly away at any moment, and if looking at the upper half, an angel with an arched green collar is resting its green wing on its back.

Confusing species is 'variegated yellow archangel', of which flowers are almost same as of yellow archangel, but it has white variegated leaves.  It is popular as garden plant and easily spreads in the countryside.  A wild plant conservation organisation, Plantlife, warns that this subspecies is an offence to the other wild plants.  (Though, I cannot find this name in the UK's Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.)  Hopefully these cultivated species won't invade this ancient plant.

Yellow Archangel is thought to be an indicator for ancient woods.  It must have existed for many many years in the woodland, possibly since a tiny woodland formed.  Interestingly I find yellow archangel as well as herb-paris (see my blog in May) in the ancient wood, while none of them is seen in a park near by my house, which used to be a limestone quarries until 1970 and was developed after the closure.

As I research on woodlands, I realise that a woodland hasn't been created in a instance and also it's not simply an cluster of trees.  A woodland is a ever growing living biodiversity's cluster unless it is crucially damaged, possibly by human.

Calendar May 2015: Herb-Paris

May: Herb-Paris

'True Lover's Knot' in Ancient Woods

(Paris Quadrifolia, Order: Liliales, Family: Melanthiaceae , Genus: Paris )

Herb-Paris; not only its name but also the appearance is distinctive in woodlands in the early summer.  I have seen it in the woodland when I met the gentleman for the first time, whom told about his involvement into the Woodland Trust and inspired me a great interest in the woodland nature.

He told my friend and I that a rare plants were blooming in the gorge, where it stayed shady and humid.  Interestingly, he added, its colony dwelled only in the very localised areaHe described how they looked like; namely, it had four leaves and only one distinctive flower on its top.  So, when having entered into the shady damp gorge, surrounded by ancient trees, we carefully looked around.  Indeed, as he described, the unusual plants were blooming here and there next to a small stream.

The four broad oval leaves are spreading outward from the upper middle of the thin stem.  The flower was curiously tiny, rather didn't look like a flower buds.  After the walk, I looked at my wild plant guidebooks.  It has thread-like green petals (you hardly see in my print, though), four broad green sepals (hanging just under the purple object), eight spiky yellow stamen upright, and a dark purple tiny berry-like ovary in the middle of a flower.

The gentleman said to us that herb-paris was an indicator for an ancient woodland.  The woodland, where the herb-paris colony thrives, consists of mature beech, ash and oak trees. They bloom among broad carpets of Bluebells. They can be easily disguised by the impressive blue pretty.  But once you look closely, herb-paris plants stand here and there.  You cannot miss out the distinctive appearance.

The name, 'herb-paris', confused me, if the plant was possible any link to the metropolitan city, Paris.  But no, this Latin word of 'paris' of herb-paris comes from "the 'herb of equality' because all of its parts are considered equal and harmonious".  This symmetric appearance appealed to herbalists in the medieval time.(from The Wild Trusts 'Herb-Paris').

Trying to imagine this plant blooming in the woodland, where I now often walk around, in the early Middle Ages, under an iron age hill fort.  I've been reading the latest novel of Kazuo Ishigro, Buried Giant.  The story was set in the early Middle Ages just after King Arthur died but still his knight and nephew, Sir Gawain, one of the main characters, was still alive.  Herb-paris might have been already blooming with a kind of dignified atmosphere in undisturbed the woodland in those ancient days.

Herb-paris has common names such as 'true lover's knot' or 'devil-in-a bush'.  People in those day, who believed in mysterious creatures, saw the plant as a symbol of both love and evil.

It should deserve 'true lover's knot', as a symbol of the eternal love rather than the latter one because herb-paris has existed and hasn't changed for so long, while its surrounding changed so much.  Besides, the ancient woodland, where the colony of herb-paris is preserved, has tranquil peaceful atmosphere.  Sadly such ancient woods will hardly survive without support by human nowadays.  Human have destroyed the nature.  I do hope the ancient woodlands will thrive forever.

Easter Walk: Around St Brides Major

The Easter Monday was pleasantly warm and sunny.  So we drove to the west for a half hour.  At the end of a small village, St Brides Major, we parked our car, and walked up to the limestone hill.

The view from the top of the hill was stunning.  We saw the blue sky and just hills.  The yellow gorse flowers were full in bloom.  A flock of sheep, including new-born lambs, were gazing or lying idly on the grass.  Only a few groups of people passed by.

We walked down the hill.  A sign post for walkers stood at every corner, so that we didn't get lost.  The footpath was quite steep, though you cannot see in the picture.

 What we saw was an interesting road under the water.  On the right side there was stone steps, maybe quite ancient.  The road crossing the small river didn't have a proper bridge, instead, the middle of the river was shallow so that cars could drive through the water.  A few cars came to the point, and the drivers hesitated briefly, then drove in the water to the other bank.  A woman with the dog, in the picture, who wasn't far enough from the water, got soaking wet just after a car drove away from the water.  But her dog was enjoying in the water.  Why not, it was sunny and warm!

We saw this ancient clapper bridge over the river.  Village people would use for their daily life.  The stream was calm and clear as ever, I think.

As we walked along the river, there were two stone bridge for the railway above.  A girl was riding a pony, accompanied by her mother, when I reached the second bridge.

 

 Toward the end of our walk, we came upon the field, just in the middle of nowhere.  Actually, no.  On the right side of the picture below, we found a small stone cottage with a sigh of 'Eggs for sale'.  We asked the man in the back yard for eggs.  Eggs on Easter Monday were just right.  The eggs were of white and brown leghorns and silkie chickens. 

On the way back home, we drove at the coast, where number of people were walking and playing at the beach, contrasted to the calm paths, where we just walked.

Calendar April 2015: Wood Anemone -Vigorous Windflower-

April: Wood Anemone

Windflower

(Anemone nemorosa, Buttercup family)

In April, we can see the white carpets of wood anemone in a beech woodland nearby our house.  The flower is tiny, about 4 cm diameter.  Bluebells and wild garlic are also blooming neighbouring areas at the same time.  The woodland is carpeted with white and blue flowers.  This is a stunning view, and I look forward to seeing it every year.  

I've never seen wood anemone in Japan, in my mother country.  It looks fragile with the tiny pretty white or sometimes pale pink petal-like sepals.

Another name of wood anemone is windflower.  Wood anemone usually grows in shady woodlands, protected from the wind, I thought.  But, in fact, 'It was said that the flower could open only when the wind blew upon it.', according to a book, Wild Flowers of Britain by B.D. Inglis (Nelson, 1958).  She described that wood anemone was quite sturdy in the bare woods despite the fragile looking.  The weather in the early spring can be rough and windy.  Unless it was vigorous, it wouldn't  appear in the woodland every spring today.

When searching wood anemone on the internet recently, I happened to find a website with an image of the wood anemone fairy by Cicely Mary Barker.  I remembered that I had some old copies of her fairy books.  One of them was the very book, in which the wood anemone fairy was.  As a school girl, I collected points of the sweets, of which company offered to give their customer the books of the flower fairy series for free.  Well, I had to spend my pocket money to buy the sweets.  But at that time it was quite hard to get foreign books in Japan.  Looking at the book, this was edited specially for the sweets company, but it states only 'This edition published in Japan by permission of Black & Son Ltd.' with no published year.  It is mysterious.

The  Windflower Fairy is a slender girl with long curly brown hair in a pale pink simple dress , brown butterfly wings on her back.   She holds two (white and pale pink) flowers in her arm and as if she were starting dancing when the wind blows on her.

THE SONG OF THE WINDFLOWER FAIRY

While human-folk slumber, 

The fairies espy
Stars without number
Sprinkling the sky.

The Winter's long sleeping,
Like night-time, is done;
But day-stars are leaping
To welcome the sun.

Star-like they sprinkle
The wildwood with light;
Countless they twinkle
The Windflowers white!

(Flower Fairies of the Spring, Cicely Mary Barker)

(The first of her Flower Fairies books, Flower Fairies of the Spring was published in 1923.)


The first time I saw wood anemone in the woodland, it was late afternoon, and the flower closed the sepals and faced down to the ground, like violet.  I thought it might belong to a violet family, or a kind of fritillary.  But some time later, having found white twinkling wood anemone in the sun light, coming through the bare branches, I was surprised.  They looked quite different and very lively.

A few years ago, I was walking in the woodland in the drizzling rain.  The rain didn't reach onto the ground, but countless tiny dews were on every single petal and leaf.  It was tranquil there as if the dews had been absorbing all the sound.  The pure white flowers were twinkling on the ground.  The view in front of me was really magical, felt like in another fairy tale than CM Barker's.