Japanese Knotweed

This is the dreaded Japanese Knotweed, Fallopia japonica, introduced from Japan in 1825 and causing problems ever since. In my native Swansea it was a spectacular problem. Entering the city by train you passed through seemingly endless groves of it. It is listed by the World Conservation Union as one of the world's worst invasive species. In Australia it is actually illegal to have it growing on your property. This was growing on the edge of Amberley Brooks in West Sussex.

Marsh Thistle

Not dissimilar to Creeping Thistle, this is Marsh Thistle, Cirsium palustre. Distinguished by the spiny-winged stems with sessile hairy leaves. Another member of the Asteraceae.

Matt Bolete

This lovely mushroom was growing in Pete's woods. It is a Matt Bolete or Boletus pruinatus. Despite its appearance it is edible. 
Now is the best time for Bolete or Cep or Porcini mushrooms. Of course you have to avoid eating the naughty ones.

Sloe Bugs

My old friend Pete finally took me to see his 'new' woods out near Heathfield today. It was a beautiful morning and during a beating of the bounds I noticed these two up to no good on some old Marsh Thistle heads. There isn't much sexual dimorphism but from their behaviour when first seen I'll wager one's a male and the other female. 
They are Sloe Bugs, Dolycoris baccarum, although they are usually not found on Blackthorn (sloe) but rather on a wide range of plants, with an apparent predilection for Rosaceae.
Besides the chequerboard markings, the identification is clinched by their hirsute nature (zoom in on the image) and black and white antennae.  

Meadow Brown

Maniola.jurtina. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Female by Böhringer Friedrich. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 at via Wikimedia Commons

Third in the run of lepidoptera (scale wing) is the Meadow Brown, Maniola jurtina. This was present in abundance on my Breeding Bird Survey final section on Tuesday and was the dominant butterfly on the Downs walk on Wednesday. The males are plainer brown with an almost uniform upper wing with tiny dark eye-spots. 
The species is univoltine (a new word for me) meaning that there is just one brood per year (cf. most blues which are bivoltine in the south). Although it remains the commonest butterfly in the UK, numbers have declined massively over the last century. This, it will come as no surprise, is largely due to changes in agricultural practice. They require mixed species grass meadows which are cut late, ideally with flower-filled hedges nearby.
Courtship is a peculiar affair: after a short dance the males envelop the females with a heavy scent (discernible to some humans as 'old cigar box', 'musty hay', or 'dirty socks'). She then descends to a suitable perch and mating commences. 
Sounds a bit dodgy to me! 

Streaked Golden Hog (Small Skipper)

Today was very much a butterfly day so I felt I had to blog about them. I'll do three species over the next three days starting with this little beauty: the unimaginatively named Small Skipper, Thymelicus sylvestris. An older name for it was the Streaked Golden Hog, which has a certain charm. 
On closer inspection this is a male. The curved black sex-band on the forewing is just about visible on the right in close-up. 
There is an almost identical diminutive skipper: the Essex Skipper. The difference is that the latter has a black underside to the antennae tips rather than orangey. You won't find any skippers in Scotland.

Green Longhorn Moth

Here we have a couple fo male Green Longhorn moths, Adela reaumurella, hanging out with about forty others on this hawthorn bush on the edge of this lovely old (and somewhat overstood) hornbeam coppiced woodland near South Chailey.
They are, of course, waiting for the ladies!

Bugle

 

Almost too depressed to post today. This is Bugle, Ajuga reptans, part of the the Dead-nettle family, Lamiaceae. It's a bit cocky, sticking up above the surrounding sward.
I came across it during my Breeding Bird Survey on Thursday. It is of great importance to our lepidopteran friends: Bugle is a primary nectar source of the Pearl-bordered Fritillary and the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary. It is a secondary nectar source of the Brimstone, Chequered Skipper, Common Blue, Cryptic Wood White, Dingy Skipper, Duke of Burgundy, Green-veined White, Grizzled Skipper, Heath Fritillary, Holly Blue, Large Blue, Large Skipper, Large White, Marsh Fritillary, Orange-tip, Painted Lady, Small White and Wood White butterflies. (Wikipedia)

Juneberry

When I first saw this I thought it must be a Prunus of some sort, but after a good look through the guides I discovered that it is in fact an introduced plant from North America called Juneberry or Amelanchier lamarckii. Weirdly it is not actually found in the wild in Canada, where it is thought to have originated from in the seventeenth century. It is thought to be a hybrid from two Amelanchier species there. Being apomictic (see Dandelion post) it breeds true from seed. I was struck by the delicate leaves with their reddish hue and the finely spaced petals of the flowers.

Ramsons or Wild Garlic

Unlike garlic mustard, which only smells when crushed or bruised, wild garlic, ramsons or Allium ursinum does smell when you get close to it.
Its name derives from the fact that brown bears are keen on it and will dig up the bulbs. Similarly wild boar.
The flower stems are weakly triangular in cross section and the flower heads do not contain bulbils (like, for example, wild onion or crow garlic). 
It is an ancient woodland indicator in many parts of the country, often associated with bluebells. All parts of the plant are edible although apparently people are regularly poisoned through misidentifying lily-of-the-valley and wild arum as ramsons (which even as an amateur botanist I find surprising).
Note the papery bract.

Common Dog-Violet

The third violet is one of the commonest. This is a particularly fine specimen found on my walk through Rackham Wood yesterday. The things to note about it are the pointy sepals, the flower stalk arising from the shoot and not the base and the spur being much paler than the rest of the flower. The spur is also slightly notched at its end the way some people's noses are. It doesn't smell or have any hairs (i.e. it is glabrous). Another feature noted in Rose is the nectar lines are very prominent and branched on the lower petal, but I find this a bit too variable to be of much use. This plant is a textbook example of the species.

White dead-nettle

The white dead-nettle, Lamium album,  is just coming into flower. It often grows amongst stinging nettles (as in this case) and even when it doesn't, does such a good job of impersonation that few can be persuaded to touch the plant before the heroic botanist.
Grigson tells us one of the local names is Adam-and-Eve-in-the-Bower: if you invert the flower the black and gold stamens lie side-by-side like two human figures.
I must check this out next time I come across it.
This was in Rackham Woods on the edge of Amberley Brooks where I spent a very pleasant but futile afternoon seeking out the lesser-spotted woodpecker before it becomes extinct in Sussex.

Birch polyphore or Razorstrop Fungus

This is Piptoporus betulinus found growing on a decaying birch stump on Chailey Common. They are multi-layered because the fruiting bodies persist from one year to the next with a new one forming each year. You can see the remains of the oldest ones rotting away in the top left photo. The original would have been much prettier; toasted on top and creamy white underneath. It is a very common fungus found on birch throughout the British Isles.
Interestingly bits of this fungus were found amongst the possessions of the 5500 year old mummy discovered in the Italian/Swiss Alps back in the 1990s. Otzi may have been carrying them to sharpen blades or possibly for its antibiotic properties.

Goat willow

Salix caprea is also known as the pussy willow because of its furry catkins or pussies.
Willows are dioecious and this one is a female with grey pussies.
It also provides equine services as a scratching post.
This was growing on Chailey Common and is quite a mature specimen. 

Grey willow (S. cinerea) is very similar but a key distinguishing feature is that if you peel the bark of a two-year old twig and run your fingernail around the wood you can feel ridges, whereas goat willow is smooth. 
I remember this by thinking of a smooth old goat. Why old goats might be so described is utterly irrelevant.

Scot's pine

 

 It was somewhat remiss of me to return from Scotland without a picture of the Scot's pine, but here's some growing on heath in Sussex. Chailey Common to be precise, a lovely stretch of greensand heath overlying the wealden clays. 

Pinus sylvestris is another of our three native conifers. (I've done one already so there's the customary big money prize for guessing the third. It grows locally on the steep south-facing slopes of the A27 road embankment just outside Brighton.)

It's very late so that's all today. Will flesh this out a bit more tomorrow.

Still very late so perhaps tomorrow...

Daffodil

What else could it be on St David's day? Narcissus pseudonarcissus or the daffodil. I'm not entirely sure which subspecies this is, but it could the the Tenby daffodil, N. pseudonarcissus ssp obvallaris.
They used to be in the lily family but are now in the  Amaryllidaceae. Most are garden escapes or have been planted, with the majority of native plants found in the west. 
I remember seeing the native ones for the first time when we met my parents in Newent and did the daffodil trail; it seemed unbelievable that such a stunning flower could have evolved in our climate.
Having just acquired a copy of Geoffrey Grigson's superlative work The Englishman's Flora I must include his quote from Gerard Manley Hopkins who, on espying some growing in Lancashire, wrote: "The bright yellow corolla is seeded with very fine spangles which give it a glister and lie on a ribbing which makes it like cloth of gold." Mr Grigson gives the derivation of the common name thus: 'through Mediaeval Latin affodilus and Latin asphodilus, to the Greek asphodelus, the name of the plant which grew across the meadows of the underworld and which belonged to Persephone, the Queen of Hell.'
These were growing on a bank surrounding the car park on Chailey Common on Friday. The ones in our garden are yet to break bud. Iechyd da everyone!