As Katy and I wandered the more salubrious streets of Richmond waiting for our daughters to return from camp, this Ginko biloba caught my eye.
It is a freak survivor of a division of the plant kingdom known as the Ginkophyta which arose over 270 million years ago. Its closest relatives are the cycads, other 'living fossils' found mostly in the southern hemisphere. Both have motile sperm (as do the mosses, ferns and algae) which are structurally very similar. Ginkos are dioecious, meaning plants are either male or female.
The Maidenhair tree is the only species surviving in the entire division/class/order/family/genus. It was confined in the wild to central China but has been part of human culture for thousands of years.
It is used medicinally and as a food plant, but is also a popular specimen tree due to its peculiar growth habit and good autumn colours. In fact only yesterday Abbey and I were talking about getting one for the garden.
We were making the most of the children being away and visiting old friends in London when one of them alerted me to the presence of an interesting moth at the front of the house on Camberwell Grove. It was flying around showing vibrant red underwings and my initial thought was that that was what it was. However, when I got home and looked it up it turns out to be the Nationally Scarce 'B' Jersey Tiger moth, Euplagia quadripunctaria.
Until recently it was confined to the Channel Islands and south-west coast of England, but in the last ten years a colony has established in Forest Hill in south London, where presumably this one originated. Its range appears to be expanding.
This was growing where it should have been: at the foot of a wall. On first sight you might think it's a funny member of the buttercup family because of the colour and size of the flower. But closer inspection soon dispels this notion: there is an odd protruding long narrow ovary and no sepals; break the stem and a yellow/orange latex is exuded. This flower has lost its anthers so looks slightly more peculiar it would have done, when it would have even more closely resembled a buttercup. It actually has more in common with horned poppy and that's because it is a cousin and member of the Papaveraceae.
Its common name reinforces the false connection to the buttercups as Lesser Celandine is in that family. The Latin binomial for Greater Celandine is Chelidonium majus which derives from the Ancient Greek for swallow (the bird). The connection with swallows has variably been attributed to its habit of coming into flower when they arrive and ceasing when they leave, but a more imaginative explanation was that adult swallows used the orangey/yellow latex to cure blindness of their young before migration. (Sometimes it's hard not to think of our forebears as utterly mad!)
It is a potent medicinal herb and has a long list of uses. The latex has long been used to cure warts, leading to a plethora of vernacular names such as wartweed, wartwort and wartflower. The herb and root are analgesic and sedative. It is thought to have been introduced and its habitat preferences in this country suggest a close link to human habitation and propagation.
One couldn't go to London and not blog about the London Plane tree, Platanus x acerifolia. It is the quintessential urban tree, tolerating high levels of pollution and root compaction. It grows to prodigious heights and casts a dappled shade. Its bark when younger than the veteran in this picture flakes into a mosaic of light greens and greys.
It's thought to be a hybrid between P. occidentalis, the American Sycamore, and P. orientalis, the Oriental Plane, but no one seems entirely sure!
In London seeing the children off on camps and staying with our friends in St Margaret's near Twickenham, hence no post yesterday and hence a Thames side Purple Loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria, spotted by the south bank landing stage of the delightful Hammerton's Ferry on our way back from the equally delightful but overpriced Petersham Nursery where we had lunch in the cafe.
I think that sentence sums it up.
