Tag: Pteridium aquilinum
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Autumnity
We’re well and truly into autumn, a morning chill, a low sun and a palette of russett and golds. Bracken is a formidable plant. It’s been around since the dinosaurs, with fossil records going back over the last 55 million years. But its success represents a real threat to biodiversity, shading out other plants, producing…
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Bracken spraying on Roseberry
Roseberry looks different. Striped by quad bike tracks spraying the bracken that infests the Common. Bracken is found worldwide and in Britain, it is particularly invasive especially on the acidic soils of our moorlands. It’s always been with us, a pioneer plant quickly establishing itself as prehistoric man cleared the ancient woodland. But bracken remained…
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The Bluebell Meadow, Newton Wood
Not very blue in Autumn. Compare with a photo I took almost from the same spot a year and six months ago. The blues of May have been replaced by the golden hues of Autumn. Meanwhile we drift into the month of November. The word has a Latin root, novem or nine, for in the calendar of…
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The best thing about Pteridium aquilinum …
… is when it’s dying off. Bracken, carcinogenic, toxic to livestock, invasive and dominating, smothering the growth of other plants. At the height of the summer it forms an impenetrable undergrowth. Yet the autumn bracken changes to rich yellow hues. Super even on a drizzly morning.