Tag: flora
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The Cleveland Way
Buy any Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 map nowadays and you’ll find it criss-crossed by lines of green diamonds — the symbol for a National Trail or Long Distance Path. In 1965, the first such trail was launched, The Pennine Way, and the second was our very own Cleveland Way, opened four years later on this day,…
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Lenten Lilies by the Leven
Lenten Lily is a Yorkshire name for the daffodil, the wild English variety, although I guess these are a cultivated variety. Daffs are poisonous, nevertheless they have been used throughout the centuries for medicinal purposes particularly as a cure for cancer. Hippocrates himself recommended a pessary prepared from daffodils for tumours of the womb. In…
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The Marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris)
A murky morning so my eyes were drawn closer to earth seeking for signs of the vernal awakening. This spring, in the old Slack’s Quarry, seems to be a favourite spot for the marsh marigold, its vivid yellow flowers already in bloom. Wikipedia says it should flower between April and August, but I suspect the…
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A Snowdrift
I can’t claim these are the first snowdrops I’ve seen this year but they are certainly the most impressive. This drift is behind the little church at the head of Bransdale, along a beck with no name. In a month’s time, the bank will be dominated by daffodils, only to be overtaken by bluebells a…
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Scarlet Elfcup
What do the woodland elves use to drink their morning dew? Why, elfcups of course. On the damp floor of the wooded Slacks Quarry, the vivid red of the Scarlet Elfcups are in sharp contrast to the greens of the mosses. Sarcoscypha austriaca is its scientific name, meaning from Austria, although this fungus is found…
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Oak sapling in Newton Wood
Or should I say a ‘yack‘ sapling, yack being an 18th-century Yorkshire term for the oak. We also have ‘yackrams‘ for acorns. This is really a follow-on from yesterday’s post about the planting of woodland on bracken covered slopes unsuitable for general agriculture. Newton Wood is a predominately oak woodland but with ash, lime, sycamore,…
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A doomed Ash tree
The Ash, one of our major trees along with oak, birch, elm and lime. It’s a strong and flexible wood, traditionally used for spears or axe handles. The name comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘aesc‘ meaning a spear or lance. But since 2012, a disease has been devastating Ash trees — Ash Dieback, caused by a…
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Hedge Bedstraw
I thought at first someone had placed this posy of flowers in the top of the one metre high Tuley tube, but after much deliberation, the family conclusion is that it’s Hedge Bedstraw (Galium mollugo), a herbaceous annual of the same family of plants that gives us the sticky weed or cleavers, those long straggling…
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Common spotted orchid
Out litter picking after a hot weekend and came across this orchid. The name suggests it may be common but finding it growing in abundance in an abandoned quarry well used as a playground by BMX bikers is heartening. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Horse Tails
Horse Tails has been described as a living fossil. It is the only surviving member of the class of plants known as Equisetopsida which dominated the forests 360 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. At a time when the dinosaurs still had to evolve Equisetopsida for 100 million years grew up to a height of 30m during which our coal…