25/7/14
I went down to the railway track the other day to see if any parasol mushrooms have emerged yet. They haven’t and I found a beautiful wild flower patch but what was most interesting was the track I was walking on. It is the one that was surfaced with large granite chippings a year or so ago when they were starting to do the forestry work. They haven’t used the track a lot- it was something demanded by the planners apparently, and it is now being taken back into the forest. The part I normally walk on has what I had thought were Black Medick but now I think are Hop Trefoil. Both have small yellow mop heads of clover like flowers, only about a centimetre diameter. Sometimes it is only possible to identify plants when the seed heads form and these do resemble small pale brown hops. They creep across the track. The Hare’s foot clover and the kidney vetch do that too. The granite is gradually being carpeted by mats of stems with fluffy seed heads floating above them.
I was fascinated in New Zealand to see trees growing on what appeared to be clear rock faces. Our guide explained that the lichen form first, then the mosses and gradually soil builds up so that bigger plants can colonise and eventually trees.
Here in the forest it is fascinating to watch plants colonise and spurn the tidy planners dreams. In the middle of the track the grasses have taken hold and the broad leaved plantain and common plantain are comfortably settling in.
There are even small gorse seedlings growing now, spikes of grey green prickles about 30cms high. On one side, just next to the track on the edge of the narrow grass verge before the pines, I find two plants I don’t recognise. When I look them up they are Common Figwort. The flowers are insignificant, with only small red brown petals and green sepals. The green egg-shaped seedpods are more obvious than the flowers. I have never come across these before. They like woods and shady places.
The forget me nots continue to straggle about the sides of the track as do the drying tangles of the hairy tares, now displaying their seedpods. The corn spurrey are all but dead and the grasses are dry and stiff. These early opportunists will die and rot to form small patches of soil for other plants to take hold. There are a few small willow herbs. They need much more detailed attention to reveal their identities. Lots of them seem to favour damp places which this certainly isn’t. I bit further into the verge I spot a small magenta common storks bill. They are similar to the small cranesbill that I have failed to identify that grows everywhere on the forest tracks but these have frond like leaves rather than the small hand leaves of the cranes bill. Hand like leaves of the small lemon flowers of the tormentil are creeping across the path too.
As I walk further towards the railway I am surprised by the number of buddlea bushes growing along the edge. Every few yard there is a bush. I know they are an introduced species.I know they take over everywhere. But their flowers do smell beautiful and they do create a wonderful food source for butterflies. We called them the Butterfly bush when I was a child. They still do I suppose.