By the time you read this it will be October, but as I (Monica) will be away for the whole of September, the photos for this month’s page had to be taken at the end of August. The autumn colours will be more advanced by now and the trees and shrubs losing their leaves and there will be very few flowers left in the meadow centre. While it hasn’t been a very good summer for us, the meadow has once again appreciated the rain. As the colours fade from the body of the meadow they move out to the hedgerows, where autumn comes into its own.

The first thing to change is the leaf colour and this begins in a subtle way, almost unnoticed. Looking down the meadow you may only notice green, but the greens are turning a little paler, towards yellow, and pinks and reds starting to creep in.

Blackberries	Hazel nuts	Elderberries

Guelder Rose Fruit

The cool, damp summer has produced a good crop of fruits of all kinds. Apples, blackberries, elderberries and hazel nuts are all favourites for gatherers of free food, and by late August there is already a beautiful show of berries on the Hawthorn, Wayfaring Tree and especially the Guelder Rose trees, which have surpassed themselves this year with their branches full of heavy scarlet berries.

The insect life will have mostly quietened down by October, but here are a few which were around on the day I took the photos at the end of August. Most of the butterflies were already disappearing and the ones which were still around were getting rather faded. There was one Common Blue which posed politely, still quite brightly coloured, and a large number of small moths, quick and difficult to catch on camera and as yet unidentified. I also met a very amenable Bush Cricket, that allowed me to move its leaf around for the best view, without taking fright!

Common Blue	Small moth	Bush Cricket

Unwelcome visitors

Not all insect visitors are so welcome in the meadow. In our page for April 2007 we looked at a number of different insect galls which we had found and explained how these were formed. I recently read a newspaper article about one of the many species of gall that affects the acorns on oak trees, the Knopper Gall. These are caused by a tiny wasp, which lays its eggs in acorns. As the larvae grow, the tree employs a defence mechanism by transforming the acorns into a kind of wooden cocoons called galls.

Healthy Acorns	Knopper Galls on Acorns

The wet summer we have had this year apparently suits this particular gall wasp species and the problem has become very bad, with almost all the trees in some areas affected by the galls, and few, if any, healthy acorns to be seen. In my own area of Surrey I have found a large number of trees with the ground underneath them littered with fallen knopper galls. In our earlier meadow survey we found a number of other oak galls, but no knopper galls, but this year they have appeared on one of the young oak trees in Huckle’s Copse, at the bottom left hand side of the meadow. There are still one or two healthy acorns on the tree, but most of them are now galls. The news is not all bad, however, as I found some articles on the Internet which described similar problem years in which acorn crops had been almost wiped out, but healthy acorns reappeared when conditions were better in subsequent years. The galls do not actually harm the tree itself, but simply damage its chances of reproducing through its fruit. Hopefully we will have a better, drier summer next year so that this little tree can produce a healthy crop of acorns again.

Spindle Ermine Caterpillars

In another earlier page we showed this photo of a web full of Spindle Ermine Moth caterpillars. These were found on one of the Spindle bushes in the hedgerow behind the meadow seating area. The bush was heavily infested with the caterpillars, but was removed with much of that hedgerow when the new seating area was built during the winter. We hoped that these insects would not spread further into the meadow, but a month or two ago we found one affected spindle bush a little way down the right hand hedgerow and while taking the photos for this page I came face to face with some of the Spindle Ermine moths themselves, in the bottom hedgerow, as well as what was probably an unhatched chrysalis. We will need to keep an eye on this species in the future, as the caterpillars can strip whole bushes of their foliage and we do not want to lose the spindle bushes, which give us lovely red autumn foliage and bright pink and orange berries to brighten up the dull days at the end of the year.

Spindle Ermine Cocoon	Adult Moth	Adult Moths

An upright, downy, aromatic perennial, a member of the daisy family, very common in Britain and found in meadows, pastures, roadsides, garden lawns and waste land. It has rough, angular stems and alternate leaves, which are finely divided, giving them a feathery appearance. It flowers from June to September, in flat, loose heads made up of individual florets rather like miniature daisies, usually creamy white, sometimes pale pink, or occasionally a very deep pink, as seen in the splendid specimen we found during our walk round in early August.

It has many alternative names, including Yarroway, Staunchweed, Poor Man’s Pepper, Carpenter’s Grass, Soldier’s Woundwort, Knight’s Milfoil, Herbe Militaris, Thousand Weed, Bloodwort, Nose Bleed, Devil’s Nettle and Devil’s Plaything. The Scientific name Achillea comes from the story that Achilles used the herb to staunch the wounds of his soldiers, and millefolium means “thousand-leaved”, referring to the feathery appearance of the leaves. The common name Yarrow comes from the Anglo-Saxon “gearwe”, and is thought to refer to healing or holy properties, possibly coming from the verb “gierwan”, meaning “to prepare”.

In early folklore the plant was said to be dedicated to the Devil, giving rise to some of the alternative names above. As far back as Anglo-Saxon times it was considered a powerful herb and was used in divination and as a charm against bad luck, illness and enchantment. It was later believed that if you sewed up an ounce of the herb in flannel and put it under your pillow your dreams would reveal a vision of your future husband or wife, and that washing one’s head with an infusion of the plant would be effective in preventing baldness.

Yarrow has astringent, tonic and stimulant properties and has been famous over many centuries as a wound herb, used to treat soldiers on the battlefield. In Scotland it was made into an ointment for application to wounds. It was said to be effective in stopping nosebleeds, by putting some of the leaves up the nose and conversely it was also believed that putting leaves up the nose would actually cause a nosebleed or at least bring on a severe attack of sneezing. Medicinal uses also included the treatment of kidney disorders, measles and other spot-producing illnesses. It was, and still is, made into a tea that was said to be effective against colds, fevers and melancholy. In the 17th century it was used as a salad ingredient and in Norway it was used against rheumatism or chewed to relieve toothache. It has also been used in the form of an ointment to cure sheep scab. Finally, in Sweden, Yarrow was given the name “Field Hop” and used in making beer, said to produce a drink more intoxicating than that made with hops.