Autumn Glory

This autumn is turning out to be a real beauty all around the countryside. The wet weather that we have had so much of this year has helped to keep the leaves on many of the trees well into autumn and as the days get shorter and the nights become colder the colours are truly spectacular. We can’t remember an autumn in recent years where the colours have been quite so impressive.

First signs of colour	Colourful Norway maples	Car park colour palette

Among the most noticeable of the colourful trees are the Norway Maples, first showing bright red patches on largely green trees, until eventually whole trees are ablaze with colour, especially on a bright sunny day, when we are fortunate enough to have one of those. It is members of the Maple family of trees that draw so many visitors to northern USA for the spectacle of the fall colours and even if you don’t normally notice the maple trees as you drive or walk around the roads and lanes, you can’t fail to do so at the moment. There are no Norway maples in Reg’s Meadow but we do have lots of them in other places around the Hawk Conservancy and they are doing their bit towards the autumn spectacle. In the paddock to the side of the lower flying ground the first bright red patches appeared on the maples, seen from the meadow looking across the end of the seating area, while behind the study centre the whole trees have changed colour.

Fetch a rake!.	What's underneath!

The maples in the centre of the car park are also colouring beautifully, with green, gold and many shades of red. The only problem with autumn leaves is that they have a habit of falling down and have to be swept up, a continuous job at the Hawk Conservancy in autumn and winter, but if you turn over some of those fallen leaves you can find all the colours that make the trees so beautiful at this time of year.

Colourful copse	Red oak

The meadow does have some colourful trees as well, but they are generally smaller and less showy, though just as attractive. In the copse by the shepherd’s hut there are yellows, oranges and reds, while the little Red Oak trees in Patrick’s Wood, the copse to the left of the seating area, is living up to their name and have bright red foliage, though the leaves on these tend to drop fairly early in the season and will probably be gone by the time you read this.

New on the Mound

We looked at what was growing on the mound in our June 2008 page and have been keeping a look out up there for any further new arrivals. We have a few to report, as well as some others which we haven’t yet identified with certainty.

Pineapple mayweed	Redshank	Hedge woundwort	Willowherb

More information about these and some other new species will appear in our December page, when we will give a review of the year.

Wild Mignonette	Weld	Weld leaves.

We were also delighted to find a plant which we had seen only once before, in the main body of the meadow, but growing this time on the mound. That plant was Weld, related to the Wild Mignonette which we find each year in the meadow, but the Weld disappeared after the first year and did not reappear until now. It is growing on the southern, more overgrown end of the mound, where we found several plants. It is very similar in appearance to Wild Mignonette, but the flowers grow in single, narrower spikes than those of Mignonette and the leaves are quite different. Mignonette leaves are deeply pinnate, or divided, while those of Weld are lanceolate, with no divisions.

Great Mullein	Mullein flowers

Our latest new arrival on the mound was Great Mullein, which we mentioned and pictured in the page about the Figwort Family in September 2008. When we wrote that page we had never found mulleins in the meadow and all the ones pictured were photographed somewhere else. However, we now have our own, very splendid specimen growing at the southern end of the mound, among all the nettles, docks and mugwort. A very attractive plant, with a rather downy appearance and large, showy yellow flowers on a single, tall stem. We hope it will reappear on the mound next year.

A very common, scrambling shrub, with arching stems covered in prickles, that grows in scrub, wasteland, hedges and woodland, familiar to most of us since our childhood days and bringing back memories of scratched hands, torn clothing and fingers (and mouths) stained blue-black with juice. It flowers from May to September and the fruits ripen from around August until October. The flowers grow on the ends of the previous years’ stems and vary from white to deep pink in colour, often with crinkly petals.

The plant we call Bramble or Blackberry is actually an aggregate of a great number of different microspecies, identifiable by small differences in stem, hairs and other features. Let’s not go there! - we’ll just say that we have brambles in the meadow and at this time of year they still have a few berries ripening on their stems and even an occasional flower.

The scientific name Rubus is the botanical name for raspberry, blackberry and other bramble fruits and fruticosus comes from the Latin meaning “bushy”. The common name “Bramble”is thought to derive from the word “brambel” or “brymbyl”, meaning “prickly”.

Alternative names include Bumble-Kite, Bramble-Kite, Bly, Brummel, Brameberry, Brambleberry and Scaldhead.

Archaeological remains of pips from various Rubus species have been found in sites dating back as far as 2000 BC and it is thought that although they were probably not cultivated at this time, they were picked from the wild.

In folklore bramble was considered a holy plant and it was said that sitting under a bramble bush would cure rheumatism, boils and blackheads. Picked at the correct phase of the moon, it was thought to protect against evil spells, and bramble was planted around graves to prevent the dead from rising as ghosts. Children were passed through a blackberry arch in an attempt to cure rickets, and in the Highlands of Scotland bramble switches were sometimes hung over doors to ward off evil. It was said that the fruit should not be picked after Michaelmas, the 29th September, as the devil was said to spit on them after that date and spoil the fruit. Sometimes the date given for this event is around the 10th of October.

The roots and leaves contain tannin and were used as an astringent, and for treating dysentery and diarrhoea. The flowers and fruit were used as a remedy for venomous bites, the leaves were applied to burns and scalds and the roots made into a decoction for the treatment of whooping-cough.

Various parts of the plant were used in making different coloured dyes and other uses include wine-making and delicious jams, jellies and cordials.