110/365 A smelly Saturday

20 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, plants, spring

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Alexandra Park, British flora, Bute Park, Ramsons, Roath Park, smelly plants, Wild garlic

It doesn’t matter what name you call it by – Ramsons, Londoner’s lily or Wild garlic – it smells. Some people even find the smell overwhelming but I don’t mind it, and when you see Ramsons flowering en masse, they’re really very lovely.

190420 ramsons (1a)

According to Richard Mabey in my ever-useful Flora Britannica, Ramsons were ‘unmistakable and abundant enough to figure in Old English place names’ and he gives the following examples: ‘Ramsey Island off Pembrokeshire; Ramsbottom, Lancashire; Ramsdell, Hampshire; Ramsholt, Suffolk; Ramshope, Northumberland; and Ramshorn, Staffordshire’.

Here in Penarth, the banks of the stream that flows alongside Alexandra Park are carpeted with Ramsons at this time of year, and their growth is also lush in the wild gardens in Cardiff’s Roath Park and under the trees in Bute Park’s woodland trail. Get sniffing!

190420 ramsons (5)

The teeny-weenies

05 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, parks

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#30DaysWild, 30 Days Wild, Alexandra Park, Elder aphids, leaf turning, Sycamore gall mites, wild places

My wildness was a little restricted today, on day 5 of #30DaysWild: I was dosed up on antihistamines due to a nasty reaction to Horsefly bites and, as even the non-drowsy pills make me feel a bit wonky, I just went for a mini meander around my local park, Penarth’s Alexandra Park. It’s a relic of the Victorian era – think topiary and bird cages, manicured lawns and artificial-looking flower beds – but there are also some wonderful wild areas.

180605 wild places

I wasn’t sure what I might find, as it was cooler and quite windy here today, but that also meant there weren’t too many people around to stare at me as I indulged in a spot of leaf turning … because you never know what teeny-weeny creatures you might find when you look at the underside of a leaf (or even the top side, for that matter). The bright reddish-pink constructions caused by one of the Sycamore gall mites were easy to spot on the tops, and various immature bugs crawled around underneath most of the leaves I looked at.

Sycamore gall nites

Immature plant bug

Aphid

My favourites, though, were these aphid communities. I think these are Elder aphids (Aphis sambuci) but please do correct me if I’m wrong.

180605 Elder aphids (1) 180605 Elder aphids (2) 180605 Elder aphids (3)

Winter heliotrope

12 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, parks, plants

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Alexandra Park, Dingle Park, non-native invasive plant, Petasites fragrans, Winter heliotrope, winter-flowering plant

Officially, Winter heliotrope (Petasites fragrans) is a non-native invasive; unofficially, I think it’s got a rather lovely flower, which is particularly nice to see in the dead of winter, and its vanilla smell is divine.

180112 winter heliotrope (4)

According to Mabey’s Flora Britannica, it was brought to Britain as a garden plant in 1806, and the GB non-native species secretariat website states that it was first recorded in 1835 – presumably they mean the first record of it straying outside the bounds of the gardens where it had been planted. Though native to the Mediterranean and North Africa, it’s made itself at home in Britain, where it favours roadside verges, woodland margins and rough grassland. It seems very adaptable: in my local area, it favours sloping banks, a sunny slope in Dingle Park and a very wet and shady, steeply sloping streamside in Alexandra Park.

It can be difficult to get rid of because it grows very readily from the smallest discarded stem, sending its ‘roots’ (actually underground stems called rhizomes) spreading horizontally in all directions. Sneaky!

180112 winter heliotrope (5)