FRAXINUS EXCELSIOR
Young glossy green fruits of 'Ash' (FRAXINUS EXCELSIOR) photographed late May 2015
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ARUM MACULATUM
'Lords and Ladies' (ARUM MACULATUM)
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ANTHRISCUS SYLVESTRIS
'Cow Parsley' (ANTHRISCUS SYLVESTRIS)
Very common in Buckinghamshire woods, hedges, roadsides & churchyards; Druce found this abundant and generally distributed in rich, moist soil, preferring shade and shelter; in field it may often be found growing in those portions shaded by a clump of trees, while in the unshaded portions it is absent; doubtless in the past sheep, in seeking shelter, help to scatter its fruits, but these do not survive the competition of grasses etc. in unshaded parts; it is the earliest of our native umbellifers to flower and commonest in low lying parts of Buckinghamshire
Note prominent white hairs where leaf-stalk meet stem
Immature oblong-ovoid fruits, very shortly beaked; styles spreading, slender
Several ovate bracteoles, aristate, fringed, often pink (it is great to be able to illustrate such close-up characters, which help confirm an identification compared with the photos within Roger Philipp's WILD FLOWERS OF BRITAIN published in 1977, which I still use to this day). I was able to observe such details using a x10 or x20 hand lens but there were few guides showing such 'magnified' characteristics (the Botanical Society of the British Isle did produce a guide to the UMBELLIFERAE [now APIACEAE] family illustrated by line-drawings which included close-ups of fruits, aware that many genera and species were challenging to identify with confidence. Not everyone had ready access to pressed specimens in herbaria to compare samples with.
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CONIUM MACULATUM
Another umbellifer to name - initially I wondered if this was something NEW to me but concluded it was just a young form of 'Hemlock' (CONIUM MACULATUM)
Pretty white flowers
Characteristic purple blotches on the stem
I am more accustomed to larger, more robust forms taller than I am
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ALLIARIA PETIOLATA
'Hedge Garlic' or 'Jack-by-the-hedge' (ALLIARIA PETIOLATA)
Very common at woodland margins and hedgerows in Buckinghamshire; Druce recorded it as common and generally distributed a century ago; the name 'Jack-by-the-Hedge' is a variant of the old Herbe John, a name used for it in Hampshire in the early seventeenth century; there is a specimen of it in the Natural History Museum herbarium collected by Sir Joseph Banks at Salt Hill (Slough) about 1780
The white petals are twice as long as the sepals
Young fruits, which become prominent later in year (will photograph examples) by curving at base so as to stand almost erect, along with foliage which turns yellowish
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EUPHORBIA AMYGYDALOIDES
'Wood Spurge' (EUPHORBIA AMYGYDALOIDES)
Photographed in Upper Inhams Copse, Hampshire
Glands lunate with converging horns
AJUGA REPTANS
'Bugle' (AJUGA REPTANS)
Photographed in Upper Inhams Copse, Hampshire
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HYACINTHOIDES NON-SCRIPTA
Bluebell
HYACINTHOIDES NON-SCRIPTA
In Druce's day blue bells were known as SCILLA NON-SCRIPTA (when I began taking an interest in plants it was ENDYMION NON-SCRIPTUS); a century ago it was abundant and widely distributed in woods, thickets, coppices, hedges, bushy heaths and commons in Buckinghamshire; a great glory in woods at that time, preferring shade and shelter and leaf mould soil. Its presence in pastures suggests they were once woodland; nowadays it is not as abundant - particular in areas where habitation has expanded, with a reduction in woodland and presumably it has been trampled badly in many woods frequented by people
Young ovoid fruits
The remains of bluebell foliage on a woodland floor; bluebells are part of the pre-vernal spring flora which brightens up our woods prior to or just as trees are coming into leaf, when light is available in abundance but then it dies back (or in the case of bluebells, retreats back into its bulb to avoid months of heavy shade)
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CHELIDONIUM MAJUS
'Greater Celandine' (CHELIDONIUM MAJUS) - an attractive member of the poppy family
Druce found this common and widely distributed in hedges and banks near villages, preferring shelter and partial shade in Buckinghamshire a century ago
Petals bright yellow, broadly obovate; stamens yellow, filaments thickened above; sepals greenish-yellow +/- hairy
leaves almost pinnate, with 5-7 ovate to blong leaflets; terminal leaflets 3-lobed
I can find no reference to the abundance of soft white hairs on the specimen above within 'Flora of the British Isles'
Greater Celandine colonising a tree-trunk at the edge of a wood in Surrey
Certainly never come across a clump like this before....
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EUONYMUS EUROPEAUS
Spindle (EUONYMUS EUROPEAUS) - Druce found this locally common and widely distrubted, especially on calcareous soils in Buckinghamshire
A great adornment to autumn hedgerows a century ago but less common these days; it grew in the past along the woodland ride at Old Slade Lane Nature Reserve, Richings Park in the 1980s but like many species, is no more - as the ride has almost become a paved short-cut for workers in an industrial area and the reserve was abandoned by the then Berks, Bucks & Oxon Naturalist Trust for massive gravel extraction - admittedly the reserve had begun life, primarily for bird-life after a smaller-scale gravel extraction. Bill Watkin-Williams, the Warden, who enlisted my help to produce a check-list of plants to attempt to fight to save the reserve, would, like me, be depressed.....
Deep pink fruits, 4-lobed, exposing bright orange aril after opening
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FRAXINUS EXCELSIOR
Ash (FRAXINUS EXCELSIOR) - distinctive large black buds which identify the tree with certainty even during winter months when leaves have dropped
Imparipinnate leaves with lanceolate to ovate, serrate leaflets
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Chris walking along a canal beside woodland, Iver (Photo: © Matthew Chadwell)
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CARPINUS BETULUS
Hornbeam (CARPINUS BETULUS)
Small nuts developing within 3-lobed bract-like involucres
'Hornbeam' (CARPINUS BETULUS)
Joseph Chadwell examining foliage of Hornbeam
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CORNUS SANGUINEA
