BOTANY ON THE MALVERN HILLS
All information supplied by Keith Barnett & from his book"The Wild Flowers of the Malvern Hills"
Photographs by Keith Barnett
The wild flowers to look out for month by month
JUNE
Ivy-leaved Toadflax Cymbalaria muralis P. Gaertn., B. Mey. & Scherb
Ivy-leaved Toadflax is a native of Southern Europe that was introduced into British gardens before 1602. Records from the wild (Hertfordshire) date from 1640. It has snapdragon-like whitish-purple flowers with a yellow centre and trailing, often purplish-tinged, stems with long-stalked more or less ivy-shaped leaves. It is now thoroughly at home in Malvern on old stone walls and in other stony places. After fertilisation, the plant's reaction to light is so altered that instead of its stem growing as before towards the light it bends away from it, to bury its seeds in some dark cranny. An old Worcestershire name is Mother of Thousands.
Oxford Ragwort Senecio squalidus L.
Oxford Ragwort is a native of southern Italy and Sicily including the volcanic cinders of Mounts Vesuvius and Etna. It was recorded on walls in Oxford as an escape in 1794 from the Oxford Botanic Garden where it had been cultivated since the 17th century. Since then it has made phenomenal progress, spreading along the ballast of the old Great Western Railway, first becoming established in Oxford and Bideford, and also by some other means in Cork in Ireland. Thereafter its fluffy seeds caught readily on the wind led to its arrival elsewhere in Britain. Its bright yellow daisy-like flowers can now often be seen on and at the foot of walls in Malvern, as well as in some old quarries.
Pellitory-of-the-wall Parietaria judaica L.
Although not particularly colourful, Pellitory-of-the-wall is a feature of many of the old garden and church walls of Malvern, and is also found in other rocky places and shady hedgebanks. It is a much-branched plant with slightly glossy and softly hairy leaves and clusters of tiny greenish-pinkish-brownish flowers with yellow anthers. Under the sympathetic magic of the old Doctrine of Signatures, its presence in stony places suggested a remedy for kidney stones and other urinary complaints, and also gallstones. Ben Jonson was referring to this widely held belief when he wrote in The Alchemist (1610)
| A good old woman...did cure me With soddenale and pellitorie o' the wall |
('Soddenale' was boiled ale)
2005 INDEX
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