Only a relatively steady walk with Monty today through the "strawberry fields" owned by Hugh Lowe Farms on the Lower Greensand Ridge. The farm is rather well off for hedgerows and shaws, useful to shield the poly-tunnels they use to grow the strawberries in, from spoiling the long-distance views.
The farm is partly on the South-facing slope of the ridge, between West Peckham half way up the hill and Hadlow down on the Medway Floodplain. I parked at West Peckham, where they were playing cricket on the green in front of the pub, and walked downhill along the footpath with high hedges either side until I broke out into the open arable land just above the earth-bank reservoir put in to irrigate the strawberries, and Hazel Wood just alongside it.
I had a quick look at the reservoir hoping for some migrant waders, but only accidentally put up a young cormorant, which circled rapidly to gain height and then flew off. Along the tracks alongside the reservoir there were hundreds of Bristly Ox-tongue plants, Picris echioides, with remarkably variable degrees of green and red in their stems, ranging from one extreme to another in different plants just next to each other. Their bristly leaves are pretty characteristic, only Bristly Ox-tongue has these unusual prickly spines arising from raised white welts on the upper leaf surface, as well as many further spines on the margin of the leaf!
Of all the many plants I saw during this walk (between 4 and 6 p.m., in the late afternoon) only one flowerhead was open, presumably because of the time of day to which the individual plants are almost universally tied in their rythms. This was the still open flowerhead, with the Y-shaped styles of many of the florets still open, seeking pollination,
while all the other flowerheads were closed up ready for the cool and moisture of the night. At this stage the spiny inner and outer bracts are both held upright around the flower in protective "vases".
Once the individual florets in a head are fertilised each floret develops into a dry single-seeded fruit called an achene, each with its own built-in parachute attached above it for dispersal. The fruiting heads of the parachutes, each with dozens of individual achenes are similar to the well-known dandelion "clock", as shown in the photo of a Bristly Ox-tongue fruiting head below. There are very green stems on this particular plant in comparison to many others which are much redder. The other thing to notice is how the spiny inner and outer bracts have now both turned down, and the platform of the "receptacle" that all the achenes are sitting on has now been pushed up and expanded into a very flat dome, presumably all to allow the easier dispersal of the parachutes:
The individual achenes are much more clearly seen when half of them are removed, for example by the breeze, as in this particular fruiting head here
Specifically for Bristly Oxtongue, amongst half a dozen of its very similar-looking relatives, each achene has an extended neck about its own length again, connecting it to its parachute, which consist of many individually feathered plumes (the feathering is visible if you magnify the image further) to aid the "floating" effect that we all marvel at as they drift past us in the slightest breeze. I think that they are incredibly beautiful in their utilitarian design, when seen in this close-up detail!
A receptacle emptied of achenes has the abandoned look of a rusting launch-pad from which the rockets have been fired, and for which there is no more funding for future missions!
Note the very vibrant red in this particular plant's stems, so different from the green-stemmed plants photographed above!
The only butterflies I saw were Meadow Browns, with Gatekeepers and Small and Lrge Whites all in reasonable numbers. There were hardly any hoverflies about, and no dragonflies to be seen at all. There was however a small and predominantly orange solitary wasp seen on hogweed flower umbels on many of the field margins, which I think is new to me (STOP PRESS - this is a sawfly, and most likely to be the turnip sawfly, Agre rosae as only its shoulders are black, not the whole top of the thorax as in the rose sawfly Agre Ochropus - see next post !!!):
and there were plenty of blackberries, some of which I sampled!
The farm is partly on the South-facing slope of the ridge, between West Peckham half way up the hill and Hadlow down on the Medway Floodplain. I parked at West Peckham, where they were playing cricket on the green in front of the pub, and walked downhill along the footpath with high hedges either side until I broke out into the open arable land just above the earth-bank reservoir put in to irrigate the strawberries, and Hazel Wood just alongside it.
I had a quick look at the reservoir hoping for some migrant waders, but only accidentally put up a young cormorant, which circled rapidly to gain height and then flew off. Along the tracks alongside the reservoir there were hundreds of Bristly Ox-tongue plants, Picris echioides, with remarkably variable degrees of green and red in their stems, ranging from one extreme to another in different plants just next to each other. Their bristly leaves are pretty characteristic, only Bristly Ox-tongue has these unusual prickly spines arising from raised white welts on the upper leaf surface, as well as many further spines on the margin of the leaf!
Of all the many plants I saw during this walk (between 4 and 6 p.m., in the late afternoon) only one flowerhead was open, presumably because of the time of day to which the individual plants are almost universally tied in their rythms. This was the still open flowerhead, with the Y-shaped styles of many of the florets still open, seeking pollination,
while all the other flowerheads were closed up ready for the cool and moisture of the night. At this stage the spiny inner and outer bracts are both held upright around the flower in protective "vases".
Once the individual florets in a head are fertilised each floret develops into a dry single-seeded fruit called an achene, each with its own built-in parachute attached above it for dispersal. The fruiting heads of the parachutes, each with dozens of individual achenes are similar to the well-known dandelion "clock", as shown in the photo of a Bristly Ox-tongue fruiting head below. There are very green stems on this particular plant in comparison to many others which are much redder. The other thing to notice is how the spiny inner and outer bracts have now both turned down, and the platform of the "receptacle" that all the achenes are sitting on has now been pushed up and expanded into a very flat dome, presumably all to allow the easier dispersal of the parachutes:
The individual achenes are much more clearly seen when half of them are removed, for example by the breeze, as in this particular fruiting head here
Specifically for Bristly Oxtongue, amongst half a dozen of its very similar-looking relatives, each achene has an extended neck about its own length again, connecting it to its parachute, which consist of many individually feathered plumes (the feathering is visible if you magnify the image further) to aid the "floating" effect that we all marvel at as they drift past us in the slightest breeze. I think that they are incredibly beautiful in their utilitarian design, when seen in this close-up detail!
A receptacle emptied of achenes has the abandoned look of a rusting launch-pad from which the rockets have been fired, and for which there is no more funding for future missions!
Note the very vibrant red in this particular plant's stems, so different from the green-stemmed plants photographed above!
The only butterflies I saw were Meadow Browns, with Gatekeepers and Small and Lrge Whites all in reasonable numbers. There were hardly any hoverflies about, and no dragonflies to be seen at all. There was however a small and predominantly orange solitary wasp seen on hogweed flower umbels on many of the field margins, which I think is new to me (STOP PRESS - this is a sawfly, and most likely to be the turnip sawfly, Agre rosae as only its shoulders are black, not the whole top of the thorax as in the rose sawfly Agre Ochropus - see next post !!!):
and there were plenty of blackberries, some of which I sampled!
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