Moschatel

Moschatel or Town-hall Clock, Adoxa moschatellina.  High Elms, 20 April 2013.

 I went up to High Elms recently to look at some Green Hellebores.  Near them, in the shade of the trees, were patches of this delicate woodland flower.

It's only a few inches high, and it only appears for a couple of months early in the year.  The name Moschatel comes from a musky scent that it develops in the evenings.

The other name, Town-hall Clock, comes from the flowers.

Moschatel or Town-hall Clock, Adoxa moschatellina.  High Elms, 20 April 2013.

There are always five flowers on the stem.  Four of them, five-petaled, face outwards in the four directions, like clock faces on a tower.  The fifth flower, four-petaled, faces upwards.

It's interesting that several early woodland flowers are green.  This particular patch of woods is full of Green Hellebores, Dog's Mercury and this one.

Some Moths At Last!

Double-striped Pug, Gymnoscelis rufifasciata.  Hayes, 16 April 2013.

Brindled Pug, Eupithecia abbreviata.  Hayes, 16 April 2013.

At last, some moths!  I saw a couple in January, but it has been so cold since that nothing has turned up.  But suddenly it is a bit warmer, and here are a couple of Pugs, tiny delicate moths that tend to not actually enter the trap, but settle on or near it.

The Double-striped was on the wall nearby, and the Brindled was on one of the plastic sheets that form the slippery slope to the interior.  Clearly, moths do not find it all that slippery after all.

Early Grey, Xylocampa areola.  Hayes, 16 April 2013.

The Early Grey was inside the trap, resting under an egg-box, but was readily persuaded to sit on some bark for a photo.

On the same night, the bigger and more powerful Robinson trap was put out on West Wickham Common.  Unfortunately its top blew off towards the end of the night.  Perhaps because of this, there were only two moths present, both of them Oak Beauties. (For scale, that's the edge of my thumbnail at top left.)

Oak Beauty, Biston strataria.  West Wickham Common, 17 April 2013.

But a bit of wind doesn't usually deter moths.  And this one was in the grass nearby, so the state of the trap was irrelevant to it.  So perhaps there was some other reason for the low count.

Anyway, we didn't see an Oak Beauty here last year, probably because we started trapping after their usual flight time, so this is an addition to the species list.  They are not restricted to oaks as larval food plants, but this site is on the edge of an oak wood, so these specimens probably grew up feeding on their namesake.

Sweet Violets

Sweet Violet, Viola odorata.  Hayes, 12 April 2013.

This pretty flower belongs in the woods, and I was surprised to see it here in Hayes.  It might be a garden escape, but it might also be a leftover from before the building of houses here. 

It grows in several patches at the side of a footpath between two roads, just a piece of rough little-tended ground between the path and a fence, as you can see here.  There are also patches of Lesser Celandine, another woodland species, in the same place.  But no trees.

Sweet Violets, Viola odorata, by a public footpath.  Hayes, 12 April 2013.

The flowers are small and inconspicuous, which would not make this an obvious garden plant.  You can only just see them in the second photo, among the clumps of roundish leaves.  The dandelion and the discarded drink can are more visible.  But they are delicate and sweet-smelling when seen up close.

Stranded Worms

Lobworm, Lumbricus terrestris (?).  Hayes, 12 April 2013

After a rainy night it is not unusual to see worms on the wet pavement next morning.  There were several when I went out today.

Some species come partly out at night looking for mates, and Lobworms, Lumbricus terrestris, also look for dead leaves to pull into their holes for later consumption.  You can see them on wet lawns at night, heads out of their holes and tails still well in.  They are sensitive to light and vibration and will quickly pop back in, pulled by their tails, if they get one of these danger messages.

It's not obvious why they should come right out of their holes when it rains, but clearly they do, and sometimes this leaves them stranded on pavements with no obvious way to get back to safety.  I usually pick them up and put them onto some grass or earth.

I am far from being a worm expert, so the one at the top might not be a Lobworm. It looks about right, but there are other species.

Blue-Grey Worm, Octolasion cyaneum.  Hayes, 12 April 2013.

Here is one such.  This was also on a pavement this morning.  The telltale feature of this species is the group of yellowish segments at the tip of its tail.

Like the other stranded worms, it was fully extended, trying in vain to travel to a safer environment.  It was lucky I came along.  There don't seem to be many worm rescuers round these parts.

Back at the Turn of the Year

White-flowered Camellia in Church House Gardens on 2 January 2013.

I'm writing on the 5th of April.  While we wait for it to stop snowing, here's a photo from the very start of January.

This shrub is in a park in Bromley.  It was a gloomy day, though not quite so gloomy as this flash photo, taken with my little Ixus 100, makes it seem.  I was surprised to find anything flowering like this at the turn of the year.  Definitely not a native plant!

Most garden Camellias are showy, multi-petalled, double-flowered types, but I like this better.

Roadside Flowers, March 2013

Some roadside flowers in Hayes on 28 March 2013.

In the countryside this year is getting off to a very slow start.  In theory I could start my butterfly transects now, but the chance of the temperature reaching 13 degrees (17 degrees if it's not sunny) is minimal.  But in the suburbs, quite a lot is happening in places that people rarely look.

I walked around my block and photographed plants flowering on the roadside verges.  In this composite picture there are (clockwise from top left:)

Oregon Grape - a garden escape.  Lesser Celandine, a woodland plant.  Greater Periwinkle, another garden escape.  Green Alkanet.  Dog's Mercury, another woodland plant.  Common Chickweed.  Groundsel.  Common Field Speedwell.  Red Dead-nettle.  Dandelion.  A cherry shrub (this is a bit of a cheat; it was probably planted to help make up a hedgerow, but still, it's in flower and I know its close relations are flowering now in the wild.)  Daisy.  And Shepherd's Purse.

The Lesser Celandine and Dog's Mercury are growing near trees.  Perhaps there was woodland here before the houses were built.

A Lone Hellebore

Corsican Hellebore, Helleborus argutifolius, at Hayes Station, Kent.  26 March 2013.

I spotted this plant yesterday while going for a train.  It's in the waste ground on the far side of the railway track at Hayes Station.   The track on this side, and fencing on the other, prevent access, so I walked round today with a  long lens to get a good photo.

At first I thought it was a Green Hellebore, Helleborus viridis, a native species which is often found as a garden escape.  But Green Hellebore's flowers don't have that whitish colour on the outer surface, and while the leaves are toothed, they don't have the spiky look that these do.

There is nothing helpful in Francis Rose's "The Wild Flower Key," which is a standard field guide, but that doesn't include everything you might find.  For that you have to turn to Stace's "New Flora of the British Isles,"  3rd edition, which includes many hybrids and garden escapes.  That's where I found the Corsican Hellebore, with a matching description. "Introduced (...) Grown in gardens, rarely naturalised in marginal habitats." 

But there might be other cultivated varieties not even in Stace.  There is one in my garden that I once confidently identified as H. niger which I now think is actually a horticultural variety. So I checked photos on line - reasonably convincing - and put a photo on iSpot.  I got some agreements straight away, and I am now happy that H. argutifolius is a correct identification.

In this position it can't have been planted on purpose.  It's just one stem, so it will be interesting to see if it survives and spreads.  I don't think it can really be counted as "naturalised" unless it does.