Autumn Changes

Walking past horses in a field near Downe.  30 September 2011.

This walk, on 30th September, was the last one to be led by Bromley Countryside Services. Their funding has been cut and no more walks or events are planned.

It was placed in the schedule by Ewa Prokop, but as Ewa left some while ago it was actually led by Jenny Price, who used to be the liaison for Jubilee Countryside Park. Jenny didn't know what Ewa had planned, beyond the hints given by the title and the starting point, so she took us around part of the Cudham Circular Walk.

It was hot and sunny, and the countryside was beautiful. I had been around much of this route before, not all at the same time but on various walks in the area, but some of it was new to me. There were some very steep hills ..

At one point we walked through the village of Downe, home of Charles Darwin, and along the path towards Downe Bank, the same path I took earlier with the Orpington Field Club. Two familiar horses were in the field to the right. The foal has grown well. We passed quite close to them, and they were much smaller than I had thought in June when I saw them at a distance.

Of course, there were many signs of Autumn to justify the title of the walk. I have shown several photos of fruits and berries here, and there are more to come. The image below is of Old Man's Beard, the wild hedgerow clematis. I showed clematis flowers in September; then, the plant deserved its other common name of Traveller's Joy.

Old Man's Beard, Clematis vitalba.  Near Cudham, 30 September 3011.

Fungi in Farningham Wood

Orpington Field Club walking through Farningham Wood.  2 October 2011.

This was a fungus field trip with the Orpington Field Club. Farningham Wood is one of the many patches of ancient woodland south of London, and logically enough it is on ground that would not be very profitable for agriculture; mostly gravel and sand, and some clay.

This trip took place after a week of unseasonably hot and dry weather, which is bad news for a fungus hunt. It's one of the few occasions when you hope that there has been plenty of rain recently. So we found fewer fungi than hoped, and many of them were dried up and dead-looking. But it wasn't all bad news.

The woods are full of sweet chestnut trees, whose canopies give a lovely green-gold light in sunshine. But there is an excellent mixture of other trees. Aspens and willows near the seasonal ponds; oaks and hornbeams elsewhere. There has been a lot of coppicing in the past, and although we didn't see any freshly coppiced areas, there was a big pile of cut trunks, so there is clearly management activity.

I took lots of photos of fungi, and a few other things, so I will show some here and some in a later post. Here are some of two different kinds of puffballs, both quite small and nothing like the giant puffball which is normally quite common in the woods.

The first, Scleroderma citrinum, has a hard and scaly skin; in fact its name means "hard skin." You can see that it has been split apart, and the photo on the right shows a cross-section, with the black spores developing inside.

When they mature, puffballs develop a hole in the top. The spores dry out, and any blow on the skin produces a powdery puff.

The second puffball, Lycoperdon foetidum, shown below, has a very different skin, and seems to be covered with small spikes, though they are quite soft to the touch. This one was growing on a layer of wood chippings, either chestnut or oak, where we found a few interesting fungi.

The chippings were under a power line, and were obviously the result of keeping the lines clear of vegetation.

Puffball, Lycoperdon foetidum. Farningham Wood with the Orpington Field Club, 2 October 2011.

We found both False Death Caps and the real Death Caps. First, the false:

False Death Cap, Amanita citrina var. alba.  Farningham Wood with the Orpington Field Club, 2 October 2011.

This fungus is normally yellowish, but this is a white variety. You can see that, like the famous Fly Agaric (a close relative), the veil that it bursts through as it grows is left in patches across the dome at the top. It has a strong smell of raw potato. It isn't poisonous, but it isn't tasty either.

Death Cap, Amanita phalloides.  Farningham Wood with the Orpington Field Club, 2 October 2011.

This is the real thing, and this is enough to kill a child. There are very few cases of poisoning in the UK, but it does happen that people eat it, mistaking it (as our expert said) for "God knows what." It really doesn't look like anything you would want to eat if you knew even a little about fungi, but I'm not going to attempt to explain why because I don't want to mislead anyone with false confidence. Americans, you will find plenty of it on your continent too.

Like the False Death Cap, it has a distinctive odour, and it's quite a different one. But an odour of what? I picked up three different descriptions of the smell: scrambled eggs, old faded roses, and stale urine. Clearly there is something organic and aromatic there.

Finally for this page, one of the wood's invertebrates; a fairly common hoverfly, found near one of the seasonal ponds, none of which had standing water, though the bottoms of some were still muddy.

Hoverfly, Myathropa florea.  Farningham Wood with the Orpington Field Club, 2 October 2011.

The top photo was taken with my Ixus 100; all the others with my EOS 60D and 100mm macro lens with ring flash.

Rosemary Beetle

Rosemary Beetle, Chrysolina americana, on a Grevillea in the back garden my house in Hayes.  23 September 2011.

I posted a photo of a Rosemary Beetle back in May, and here they are, still out and about.

This one is nibbling at the leaf of a Grevillea, Canberra Gem, a horticultural hybrid of G. juniperina and G. rosmarinifolia. Grevilleas are native to Autralia. It looks rather like a big rosemary, and that might have fooled the beetle, but I wonder if it will really like the taste?

Wild Service Tree

Wild Service Tree, Sorbus torminalis, at High Elms Country Park.  20 September 2011.

It may be called Wild, but this young tree is actually tame, having been planted here in the grounds of High Elms. It is scarce in Britain, and is usually only found in ancient woodland.

This is a healthy specimen, and is actually symmetrical. The only reason the full tree has not been shown here is that there was a car parked on the right, and the colours clashed.

The fruits of this tree are said to be edible, but only after they have bletted, a process of partial decay and fermentation. On the tree, they are hard and tooth-resistant. Allowing a fruit to go soft and over-ripe sounds odd, but it is required for a few fruits. Medlars, for example, which you will not find easily, as they were more popular in Mediaeval times; and persimmons, which are rather more common.

Berries of a Wild Service Tree, Sorbus torminalis, at High Elms Country Park.  20 September 2011.

Sloes and Damsons

Sloe berries, Prunus spinosa, beside a path in West Wickham.
10 August 2011.

These sloes are the fruit of the Blackthorn, a spiny shrub whose fresh Spring flowers I showed right back in March, here: Blackthorn in Hayes.

In this photo the shrub is growing right up against a green mesh fence, and it is regularly trimmed back to protect passers-by. This has not deterred it from fruiting prolifically.

Sloes are often used as flavouring for gin, and though it is less well known, the same is true of damsons, a closely related fruit like a small plum (the sloe is like an even smaller plum). A friend has an old Damson tree in her garden, and some years ago I tried this out, taking a bottle of gin, washing and piercing the damsons, and leaving them to soak.

I don't drink much alcohol, and some of them were left soaking for years. The resulting drink did taste good.

The tree shown below is much younger and healthier than Su's old survivor, but they both produce the same crop. Notice the spider's orb web at bottom left - they are everywhere!

Damson fruits, Prunus domestica, at High Elms Country Park, 20 September 2011.

Beech Mast

Beech tree, Fagus sylvatica, with mast. High Elms Country Park, 20 September 2011.

This is a good mast year, an old term for a year in which woodland fruits and nuts are abundant. And the fruits of the beech tree, Fagus sylvatica, are often called mast. They open and fall to thr ground quite readily. We do not find them tasty, but squirrels are quite happy to eat them.

I showed some beech flowers back in May.

Nuts of the beech tree, Fagus sylvatica. High Elms Country Park, 20 September 2011.

Hips and Holly

Rose hips, Hayes Common, 22 September 2011.

Two more of the many types of berry which are so prolific this year. Rose hips are sweet, tasty and nutritious, but the seeds inside are surrounded by tiny sharp hairs, and if you try to eat one whole you will have some difficulty clearing the hairs from your tongue afterwards.

Hips are a good source of vitamin C (ascorbic acid), and when I was at school, the children were offered 3d. a pound for all they could bring in. They are eaten and drunk in many forms; the ones we brought in were destined to be pressed to produce rose hip syrup.

Holly berries, Ilex aquifolium. Hayes Common, 22 September 2011.

Holly berries are popular decorations at Christmas, but some will fall, and they are also popular with birds, so there are likely to be many fewer than this when the season comes.

There's a spider lurking at the top right!