Nature in the Lot (notably the Bouriane)

Indexes

2015-12-31T06:18:00.000-08:00

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The Sorcerer's Heart -Clathrus ruber

2012-01-08T01:03:00.000-08:00

My wife said "There is something odd in the hedge". We were in the car returning from shopping and just turning the corner of the lane to enter our driveway. It wasn't an old discarded ball but this astonishing fungus. It is astonishing at any time. But to see it on January 2nd (2012) is truly extraordinary. It is only the third time I have seen it. The last time was some years ago when I came upon a specimen growing just under the walls of the ruined chateau of Montsegur, That place is remarkable enough; perched high on a small mountain, bleak and forbidding. It was the last refuge of the the religious sect - the Cathars - massacred on this spot by the bigots of the Catholic Church.

Clathrus ruber is usually said to be a southern species desiring warmth. On January 2nd it was 4 degrees in the morning. So that seems odd. It is rare in England, having mostly been found very close to the south coast, though are a few records close to the east coast of Scotland. Perhaps it needs warmth during the previous year? It certainly needs warmth to let its stink pervade the air. For, so it is said, the spores are distributed by flies attracted to the stink. This specimen attracted no flies and I had to get my nose to within 15 centimetres of it to detect its characteristic smell of rotting flesh.

The specimen was no mean size, having a diameter of over fifteen centimetres. The cage like structure had slightly collapsed towards the left. It expands out of an 'egg' the soft papery casing of which can be seen at the base. The mass of spores immersed in a brown slime is contained in the very centre and this is surrounded by a the girders of spongy red tissue. This net of girders expands quite quickly creating a cage with the greeny-brown gooey stinking mass of spores (the gleba) sticking to the inside of the cage like structure.

It seems incredible that anyone would attempt to eat the thing, but I read from an American journal (1854) that a young man ate a portion and he suffered convulsions and lost his power of speech and became unconscious for 48 hours. Another scientific account details that the fruit body is more than usually rich in the element manganese. That does seem odd. Manganese is important in various enzymatic processes. Perhaps it is important in whatever processes make the net like ball expand rapidly?

Though it is rarely seen, It is usually found in places with much leaf mould.

Flies which distribute the spores probably not only do this on their feet but also through their digestive tract. I hypothesise, but it would seem not unlikely. You might suppose that the red colour (which is due to carotenes, and similar to the chemicals that make carrots red) might, in being similar to the colour of red meat, also be attractive to flies. But do flies see colour? If they do not, what then is the reason for this colour? Other related species have this same colouration.

By the 6th January the gleba had almost totally been washed away by the rain and the girders, now pale pink, were left with a consistency of polystyrene foam, not at all slimy and with little smell.

This article was first published in http://blogs.angloinfo.com/an-english-naturalist-in-france/

Bimonthly Weather Report November December 2011

2012-01-02T01:37:00.000-08:00

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December was by far the wettest month of the year, with 91 mms.
The comparative figures for the other months from January onwards are.
23,38,45,04,19,37,22,38,33,58,29 and then 91. == 437 mms (17.2 inches)
In 2010 the rainfall was 648 mms (157 mms in June!) == 25.5 inches
In 2009 the rainfall was 671 mms = 26.4 inches

December was also quite mild
The average temperatures for December (degrees C) over the past three years being.
2009 3.65 min/ 7.42 max
2010 1.61 min/ 6.52 max
2011 6.65 min/ 9.97max

Night frosts were 2009 - 8 2010 -14 2011 -2

Flowers open over Christmas included Mexican orange blossom in plenty, winter jasmine. Rose bushes are growing their buds.
The damned moles are having a whale of a time, as I write this on January 3rd 2012

You can eat any mushroom once!

2011-11-13T05:41:00.001-08:00

Monsieur Gouny, our neighbour, looked at my small basket of mushrooms and he said ‘Ce sont les rosés?’ – they are the field mushrooms? – rosés des prés’ ? ‘Oh no they are not’, I replied in French. I illustrate some here as they were growing. They look like mushrooms but anyone who ate them would soon be writhing with a highly disturbed stomach.

I have many textbooks on mushrooms and toadstools and that on the mushrooms lists over seventy species. Of toadstools as a general group, there are thousands in Europe.

The mushrooms, collectively placed in the genus Agaricus all have spores which begin pink but which turn to a deep dark purple to black as they ripen. The so-called gills which carry the spores change colour as the spores change colour. Agaricus mushrooms all have a fleshy ring on the stem but the stem in otherwise bare and has no enveloping sac at its base (unlike the various deadly poisonous Amanitas).

The numerous true mushrooms all look very similar. So, how do you tell them apart?

Well the ones I collected make the answer very difficult.

These were Agaricus xanthodermus, the so-called ‘yellow-stainer’. I fear that almost all living things come in a variety of forms and the species of mushrooms are no exception. If you read the books they will tell you that the ‘yellow-stainer’ has two marked characteristics. Firstly, that the flesh in the base of the stem when cut, turns chrome-yellow, and that the broken flesh has a smell of ink. It so happens that mine have no smell at all, and the colour change is extremely slight.

I illustrate a specimen which is shows a little yellow in the base – good specimens would be brilliantly yellow.

So it is necessary to look for other signs which are less obvious. The shape of the cap helps. This is not a smooth even dome. When young it has a more rectangular section. The sides tend to be almost vertical and the top is more flat. [The one marked Y shows this shape.] Then if you cut the specimen in half, the young gills are exceedingly pale pink. Lastly look to where the mushrooms are growing. Agaricus xanthodermus does not normally, if ever, grow far away from trees, whilst the ‘rosé des prés’ is found in the open pastures. The yellow stainer is probably growing around the roots of the trees and in fact helping the tree to obtain minerals from the soil. It is also itself in return obtaining carbohydrates from the trees. So beware of mushrooms which look like mushrooms growing under trees! The field mushroom is obtaining nutrients from decomposing organic matter, possibly old horse dung.

Above all remember that the best mushrooms have a red tinge to their flesh and will colour any water in which they are placed a pale pinky-red. The yellow stainer will never do that. All mushrooms can be placed either into the group of red stainers or the group of yellow stainers – which bruise yellowish,

Bimonthly Weather Report 2011 September October

2011-11-13T05:31:00.001-08:00

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These two months were appreciably drier and warmer than in 2010. That only 9 mm rain fell in September was remarkable. The ground became too hard and dry to work. Farmers are not able to find enough hay for their animals. By mid October there was no water left in the garden cistern. But on the 24th the situation was saved by heavy rain.

The Cranes flew south on the 16th and 17th of October, a little late for them.

Ground frosts occurred on the 20-21 October which seemed to suggest that winter was imminent, but it was a false alarm, and at the end of the month summer temperatures had returned.

The walnut crop was poor with very small nuts falling. The Hazel tree yielded nothing at all.

Weather report - July -August 2011

2011-09-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

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Bimonthly Weather Report

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These two months were considerably more wet than in 2010. The rainfall totalled 35 mms last year and it was 125 mm this year. This at least restored the balance of thedrought in the first half of 2011.

Unfortunately the vegetables suffered well before July commencedand although it has been possible to get some beans planted and crop, somecrops have been totally futile. The parsnips totally failed to germinate andthere was no attempt to plant a third time in July.

As I reported for May-June, the hay crop was appallingly poor.

Nevertheless some fruit crops have done quite well. There were quite a few plums and the walnutand chestnut trees will probably produce good crops. In an entry on this blog I have commented onthe fruiting of the True Service trees (Sorbus domestica). Their fruit crops are immense and branches are breaking under the load. Such also happened with apples and plums.

Partridges have been scuttlingaround as the car approaches along the lanes. But not immediately near thehouse. The odd hare scampers across thefield as I write this piece and we see small family groups of roe deer on some mornings from thebedroom window.

But it seems to me that insects generally have not been asprolific as usual. There have been veryfew sightings of the horse fly [I seem to think - none!]with large green eyes (Philipomya graeca). The Silver Washed Fritillary butterfly has hardly had a sighting, yet in previousyears we normally see several at once trapped indoors and trying to get out ofthe windows. There has not been the usual numbers of Marbled White butterflies. Small flies of thehouse-fly type appear to have been less abundant.

There was a fairly good cropping of fungi at the end of July some days after adownpour of rain, but it was not repeated after the 26 mms of rain on the 26^thAugust.

A few Cesar’s mushrooms were seen in July. No cèpes!

Towards the end of August a few Autumn Ladies Tresses(Spiranthes spiralis – an orchid) have appeared on the pasture and I havenoticed that some other flowers are flowering quite well at this time – Sickleleaved hare’s ear is fairly abundant in its accustomed location and the yellowOdontites is quite luxuriant.

The True Service Tree or Cormier

2011-09-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

Wild Plants of France 5.

This beautiful tree, laden withgolden fruits is growing at the far side of my daughter’s field. The locals know it as the Cormier. In Englandit is named in books as the true service tree. But few people will recognise it.

Once it was thought to be extinctin England. When I was young it was thought that therewas just one tree growing in the Wyre Forest near Kidderminsterin central England. There, that single tree was known as the‘whitty pear’.

Some time in the 1960’s Ihappened to read the work of Nennius (in translation) of the Wonders of Britain. Nennius was a monk who lived around the year800 in North Wales. He gathered together all kinds of scraps of information. I was trying to get to grips with the storiessurrounding King Arthur whom Nennius mentions.

He wrote in latin ‘Juxta flumen quod vocatur Guoy, pomainveniuntur super fraxinum in proclivo saltus qui est prope ostio fluminis’. Andthis is translated as:

‘Next to the river Wye applesspring from an ash tree on a slope by the river estuary.’

I happened to be living fairlynear the Wye at the time.

A friend of mine, a botanist,happened to be wandering around thedistrict and he found on the banks ofthe Severn very close to where the Wye joins that largerriver, amongst some scrubby andneglected patches of trees specimens of this same tree.

It could not be better describedas looking like an ash tree bearing small apples.

These must be descended from thesame tree or trees that Nennius describes.

The leaves resemble much those ofthe rowan tree or mountain ash to which it is in fact related.

The fruits are, unless ripe tothe point of rotting very bitter. Theyalmost take the lining off the teeth. Yet the Latin name Sorbus domestica reflects aculinary use. It is claimed that they werefermented to make a form of cider.

Thewood is fine grained and excellent for carving. But generally the trees end up as firelogs. In this district of south-centralFrance the treeis quite common growing on the edge of the abundant woods of pubescent oak. Most are felled in therecurrent process of cutting timber for firewood. There are few around as old asthis specimen, though the tree is said to live to 600 years andmore. This one is perhaps towards a hundred years.

Mushrooms make the French ill.

2011-08-09T02:48:00.000-07:00

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August 9 2011. In the past three weeks, 94 mms (nearly four inches) of rain has fallen. After the heat and drought of the previous months, this has resulted in a flush of toadstools of many species. Many of the French who retain a strong folk memory of starvation on a diet of snails, thrushes and toadstools, take advantage of this glut and invade the countryside to collect and eat. Unfortunately for them, the folk memory does not tell them the difference between the edible and the toxic.
Within the past two weeks the Centre of Toxicology at Toulouse has had a flood of inquiries on toadstool poisoning. Eight people were hospitalised at Cahors, four at St. Céré, two at Figeac. Village pharmacists all have a training in toadstool recognition, but few are thoroughly knowledgeable.
The local paper says that the usual culprit was the Satan's mushroom. What they should have eaten were the cepes.

To the left is the Satan.
It has a pale top about the size of a large dinner plate.The stem is fat and mostly red and the flesh is a bright yellow which changes to blue when cut. The pores below the cap are bright red.
The cepe is on the right. They can also be large, though usually a little smaller than the Satan. It is a brown colour. The pores begin white and turn to dirty yellow as they age. The stem is also a pale brown and the flesh is white and hardly changes when it is cut. The stem also has a net like pattern on it. I add that the stem of Satan's toadstool also has a net on it, though in that case the net is whitish yellow on a reddish background.

A basket of cepes

It is almost impossible for anyone but a total innocent to mistake the two. I suspect that the newspaper journalists don't know the cepe from the others either! The unfortunate people probably ate something else.
One can quite easily make mistakes of identification with other genera of toadstools, but anyone who is not certain should never eat any toadstool.
The cepes fetch large prices at the markets - ten euros a kilo is not exceptional. They are not worth it. Always, I guarantee it, if one shows a French person some toadstools in a wood or field, they ask "Can you eat it?". I reply - "You can eat any toadstool once!"

Weather May-June 2011

2011-07-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

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The drought continued. The hay crop was only 9 inches high. There is a request for anyone with a hay field going to waste to help out the farmers. There are quite a few English, Dutch and Belgian owners who do not use their fields. Of course they just revert to woodland. We allow the hay on our fields to be taken by our neighbouring farmer. It keeps our view open and we get a good variety of pasture flowers. The hay was cut just into July and yielded less than three bales. Last year there were 13 bales.

The orchids this year were almost non-existent, because of the drought.

The rainwater cistern of 42 cubic metres capacity is almost dry. We have not been able to water the plants since mid June. Since my daughter Rachel is growing cut flowers for sale, this is a serious matter.

During the first week of May we had the 'Vent d'Autan'. This is a powerful wind from the South East, rather like the Mistral in Provence. Fortunately it is not a frequent occurrence (unlike the Mistral, which can spoil any holiday in Provence!). It can be caused either by cyclonic conditions over Spain or anticyclonic weather over mid France. The wind is funnelled from Narbonne to Toulouse and then up through the departément of the Lot.

A hare seems to have made itself at home near to the house. If one approaches, it hunkers down and pretends that you cannot see it. If you get about six feet away it then takes off.

Bimonthly Weather Report March April 2011

2011-05-03T00:58:00.000-07:00

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March began cold. The beautiful early flowering St. John's Plum tree did not flower until March 8th. This wild tree whose fruit in midsummer makes the most excellent jam is often in flower in February (19th February in 2008).

Other flowers were also late - daffodils 14th March, celandines 18 March. These dates represent a fairly full flowering.

Our last ground frost was March 20th.

The cuckoo was heard on March 16th.

But then at the very end of March the temperatures rose significantly.

Summer temperatures came in the first week of April.

the first Orchis morio was seen on April 3rd.

The 6th April we saw the butterflies -Scarce Swallowtail and Orange tip.

The hoopoe was heard on April 1st. The nightingale on April 25th. It was a few days earlier heard at Lavercantière about 10 km away.

But April saw the beginning of a drought. Only 4 mm. of rain fell in the month.

It was the driest and warmest April in the last few years.

April 2010 rainfall was 13 max temp. 19.6 ; in 2009 -168 mm. and 16.2 degrees.

Our rainwater reservoir is in full use for watering the flower crop and our vegetables.

Bimonthly Weather Report

2011-03-04T01:13:00.000-08:00

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January was decidedly warmer than those of 2009 and 2010.

Min temps. in order 2.06, 0.58, and this year 2.87

Max temps. 7.23, 4.46, and 8.23

February continued similarly

Min temps. 3.87, 1.93 and 4.14

Max temps. 10.08, 7.96, and 11.07

However the numbers of night frosts showed no trend. 2010 had more frosts. In 2011 no snow fell in January/February.

Nature..

The 1st Viola odorata was in flower on the 1st January. The 1st snowdrop on the 16th January (as in 2009 and 2008) I was glad to see the local wild snowdrops which I transplanted to the edge of our lower woodland produced 8 flowers on February 7th (3 in 2010 on February 19th). It is always several degrees colder in the valley bottom.

Celandines in flower on 28th February.

On the 25th February a skein of about 50 Cranes flew North-East (1st March in 2010).

A Feather Beetle

2011-01-06T09:57:00.000-08:00

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Searching a sample of leaf litter which had accumulated in a ditch beneath oak trees, I found this odd little beast.

Its name takes up more room than the animal. It is less than one millimetre in length and you can only make out its structure with a microscope.

You cannot make out the details of the body because it is too opaque for the microscope. You may make out enough of the shape to see that it is an insect.

The remarkable structure is the great feathery excrescence at the end of the body. The books say that this represents its wings. There are a large number of ‘cilia’ projecting from each side of the two central axes. These 'cilia' appear to be hollow. Each cilium has fine projections along the length.

What can be their function? I discover in a Russian journal [Zoologičeskij žurnal 2008, vol 87 pp 181-188] that A.A. Polilov has examined the structure of these beetles, but little more is known. He found that many internal organs are severely reduced (even allowing for the minute size). He says..(I quote) ..”The most important among them are the following: the absence of midgut muscles, reduction of two malpighian tubules (i.e. the nitrogenous excretory organs), the decrease in the number of abdominal stigmas (i.e. breathing pores), the strong reduction of the tracheal system (respiratory system), the absence of the heart, reduction of the circulatory system …”. He also lists reduction of the nervous system.

This information may help us to surmise what the function is. The ‘cilia’ appear to be hollow and empty. It would seem unlikely that the cilia replace the excretory system. We know that the respiratory system of breathing pores and the air tubes (the tracheae) are reduced. Is it not likely that these ‘feathers’ are in fact the breathing system of this minute insect, and that gaseous exchange occurs across their relatively immense surface?

Then we might conjecture on the evolution of these creatures. Could it be that these ‘feathers’ are most effective under water? Is it that the beetles only live in waterlogged conditions or were their ancestors water living beetles?

It is said to be found in most regions of Europe and beyond into Asia.

Bimonthly Weather Report November-December 2010

2011-01-01T01:17:00.000-08:00

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November & December 2010

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Compared with 2009 the average temperatures for both months were about 2 degrees lower in 2010. There was about 10 mm less of rain in both months than in 2009.
This in contrast to the feeling that one had that we had more snow in December 2010, but the total amount was not measured. It was nevertheless very likely so. Snow fell on November 27th (5 cm), which seems to be unusual.

About six Lapwings were seen nearby on the 3rd of December, just after the first fall of snow from the 27th November to the 2nd December. We have only seen Lapwings once before, also following a cold spell.
Cranes were seen flying south on November 2nd and again on December 13th. That makes three southerly passages of cranes this autumn. (The other was October 11th)

LITTLE KNOWN MINTS

2010-11-27T07:23:00.000-08:00

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The odour of mint evokes roast lamb and Sunday lunch. Mint tea in the Arab desert lands is one of the most refreshing of drinks. Kendal Mint cake refreshes the weary hill walker. The plant illustrated here has the strongest and most beautiful minty odour of any though it is not strictly speaking a mint at all. If you live in the very north or east of France, or in parts of Provence you may not find it. In England it exists on the North Downs and around the coasts of Cornwall. This plant is the calamint (from the Greek Kala = excellent or beautiful plus mint).

In the 13^th century a herbalist who came from the town where I now live – Bernard de Gourdon recognised the value of this plant. The virtue of all mints in aiding digestion continues in the fashion of ‘after-eight mints’. Three hundred years later it was incorporated in a concoction of herbs used as a poultice to aid the cure of gunshot wounds – the ‘arquebusade’ .

The form of the flower is different from that of the true mints in that each flower has two lips and they are gathered in rather loose groups. In the true mints there are four small and somewhat equally sized petals arranged in dense groups or spikes. You can see this in the mint called Pennyroyal, the other photo. Again, except for the very north of France it is found everywhere on calcareous land. In Britain it has become quite rare having disappeared from most of its erstwhile localities. It also has a powerful smell and was famed for deterring fleas from the bedding. It is very likely that the Romans gave it the name of ‘pulegium’ for this reason (pulex = flea). The name Penny Royal, used since the middle ages, is derived from the early French ‘puliol–réal’ which possibly means the royal flea killer! It also indicates that its medicinal virtues were known amongst the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. In French its name remains la menthe pouliot.

In fields near my home, the sheep avoid the penny-royal. Possibly the minty smell generally repels the insect predators, for these plants seem to be fairly free from such attack.

Both of these species flower late into autumn. Other species of mint are more common and more spectacular; Apple mint, Pepper Mint (a hybrid of the next two), Water mint, and the most useful Spear mint which everyone should cultivate for mint tea and famously mint sauce, a desirable British addition to be encouraged in the French cuisine.

Pennyroyal Recipe for a weary stomach:- It is a worthwhile tisane. Place 30 grams (1 oz.) of the herb in a half litre of boiling water. Add honey to taste and drink warm.

Bimonthly Weather Report September October 2010

2010-11-05T02:08:00.000-07:00

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Though the temperature in October was on average 3 degrees below that of last year, there were no ground frosts. Last year there were several. However we live on a hill and those days where the overnight air temperature was below 2 degrees (3 times) would have seen frost in the valleys. Nevertheless we had last year a minus figure once. This year none were below 2.
Our first wood fire was lit on October 6th - it seems to get earlier each year!
Although rainfall was above last year, the ground still seems dryish. The mushrooms and toadstool appearances were very poor. A friend nevertheless showed me a good stand of Caesar's Mushroom - Amanita cesarea. This is an excellent edible mushroom. It is closely related to the poisonous death cap and fly agaric, but recognisable by its yellow stems contrasting with its alarming orange-red cap. It was growing with heaths on acid soil under pubescent oaks.
Cranes flew south on October 11th and November 2nd (next report). It was odd that these flights were so far apart!

Sceliphron - Potter Wasp

2010-09-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

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Any house owner would be surprised by a row of tiny clay pots lined up inside a fold of a curtain. When they knock them off and find the shards spilling out dozens of apparently dead spiders, they may be appalled. The culprit is the female of a wasp with an exceedingly narrow waist, which, no doubt with huge labour, constructed all the pots and stuffed them with a hundred spiders in less than half a day. Just imagine the journeys needed to collect the wet mud, and the spiders!

If the householder should find the adult wasp [at towards 2 cm long it is somewhat alarming], and hopefully has an inquiring mind, he or she might ponder- ‘With a waist like this, how does any food pass from front to back?’ Perhaps nothing does. I will come back to that mystery. But here we have an example of a creature which was first found in Europe (Austria) in the 1990’s. Since then it has invaded much of Northern Italy, southern France, Spain and parts of Central Europe, but its original home seems to be from near-Asia . This year it has been found in Paris and near Cahors and in Les Landes. It looks as though it will colonise all of France. This species may be an invader but there are various indigenous relatives not dissimilar. In this instance you will see that the waist is black and the abdomen has yellow bands. Some indigenous relatives have bright yellow waists and totally black abdomens or are otherwise marked. These most particularly occur in southern regions.

You can call it a potter-wasp. Inside each pot the adult lays one egg and then fills the pot with between 6 to 12 tiny spiders, paralysed with a nerve poison. The developing larva gradually eats the paralysed prey, starting with the abdomens, and in about a month will convert into a pupa and then into the adult.

Can that narrow waist ‘the petiole’ contain the gut, a blood vessel and a nerve? It is plain that no solid food can pass through it. It seems unlikely that anything much passes through it. It is as though the structure is little more than something like a tow-bar on an articulated lorry. The front end does the moving, getting energy from the sugar rich nectar which it consumes. The rear end is effectively no more than a reproductive structure, stuffed with eggs, rather as the lorry’s articulated trailer is stacked with goods. This ‘trailer’ will have nerve ganglia and possibly they control the reproductive activities. The adult insect has finished growing and has no need for anything much in its diet except energy, i.e. sugars.

Bimonthly Weather Report July August 2010

2010-09-07T05:31:00.000-07:00

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Drought is the name for these months. The grass was brown and the leaves of the oak trees completely browned by the end of August. The days towards to end of August were particularly hot getting up to 37 degrees on two days.
Our rain water cistern of 42 cubic metres was two thirds empty by the end of August. It was difficult keeping the vegetable watered.
An Asian wasp - Sceliphron curvatum was found in the house. It makes nests like pots out of clay and is spreading throughout France having been seen first some years ago in Austria. The more disastrous Asian Hornet was also seen feeding on our grapes for the first time. This creature eats bees.

The Wart Biter

2010-08-29T02:57:00.000-07:00

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The French nature guides call it ‘verrucivore’. The locals just call it a ‘sauterelle’. It is a relatively common beast in the area where I live. In Britain it is rare and in France is said to be declining.

If you have ADSL internet connection, I suggest that you look at this site:--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi6KxpUF06o

It shows an intriguing short video by Dr. Simon Robinson, senior keeper at London Zoo, of the activity of this animal chewing away at a wart on his finger.

The beast which when placed near a wart on the skin actually seeks it out and chews it! It then in this instance regurgitated its stomach contents over the wound which caused Dr. Robinson considerable pain.

I suspect that the extraordinary activity of this creature was discovered by chance in Scandinavia, but did this knowledge anciently reach France? The French nature books have surely borrowed the French name from the Latin. Linnaeus, who gave the Latin name, was a Swede, and he would know of this folklore, and he named it ‘Decticus verrucivorous’ , which also means ‘wart-biter’. A French text states “It is usual to let the insect chew the wart and then burn the wart by deposing the stomach contents on it”. Have there been then dialect French names now lost to us?

What, one wonders, attracts the beast to a wart? What is in the gut contents to cause such pain?

The photo shows a female with its long ovipositor sitting on a vine leaf. She will lay eggs singly in the stony ground. After hatching, the young will take over a year to mature, attaining a size of up to 4 centimetres. Note the blocky pattern of black and white on the wings, and also note the very long antennae. Together these characteristics will distinguish the creature from other grasshoppers and crickets. [N.B. the French word ‘criquet’ indicates the grasshoppers which carry short antenna - Crickets with long antennae are ‘sauterelles’ in French.]

This animal is a relative of the Great Green Cricket, which is one of noisiest chirpers day and night. This one is equally loud but with a rhythm of notes of an increasing rapidity. These ‘chirps’ are produced in full sun only by a males as he moves his left wing which bears a toothed rib rapidly over the hind edge of the right wing.

There is no point in sounding off unless the female can hear! These insects have ears which are found on the front legs just below the front knees. But things are more complicated even than that. The ear structure is rather like an ear trumpet in form. The wide end is not on the leg but on the thorax under the side flap which extends down from the back. There is an opening on each side which leads into an ear tube which in an ever decreasing width leads down to the leg and ends up between two slits which are visible below the knee. The sound is by this means amplified when it gets there. Oscillating membranes vibrate to the sounds and nerve endings send messages to whichever part of the nervous system is programmed to respond.

Bimonthly Weather Report May-June 2010

2010-07-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

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Summer arrived belatedly on the 22nd June. The overnight temperatures were about five degrees on average below those of 2009. In the middle of May the central heating was still in use. Sleet fell on the 5th. Rainfall was high in both months, with 67 and 157 mms respectively. In 2009 the figures were 50 and 38 mms. The first half of June was perhaps the wettest period we have had in 11 years. The exceptional fall of 54 mm on the 9th was in more southern France exceeded by many times that with serious flooding and damage in the Var region. But after the 22nd of June all was back to normality with no rain and finally considerable heat with the day temperatures approaching 30.
Natural History. The numbers of the green eyed horsefly Philipomyia graeca seem to be very much less this year. They fly into the house and get trapped on the windows. The Hoopoe (an exotic brown/orange and black bird, with a delightful crest) seems more common.

Bimonthly Weather report March -April 2010

2010-05-01T01:52:00.000-07:00

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Winter dragged on. The Cranes were late flying north. Often one sees them around February 25th. They fly in great V skeins cackling so that you hear them from a kilometre away. We had two flights each of several formations on March 1st and then much later on March 14th. The 1st cuckoo was heard on March 21st. The 1st Swallow on April 5th; Hoopoe April 9th; Oriole April 21st; and Nightingale April 18th.
No nightingale has been heard near the house up to May 1st. We had one last year. The cuckoos have not been so apparent as previously.
Butterflies - The scarce swallowtail seems early on 17th April; Orange-tips on the 5th April.
The beautiful tree - Le Prunier de la St. Jean flowered fully on 23 March - It was on March 14th in 2009, and in 2008 was in full flower on February 19th.
The peach tree bloomed fully on 25th March, ten days later than in 2009.
The first Orchis morio (orchid) was seen on April 11th and the first daffodils on March 4th.

These two months have been very dry - April saw only 13 mm of rain.
The first half of March was cold and raw with frosts on ten nights, one down to minus five. The first real change to Spring did not arrive until mid April.
The first daffodils came into flower on March 4th.

Bimonthly weather report January - February 2010

2010-03-02T08:44:00.000-08:00

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The weather has been hard. The first snowdrops showed white on the 23rd January, Not exceptionally late however in 2008 and 2009 they showed white on the 16th. No celandines have been seen, though they normally appear in February. In 2008 the wild plum tree (prunier de la St Jean) was brilliantly in flower on the 17th February- this year no sign of flower during this season. No birds sing until the 27th February when great tits do their sawing song.
Low overnight temperatures of minus 8 and minus seven are not exceptionally low, but the average temperatures were well below those of 2009.
At the end of February 27/28 a violent storm was experienced in West and North West France but the departement of the Lot escaped and we had hardly any rain and only a moderate wind.

The Wild Plants of France 4 - The Stinking Hellebore - Helleborus foetidus

2010-02-01T01:56:00.000-08:00

French- Ellebore, Pied de Griffon, Herbe à Sétons

From the beginning of the year, the stinking hellebore has been flowering in the woods and waysides of the limestone districts of France. It is not recorded from Brittany or Les Landes in Aquitaine. In Britain it exists sporadically in some limestone districts (e.g. Gloucestershire) and is declining. It is the earliest of flowers, but overlooked because it is not colourful and the flowers are lost among the other green of the plants of the waysides. They stand tall but do not attract attention. Its relative, the green hellebore is even more rare. But both are scattered throughout most of France where the flora is undisturbed.

The common culture of the middle ages across Europe is echoed in common plant names. Through them one can trace this culture back even to the Romans and Greeks. The French name of ‘herbe à sétons’ is reflected in the dialect names in England of setterwort and also oxheal. A séton (from the Latin seta- a thread- is a thread or bandage passed under a bridge of skin, lifting it and helping to relieve a festering sore. When a cow or bullock had an infection in the throat, a length of the black root of hellebore was inserted into the loose skin flap, the dewlap, below the throat. The herbal medicine passed into the blood and stimulated the flow of the phlegm. The name ‘setterwort’ takes the veterinary use of séton, no doubt via the Norman-French as disseminated by the monks, combining it with the Anglos-Saxon wort –weed.

All hellebores are toxic plants, but have been in medical use since early times. Quantities of the roots of the green hellebore were taken to the London hospitals in the 18th century. The word ‘hellebore’ used for several unrelated plants is originally ancient Greek signifying ‘dangerous food’. The Christmas rose is another species of the same genus. All have divided leaves much in the form of a heavily splayed foot or otherwise a set of claws, which gives them the alternative names of Bearsfoot in England and Pied de Griffon in France.

They are related to buttercups. A species whose structure is halfway between the two is the kingcup which has yellow flowers, but also carries capsular fruits similar to those of the hellebores. The custom in Nature, which is more common than you might think, is that ants distribute the seeds. These carry a large white oily growth which ants like to eat. Ants pick up the seeds, eat the oil body and leave the seed at some distance. But not only do ants do this. It is written that snails and slugs also are attracted to the oil and they get the seed stuck to their slimy skin and so also carry the seeds away.

As they flower in the winter, one wonders how they get pollinated. But in the warm afternoons in winter there are some insects about. Though books say it is bees which drink at these flowers, my guess is that it is the flies which come for the copious nectar. The nectaries are huge. They are in origin modified petals which have lost all pretence to be colourful and are converted to these large green cups of nectar. They look like medieval drinking horns and are at least half the size of the stamens around which they are clustered. The insects which drink are either immune to the plant’s toxins or the nectar does not contain them! It is the green outer sepals which at first sight you might suppose are the petals. In the Christmas or Lenten Rose (Helleborus niger) the same sepals are coloured and look exactly like petals. In the stinking hellebore they each have a purple rim. These colours and the fusty pong of the flowers might well attract flies. The green colour would help the production of sugar in the pale winter sunshine, and the purple rim might absorb some warmth. By mid-January some flowers have already set their seed. One could wish for a more attractive plant as a harbinger of Spring than the stinking hellebore!

Weather Report for November to December 2009

2010-01-03T00:04:00.000-08:00

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The dullest months of the year. In November there was little rain after the first week and no frosts at all. December was also very dry.
In December the minimum of the 5th and 6th were 11 degrees C and on the 22nd it was 10 degrees C. which were exceptional.
The relatively thin covering of snow (about 2 cms.) on the 19th December was early.
Natural history events were not exceptional. After the snow melted on the 22nd there was a large increase in the activity of the moles.
The catkins on the hazels lengthened noticeably.

The Wild Plants of France 3 - The snowdrop.

2010-01-01T02:10:00.000-08:00

French – La perce-neige. Latin Galanthus nivalis.

In 2001 a new drug, galantamine, was brought into use to relieve memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients. It is extracted from the bulbs of the snowdrop and its relatives. The Snowdrop has for some time been used as a herb in the Caucasus to aid the relief of paralysis particularly in those people struck down with poliomyelitis, the complaint which afflicted President Roosevelt. Until this very recent discovery to Western medicine, the snowdrop has not been considered to have any herbal value in the West. How many other chemical secrets lie unknown in our wild plants?

There are few plants which have not had some superstition, religious virtue or medical virtue attributed to them. In the middle ages, it was the beauty of this flower which gave it value. It flowers at the time of the feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, when Christ was presented to the Temple, 40 days after his birth. This is Candlemas or Chandeleur, the 2nd February. In this picture by Hans Holbein, the virgin almost resembles a snowdrop as she holds the Christ-child.

The link between the Virgin and the new beginning of the year, if you will, the cleansing away of winter; of the soul; and the snowdrop, is rooted deep in the Christian tradition. In the USA it has become translated into ‘ground-hog day’ when the prairie settlers looked for the appearance of the ground-hogs. Who amongst us does not look for the first signs of Spring and is it not the snowdrops for which we look? On Candlemas day the statue of the Virgin was taken off the altar and the space strewn with ‘candlemas-bells’ - snowdrops. The reformation killed this practice. But around many churches and monasteries the snowdrops were encouraged to grow and are still there.

In Britain the flower is probably only native in the west, yet today it may be found, usually growing near houses and churches as far north as Scotland. In these northern areas it rarely forms seeds. The bees do not pollinate and the temperature is too cold for seeds to form. It likes damp places by streams and probably in Britain it is spread by the small bulbs being carried by water. In France it is a wild plant chiefly in the west and central areas, but the floras say it is found ‘here and there’ throughout the country. This ‘ça et là’ description also suggests to me that a good deal of its distribution is again due to its beauty and its introduction by monk and man. There is a steep and stony bank in the Lot (46) where the ground is carpeted with them, and I know of another on lower ground. Here and there is an isolated group on a roadside. Why, I ask, is it not more common.? Why are they not on the banks of every damp shady ditch?

My guess is that much of the French countryside has through the centuries been denuded by overgrazing and many flowers which ought to be common have been eaten out. What might eat the snowdrop? It would most likely be an animal that might grub out the bulbs. Could it be les sangliers, the wild boar! Or the domestic pig.

The flower is relatively simple, with six ‘petals’ [the botanists call them tepals.] The inner ones are short and are not like normal petals in that each is tipped with green. The ovary develops into a capsule, and the seeds, commonly enough formed in France, each carry a small oil rich body which is attractive to ants. The ants carry the seeds away and having eaten the oil, drop the seed. Each flower stalk is borne from the bulb between two leaves and on the flower stem just below the flower is a green bract or spathe, itself formed of two fused leaflets. The ovary lies beneath (not within) the flower. That fact and the existence of the spathe places it in the family of the Amaryllidaceae.

There are two botanical mysteries:- It grows through the snow when the temperature is often below zero; how does it avoid freezing? The growth itself generates a little warmth and the leaves have hardish points. Both features help! It is conceivable that the green tips to the petals helps the flowers to resist frost. The green chlorophyll will generate sugar and that acts as an antifreeze. The green spots are also where nectar is produced and when the weather is warm enough, bees will pollinate the flowers; rarely enough in the northern areas! The second question has so far no answer. How does it remain dormant through summer and autumn and how does it know when to start growing out of its freezing bed?

If you want to grow some snowdrops, dig them up immediately after flowering and transplant them when still in green leaf. But please leave the wild ones alone.

The Wild Plants of France 2.... Holly

2009-11-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

Published in 'The French Paper' December 2009--- The Christmas Edition.

Holly …. Houx (French) …. Ilex aquifolium (Latin).

‘The Holly and the Ivy – when they are both full grown- of all the trees that are in the wood the Holly bears the Crown.’ Where began this traditional link between Holly and Christmas?

A long while ago I led a party of Germans from the Munich area through the Forest of Dean. One stopped and asked me ‘Vot is dat tree?’ Although surprised at what seemed to me to be a display of extraordinary ignorance, I replied ‘A holly tree’. ‘Vee have not this plant where vee live.’

Wow! I thought; Can this be true? As soon as possible I checked out the European distribution. He was right. The tree does not grow everywhere. Even in England, the county of Lincolnshire is not known to have hollies not originally planted by someone at some time. In France it is not recorded from the Cherbourg peninsula in Normandy (an oversight perhaps – can you confirm?). In the deep south it is fairly rare. In my area of the département of the Lot (46) I would not know where to find a genuine wild specimen. The home range of this plant is in Western Europe extending to Northern Germany and also to Austria – though not Munich! It is also here and there in the Mediterranean region and along the Northern coastlands of Spain.

With spiny thick skinned shiny leaves, you would suppose that it is adapted either to dry locations or cold conditions. Any evergreen leaf is capable of being a chemical factory for food production if conditions are favourable during the winter and they therefore have a head start in Spring over the deciduous leaves of other trees. It does not live in the coldest countries though it is reasonably resistant to frosts, so perhaps Spain is its real home of origin, back in the time when the Ice-Age glaciers first retreated northwards. The holly extended its range, following the warming conditions.

The custom of bringing berried holly into the house is said to go back to the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which became transformed into Christmas. The primeval and non-Christian reverence for this tree has been displayed in the Forest of Dean (my previous home area) to very recent times. At the Court of Verderers, still in existence, any oath was sworn over a spray of Holly.

The Christian association with holly started somewhere in Western Europe. Wherever it began, it is easy to see the symbolism to the Christian story. The red berries represent blood and the spiny leaves, the crown of thorns. But not all the leaves are spiny. The most strongly spiny leaves are those within reach of the hungry mouths of browsing animals. At the top of the tree their edges are smooth. An interesting adaptation, but how does the tree know how to grow the leaves in this manner? The most probable answer is that the tree would normally tend to grow fairly smooth leaves, but that when the branches are damaged, the new growth has smaller and more spiny leaves. So if you cut or chew the branches, then you get more spiny leaves.

The younger leaves are quite palatable to livestock. Farmers used to chop down the upper branches to feed their animals in the winter. The inner bark is rather mucilaginous. It was a country practice to strip this bark, boil it and let it ferment. It then became exceedingly sticky. This was used to trap birds – it was ‘birdlime’. The trapped birds could then be killed and eaten! You may recall the absurd words in Alice through the Looking Glass –

“I sometimes dig for buttered rolls

Or set limed twigs for crabs.”

The verse is meant to be ridiculous – but the lime was almost surely birdlime made from Holly bark. Its production was once a serious industry in the Lake District.

The red berries do not grow on all holly trees, because the vast majority of trees have either only male or female flowers! The small white flowers, which have just four petals, bloom in May. The bees love them. If you eat the berries, you can expect to have stomach cramps, diarrhoea or worse. Yet birds in winter appear to enjoy them. Where the thrush-like redwings migrate south and west in severe winters, they regale themselves on these. It is possible that the poisonous and bitter element of the berries becomes reduced as they age. You may notice that the berries of Holly or Ivy are hardly touched by the birds until mid winter. It would not be surprising that this is an adaptation which aids the dispersal of the pips inside.

There has evolved with the holly, as with so many native plants, its own particular range of fellow travellers, its parasites. The holly blue butterfly is such a species. This beautiful blue butterfly has a pale underside to the wings with scattered small dark spots. It lays its eggs amongst the flower buds of holly (and a few other woody plants) which the caterpillars then eat. But when the adults of these emerge in summer they then lay eggs on ivy – an unusual occurrence.

The dried leaves, used in an infusion are supposed to give relief from flu; it is perhaps as good as quinine in reducing a fever. I do not advocate this use, get a vaccination instead or go to bed!

Weather Report for September to October 2009

2009-11-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

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The weather records have a gap because the author had a gut infection on 9-11 - I do not suppose that any extreme islamist was responsible. Both months were warm. Evening wood fires were begun on the 10th October. Unexpected and severe ground frosts arrived between the 15-19 October which killed the leaves (I hope no more) of the young Paulownia trees which I had planted. Large Paulownias produce beautiful blue flowers and seem to be frost-secure. But young plants need love and care. The aubergines, remains of potatoes, and various annual flowers also hit the dust!
There was little rain except for the 18th September [25mm] and the 21st October [28mm]. The ground was hard and cracked.
On the 15th and 16th October large skeins of cranes flew southwards. At least 200 birds. They make a great noise as the fly, constantly cackling to each other.
Fungi are very few. But towards the end of October considerable numbers of field mushrooms [Agaricus campestris] appeared. The French call them Rosés des Prés. We ate some. But still as November arrives, few other species are about. No ceps have been seen this year, nor any Trompettes de Mort.

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Bimonthly Weather Report July to August 2009 Gourdon Lot, France

2009-09-02T23:22:00.000-07:00

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The two months were a continuous 'canicule' or heat-wave. Only two days had really worthwhile rain - The 9th August with 40 mms and the 25th with 13mm.
The maximum temperature averaged over 28 degrees C over both months, and the minimum was over 16 degrees.
Our 42 cubic metre rainwater cistern installed in 2008 has proved to be extremely helpful for the garden and we have not needed to buy any vegetables. Pests were not a problem until the end of August. I did not have my eye 'on the ball'. Colorado beetle attacked the aubergines and the 'ornate' bug Eurydema ornatum attacked first the Pak Choi and then the Purple Sprouting broccoli. This pest is new to me. I met with neither of these pests in England. The 'ornate' bug is yellow and black (often red and black, I believe) and is pretty but lethal. I did not observe it at first on the Pak Choi, though I was puzzled by the many pinprick holes in the leaves. Then, one day it seems, they multiplied in hundreds. The Pak Choi was in effect destroyed overnight and many broccoli plants had dozens of bugs. Again the aubergine were suddenly infested with Colorado beetles. I had to resort to a pyrithrine based spray. Then daily I still remove larvae of the beetle from the aubergine leaves by hand.
Branches on the peach trees have been weighed down and broken with the weight of fruit. The walnut trees are loaded with developing nuts and the raspberries have yielded heavily.
Roe Deer occasionally wander across the pasture, but have not damaged the crop. The birds are silent at the end of August.

The White Bryony- The Wild Plants of France 1.

2009-07-30T05:42:00.000-07:00

I choose to write about this species solely because when I looked with a lens at the male flowers, they displayed three apparent boxing gloves thrust towards me. The gloves are the three stamens. Why three? Unless the plants are monocotyledons where parts in three are commonplace, three is an unusual number. Two, four or five is more likely. The flower has five petals and sepals. In fact the three stamens consist of a fusion of 2x2 plus one free = 5. It still is odd.

As with other members of the family (Cucumber family) it has tendrils with which to climb. These tendrils are also strange. They start with a long thin thread which, when it hits a support twines, but the length behind behaves in a remarkable way. Somewhere near the centre the twisting changes so that the proximal part and the distal part twist in opposite directions. But the proximal portion does not always twist in the same direction, clockwise or anti-clockwise appear, it seems, just as frequently. The distal bit is always contrary to the proximal. So what controls what? After the twist is begun, the two portions twist more and more tightly, thus drawing the stem to clutch at the support.
The flowers are either male or female and are borne on separate plants. I haven’t a clue what pollinates them.
The herbalist books are full of accounts of the medicinal value of the plant and its power to kill. It is said that 20 red berries are enough to kill a human. The oddest accounts of it is speak of it as being used as a pretend mandrake root. John Donne, writing of the impossible, says ‘Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root…’ So the root of this White Bryony was paraded as the English Mandrake. The theory is that if a woman hung it around her neck she could become pregnant. The Mandrake, not a plant of Britain, has distorted roots which can have a human like form. The White Bryony has a huge root and it can be forced to grow into a human shape. We are told that pottery moulds in the form of a human body were made in which the root was encouraged to grow. It soon fills the mould. Such roots could be sold in unscrupulous pharmacies, so they say! I have dug up the root of the Bryony and they are certainly huge. They are very brittle. Their consistency is rather like a brittle plastic foam. The books give an account of a root weighing in at over 56 lbs (25 kilos).

Blue beetles on Artichokes - Hoplia coerulea.

2009-07-04T02:58:00.000-07:00

Hoplia coerulea

It was an astonishing sight to see these brilliant blue jewels of beetles sitting on the leaves of Topinambour (the Jerusalem artichoke), in June. A photo of a specimen does not reflect the incredible iridescence that comes with the sun shining on the surface structure of the beetle. For the colour is not within the substance of the surface but is formed by the refraction of the light as with a prism. In contrast the legs and underside shine like silver.
Several of these beetles were sitting immobile of the leaves. All were males. The females are apparently less often seen and are a muddy brown. I read that in museum collections of this species there is only one female to every thousand males. The males will sit on a leaf and hold themselves in almost a standing position on their hind legs. The larvae live underground. It is said that the female will climb from the ground to mate and then after a copulation of less than twenty seconds drop down again to re-enter the soil. [If the females are so rare, how does anyone know this?] It is further claimed that the males do not attract the females in any positive way. Why then, one wonders, do the males sit in such a strange manner on the leaves, and why are they so brilliantly coloured? Can there be any other reason than to attract the females?
It is classified with a subgroup of scarab beetles. . This species is found only in Southern France and Catalonia in Spain.

Bimonthly Weather Report May to June 2009 Gourdon Lot, France

2009-07-04T02:10:00.000-07:00

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May had mixed weather. Fires were necessary in mid May. Whilst we were on holiday in the Auvergne, the weather was poor in the Lot with considerable rainfall. June ended with heatwave (canicule in French) which extended into July.
By late June most birds seem to be silent, but the turtle doves coo in the woods and here and there the nuthatches belt out a wolf whistle.
I am astonished how fast the vegetables grow in the 'potager'. The pests are few. I picked three Colorado beetles from the potatoes, but there has been no damage. The cabbage white butterflies laid some eggs on the sprouting broccoli, but the caterpillars have been picked off by hand.
The green eyed horse flies (Philipomyia graeca) appeared on time from June third. They get trapped on the inside of the windows. All are females. Refer to an item in The French News past articles for more on this.

Bi-monthly Weather report Gourdon Lot, March April 2009

2009-05-01T08:45:00.001-07:00

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It was very wet between 25-29 April with 75 mm falling. The cold and damp necessitated household fires to the last day of April.
Birds first heard on:-
Cranes migrating to NE 9 March [Feb 29 in 2008].
Cuckoo 15 March
Serin 22 March
Hoopoe 28 March
Swallow 29 March
Nightingale 22 April
First orchid flowers:-
Orchis morio 6 April
Serapias lingua 14 April.

Another parasitised spurge – The Cypress Spurge. Euphorbia cyparissias

2009-03-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

Uromyces pisi-sativi
(infected plant on far left).

The Cypress spurge is common throughout France, but only occurs here and there in England and Scotland. It is a small plant with many crowded leaves which makes it look a little like a tiny cypress tree. Like the Wood Spurge it is also parasitised by a rust fungus. One photo here shows the normal flowers and the other shows a stem which is elongated and with yellow leaves. All these latter leaves are covered in pustules as in the infected wood spurge and the smell is richly perfumed though rather more sickly than that of the infected Wood Spurge.
There is a difference in the detailed biology. Rust fungi can have very complicated life cycles. That of the rust on Wood Spurge is simplified. It only has one host plant and the life cyucle therefore only occurs on that species. The spores are carried from one host to another by flies.
The rust on the Cypress spurge has two different host species and as in the life of many other rust fungi the two hosts can be very different. In this case the other host is frequently the garden pea. Other species related to the pea can also be infected. The fungus lives in the spurge during the winter and then flies or even bees carry the spores to some leguminous plants (like peas) in the summer. The life cycle continues on those plants carrying through a form of sexual recombination of chromosomes. Then a new form and generation of spores are carried to infect again the cypress spurge plants.

Wood Spurge - the Gardenia of the woods? (Euphorbia amygdaloides)

2009-03-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

The Euphorbias, alias the spurges, include some of the most statuesque of garden plants. And in the natural woodlands the wood spurge commonly strikes a dramatic pose. Its large clusters of yellowish flowers formed not of petals but yellowish bracts are eye catching. Each plant stands up to eighty cen-timetres high. Each red stem has a perennial drapery of drooping large thick, deep-green leaves which tend to be purple on the underside. The young shoots with their small, still growing leaves usually flop to one side. A thick white latex oozes out from any broken stem. This latex is extremely acrid in taste and can burn the skin. It is hardly surprising that one does not usually see any damage caused by predators. The plant is common throughout France, but in Britain it becomes rare north of a line from the Mersey to the Wash.
Here and there in most springs I see stands of the plants with the topmost drooping growth replaced with clumps of broader pale yellow/green leaves standing straight. The photo compares the abnormal on the left (plus one fly) with the usual form on the right. You might imagine that the yellow form was just an aberration, a variation, but then you notice that groups of flies are settling on them. I have also seen a small yellow slug eating a yellow leaf. Unfortunately when I bring the camera close enough to get a picture the flies tend to fly off.
But pick a deformed stem and immediately there is a powerful and delightful scent. In contrast the ordinary dull green and purple leaves smell musty and earthy. The odour of the deformed leaves re-minds me of gardenias. It is unexpected. One must suppose that the flies and slug are attracted to the smell and are devouring the exudations from the leaves which produce it. But what causes the smell? I remember the experience from long ago of a similarly strong scent emanating from a fungus disease ( a ‘rust’ disease) on creeping thistle. Indeed, examination of the leaves under the microscope show that each yellow leaf bears hundreds of minute red fungal pustules. These each exude an aromatic liq-uid. This it is a ‘rust’ known as Endophyllum euphorbiae-sylvaticae, rarely found in Britain. It only lives on the wood spurge and no other species of spurge. It has contrived to change the shoots of the spurge into yellow scented ‘flower’ forms to attract the flies which would most surely carry the spores of the fungus to new plants. I also wonder if any other animals would eat these soft, yellow, scented leaves?

Bi-monthly Weather report, Gourdon, Departement du Lot, France, January 2009

2009-03-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

To view statistics for January & February 2009 (click)
Both months were fairly mild. As usual December was colder with 5 cms of snow on Dec. 26th.
As is so often the case in early spring the days were bright with early ground frosts and the occasional day with quite warm afternoons.
First flowerings.
Snowdrop Jan 16th.
Daffodil Feb. 25th.
Celandine Feb. 26th.

The affair of the sap-sucking woodpeckers.

2009-02-05T23:55:00.000-08:00

On page 51 of Oliver Rackham’s recent book ‘Woodlands’ he writes of the sap sucking habits of the American ‘sapsucker’ bird. Then he continues to describe the antics of the great spotted woodpecker in the same context. As Dr. Rackham is the leading scholar in landscape history his comments must be taken seriously. He says ‘it is curious that such a conspicuous activity was not noticed in bird or forestry books down the centuries’. Indeed it is so, if so. Rackham states that the activity has been noticed in Central Europe since the 1930’s. He did not observe it in England before the 1970’s.
What is the activity? The bird makes a series of small holes aligned horizontally on a tree trunk. The holes are about a centimetre wide and deep. The tree is healthy and sap exudes out of the holes which the bird then laps up with its rather long tongue. The birds may make many rows of such holes in a trunk. In young trees such as chestnut or lime the bark is often somewhat smooth and the holes are then very easy to see. I have seen them in the Forest of Dean but not here in southern France. Rackham states that the holes ‘ seem ’ to be caused by the bird. That suggests a note of caution. When I first saw these rows of holes in the Dean an RSPB colleague suggested it might be the work of nuthatches. They frequently jam acorns into cracks in bark in order to eat them. Could they make holes in smooth barked trees in order to do this? But a little research convinces me that the wood-pecker is indeed the artisan.
A friend, resident in Bishop’s Stortford, who is an excellent bird-watcher drew my attention to the note in Rackham’s work, with some comment of surprise since he had not seen the phenomenon and indeed as noted - it is not mentioned in the general English works on birds. But I have found reference to it on both Swiss and Belgian web sites. Also I read in my popular French bird guides that both the great spotted and the black woodpeckers feed on sève (i.e. sap), though it is not explained how. Is this a longstanding commonplace phenomenon on the continent? Is it a trick learnt by the birds just as milk bottle top opening was a trick acquired by tits and then passed on from bird to bird?
The great spotted species [ pic épeiche ] is amongst the commonest of our woodpeckers. I illustrate an immature bird. There are two others which look very similar, the middle spotted and the lesser spotted. The latter is very tiny, about the size of a chaffinch. The larger species is more the size of blackbird.

The Lesser Celandine, Pilewort, French - Ficaire, Petite Chélidoine, Latin -- Ranunculus ficaria .

2009-01-05T08:50:00.000-08:00

It is a common flower of the early spring yet last year I found them difficult to find. This year, it is in abundance. But then the weather has been particularly mild. Botanists classify it as a buttercup, but apart from the fact that the flowers are yellow, one might mistrust such a relationship. Normally buttercups are poisonous, but the young leaves of this plant can be eaten in a salad. The glossy thickish heart shaped leaves often marked with a dark central stripe or whitish blotches are not at all like those of the usual buttercups. Buttercups have five petals but this species has anything between eight to twelve. There are three sepals (not five) hiding underneath the petals. The flowers fold up at night and in low temperatures. A further botanical oddity is that the germinating seeds only have one seed leaf. These structural features all suggest that the plant in evolutionary terms is close to the ancestors of both the two branches of flowering plants – the dicotyledons and the monocotyledons – the latter includes grasses, onions and lilies-.

But the petals reveal the buttercup relation. They are very glossy. This is unusual among flowers and a feature possibly unique to buttercups. One recalls the childish game, as common in France as it once was in England, of ‘do you like butter?’ as a yellow light is reflected onto a child’s chin from a shiny flower held below. The pip like fruits, arranged in a spiral heap on each flower base are also characteristic of the buttercups.
Apart from that there is some mystery about its name. The French ficaire and the Latin ficaria are said to relate to the form of the roots looking like a bunch of figs (Latin ficus ). Not to me! The roots are a tiny bunch of elongated tubers. Some ancient herbalist claimed they looked like haemorrhoids or piles. From that thought comes the name of pilewort. The French even list it as ‘herbe aux hémorroides’ . The ancient herbalists followed the misleading ‘doctrine of signatures’ and by the similarity considered its use as a cure for that misfortune. But the name ‘Celandine’ and ‘Chélidoine’ is from the Greek meaning ‘swallow’. Further confusion comes from the same name being used for a quite unrelated plant – the Greater Celandine. The only reason for this name which descends to us seems utterly absurd: that is the Greeks (as Aristotle states it) had a myth that the birds, the swallows, fed one or the other (probably the other) of the plants to their nestlings to improve their eyesight.
If you see this flower search for tiny swellings or bulbils in the axils of the leaves. One subspecies has them, another does not. They readily fall off and create new plants. But its seeds are mostly infertile. . In my region I have so far only found the subspecies without these bulbils.

The Fouine - Beech or Stone Marten

2009-01-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

La Fouine or Hêtrière , Beech Marten - or Stone Marten- from the German Steinmarder,
Latin -Martes foina

This animal appeared on the steps to our courtyard, looking uncertain in its movements and even perhaps ill. It curled itself up and went to sleep. Later it ‘toddled’ down to the back door, laboriously negotiating the steps and then curled itself up on the coconut mat. From nose to tail tip it was about 60 cms. long – not a small beast.
Believing it to be in far from perfect condition we gave it some bread and milk, which it ignored. It slowly went away again with a lumbering gait. Then it found its way to the other side of the property. In the evening it was eating the fallen plums. The next morning we found numerous small scratched out holes beneath the walnut tree of much the same appearance as a rabbit might make. The creature had probably searched for insect grubs and beetles. No doubt any unwary mouse or shrew also fell prey. But the animal itself was asleep near the washing line and when disturbed bounded like a kitten. The animal is essentially nocturnal and I imagine that its apparent lethargy in the day, was because we had disturbed its slumbers!
Anecdotes like this of the behaviour of the fouine are not uncommon. It can be domesticated, rather like its close relative the polecat, which after some generations of domestication has become the ferret. It is claimed that the fouine can live up to 18 years. I could not possibly approach it to smell it, but it is said that it has a not unattractive smell, unlike the polecat which stinks. Another relative, the pine marten, is very similar to the fouine, distinguished chiefly by having a yellowish bib, rather than white, and rather more pointed ears. It is far more wary of humans.
Before we had our roof re-tiled, fouines could wake us with a great thumping in the attic. When fouines take up home around or in habitations, they can cause damage. Insulation and gaines can be chewed. Bits of car engines have been damaged. The creature may be found in the heart of towns as well as the countryside. It has the English name of Beech Martin, although it does not exist in Britain. Whenever the English name Beech marten was invented it copied another ancient French name of hêtrière (of the beech tree). It so happens that the original Latin word for the beech tree, a name which continued in use in southern France, i.e. fagus became faîne in denoting a wood of small beeches. This word became fouine and so the name of the animal originating from the Occitan also means the creature of the beech trees.

The American Pokeweed, le Raisin d’Amérique, Phytolacca americana

2008-12-12T00:40:00.000-08:00

Whilst in these momentous times the thoughts of thinking people turn to America, in the French countryside everywhere, the botanist is reminded of North America. Over the years numerous plants have entered Europe from that continent. Ubiquitously, the American ‘horseweed’ otherwise called the Canadian fleabane is a gardener’s ever present pain. It is a plant without any merit. Others are striking and beautiful. Of these the Thorn Apple (Datura) and The Pokeweed absolutely demand your attention. The former with enormous dangling white trumpets, seeds itself in many fields of maize and farmyards. The latter, the Pokeweed, is far less common but even more dramatic. It can grow three metres (ten feet) high. The red stems up to four centimetres thick, leaves as large as spinach and long dangling racemes of purple black berries look threatening. On a woodland path a few kilometres from home I passed plant after plant. When I searched the French national database of plant records in my department (the Lot, 46), it was not recorded. In the 1930’s it was described as common in countries bordering the Mediterranean. Is this plant spreading, I ask? Probably yes. Most probably they have seeded originally from plants grown for ornament.
The descriptions of this plant are trailed with lists of its medicinal virtues. It has been used, and is still recommended by herbalists, to treat rheumatism, headaches, insect bites, skin diseases and even breast cancer. Investigations have shown that it could inhibit infection by viruses. As you might guess the plant contains toxins. The berries are eaten by birds and it is most likely that the spread of the plant is largely through this route with their droppings. The berries taste a little like elderberries though slightly more astringent. In the USA birds gorge themselves on the berries, but a friend told me that chickens can be poisoned by them and for that reason the plant is recommended to be ripped out in some districts in France. If so, what about our blackbirds and thrushes? At one time the Portuguese used the berries to enhance the colour of port wine; one must hope that is now a discontinued practice! The berry juice makes quite a good ink and it quite likely that the Declaration of Independence was written with it. In spite of the poisonous properties of the plant, the young leaves can be eaten like spinach. A Frenchman travelling in Louisiana in 1791 writes that leaves were a favourite diet of the creoles and negro slaves, though it was also eaten agreeably by the ‘whites’. It was necessary to throw away the first dark ‘bouillon’ water. I have tried this. The raw leaves are a little bitter, but after discarding the cooking water several times the cooked leaves have the taste of spinach.. The original tribes – the caraibes – called it ‘lanmayan’ though the word ‘poke’ comes from the Red Indian Algonquin name.
I remind myself that the new American President did not have ancestors who tasted this plant. He is not laden with the historical baggage of slave ancestors.

Chestnut woods in Winter

2008-12-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

In the Dead of Winter, Chataignier.

A bright day in December. Nothing moves. The trees are dying and falling to pieces. It is a picture of death. In it I read the passage of the centuries. The path was an ancient medieval road, which has witnessed the passing of villagers to market, rough bloody soldiers in the 100 years war, and throughout time the peasants struggling to their work. The particular species of moss at the bases of the trees shows me that the soil is acid and poor. Before the chestnut trees were growing here, it was probably a heathland, never farmed, but with difficulty grazed by goats and sheep. The chestnut trees were planted to produce food for the peasants.
The trees have been cut and recut throughout time (the process of coppicing), providing firewood and rejuvenating the trees to fruit more prolifically. A count of the tree rings on the smaller branches shows that the last cut was about ninety years ago, significantly at the time of the first great war, after which time the interest and the manpower waned. The original tree was probably planted two or three hundred years ago. Today no-one cares for the fruit or the logs or the timber. Coppicing probably would help to control the dreaded ‘blight’ which is causing the upper twigs and branches to die and probably has killed some trees. This same blight, originally from Asia, killed great forests of trees in North America and has been spreading in Europe since the 1930’s. The timber is useless. The huge cut trunk displays ring shaped splits in the outer sap wood, which the forester calls ring-shake. Any planks cut from such wood would fall apart like onion rings. The cause is probably more a reflection of the poor genetic nature of the trees than disease.
But also, as is obvious, the heart-wood has totally rotted to powder, leaving only the sapwood as a supporting ring. Even so, the tree may well have continued to live, had not the bank given way under its weight and the huge trunk fell across this pathway, still in use as for centuries by farmers going to their fields.
Nevertheless death and decay gives life. Woodpeckers nest in rotted holes. Their droppings add fertiliser to the rotting dust. Insects eat the rot. I search among this deep terreau which has a texture of potting compost for beetle larvae. One day maybe I will find the larva of an exceedingly rare black beetle, with a violet black colour which I know is found in such places, though to my knowledge it is usually found in similar cavities of rotting oaks . One day I may find Limoniscus violaceus. Ancient dying trees have their place in the scheme of things but their continuance is perhaps dependent on the hunters, who value the cover it gives to boar and deer. It is another phase of the landscape history.

2008-01-01T02:23:00.000-08:00

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