The fifth Hypericacea

Fueled by a breakfast of chocolate pudding and gooseberry ice-cream, I've done some scything of long grass and rushes today on the front bank. Near the top of the bank I found the Boggy Brae's fifth member of the Hypericaceae: Slender St.John's-wort (Hypericum pulchrum). The pic of the flowers is actually from June last year. I think this year's plants have 'gone over', though I did manage to get some details to ascertain their ID. This and Perforate St.John's-wort look quite similar until you look closely. In fact I didn't realise we had Perforate until this month.

Blunt, oval and cordate leaves
of H.pulchrum

Blunt, black-dotted-edged sepal of H.pulchrum

'gone over' petals of H.pulchrum
also black-dotted at the edges

Perforate St.John's-wort (H.perforatum) has more oblong leaves, pointed sepals, a two-winged stem (H.pulchrum stem is round and has no wings), and slightly larger flowers.

My boots and trouser legs got quite soggy doing the scything. July has been a very wet month here.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the garden, the Peruvian lilies are Spiraea and flowering heartily,

the wild cherries shine out against a blue sky (when there is blue sky!), and where, at the base of a two-trunked wild cherry tree, there was once only one Lesser Stitchwort plant, there are now several spreading all three hundred and sixty degrees around it.

I found a Prickly Sowthistle plant, not yet flowering. It is garden wildplant 170 for 2015.

A dry day at last

Today dawned summery. We haven't had many like that this summer so it was lovely to wake up to it today. I decided to do some scything on the front bank, rough cutting of tall rushes and tall grass. I talk only to frogs when I'm scything. Don't worry, they are under sweep of the scythe balde and when I see them I pause and tell them to shift. They obligingly do, usually. There was a reluctant one today who only shifted when I went to pick him up. This was my view to the north while scything.

<<< To the west

also west

south

and up The Slope. Toad has mowed most of that since I took the picture. I made sure he left a triangle of long grass around my Whorled Caraway plants.

Down in the Boat Bog, the buddleia is now flowering, the last dog roses also, and the seed heads of my Libertia grandiflora.

Seed heads of Libertia grandiflora
which is leaning against some sallow branches for support

I discovered today that roe deer chomp as yet unopened flowerheads of Devil's Bit Scabious. Fortunately there are still some left.

A trundle for some chanterelles

On yesterday's trundle up the hill for a fresh supply of chanterelle mushrooms, as well as my collecting basket I took a tape measure (the wee black thing in the basket) to measure a very tall foxglove by the top fence. On the way I noticed how good the bramble flowers were looking. Later in the year I'll be collecting blackberries.

a pinkish bramble flower,
Rubus fruticosus

On Friday Toadlet and I had got the train to Glasgow. She needed clothes. Both going and coming back I'd noticed how splendid the brambles were looking along the railway track. How fortunate that we have a local supply too!

Below is the foxglove in question, not the one that's keeled over – a few of them have done that in the last few days of strong winds – but the tallest one behind it with a backdrop of grey sallow. The keeled over one is two metres long anyway, but the still standing one I measured, with difficulty, to be about two hundred and twenty centimetres.

Yesterday evening Toad asked me to show him where the chanterelles were growing, which I did. We also found another patch of them on our side of the burn. It is unlikely that anyone else knows about these chanterelle patches – our own private supply! Getting back to yesterday morning... while Toads and Toadlets of the Boggy Brae slumbered on, and having collected chanterelles sufficient for the day, I noticed, in usual wellywander fashion, other small things on my trundle home.

First, some signs of deer nibblings. On a young downy birch to the left, on grey sallow below,

Bark (and moss and lichen?) eaten off a grey sallow branch

followed by some Peruvian Lily flowers and leaves. In parts of Scotland where forest regeneration is being attempted but where the deer populations are too large, the deer-nibblings of tree bark prevent trees from flourishing. I think this is why there is talk of rewilding by introducing predator species such as lynx that will keep the deer population in check and so allow a better ecological balance.

Swishing through wet grass, I came to the flowering Hypericum shrub. It is not Tutsan. Flowers of Tutsan are smaller. And it's not Rose of Sharon (there is some of that elsewhere), but some other species whose name I don't know. Whatever it is, it's looking good right now.

As is the pale Escallonia a little lower down the garden.

Escallonia virgata, possibly, a plant native to
southern Chile and Argentina

One of the things I like finding in the Boggy Brae garden is small communities of plants, like this one of self-heal, broad-leaved willowherb, and the tiny moss Variable Crisp-moss (Trichostomum brachydontium), all growing on the spruce log that is propping up the loose end of the eucalyptus bench.

Lower still, and across on the south-eastern side of the garden, is this wonderful 'fence' of brambles and honeysuckle growing into the fallen old wild cherry tree.

The honeysuckle flowers are awash with tiny insects.

Over this fence in the field, lesser knotweed (Persicaria campanulata) is growing. It is pretty invasive so I discourage it in the garden though I'm sure various insects like its flowers as well.

Lesser Knotweed (Persicaria campanulata)

Lastly, though I know this is well into its flowering period down south, our Black Knapweed is still gathering its flower forces for late July at the Boggy Brae where, as of yesterday, the big Downy Birch near the house is showing its first yellow leaf tinting of autumn. This is not early for here but bang on time. It always starts in July, any day from the fifth of the month onwards by my records.

Foxglove and haymaking welly wander

The field I usually mention lies to the south-east of the Boggy Brae garden and is visible to us. Yesterday evening a lot of noise was coming from the north-west so I went to see if hay-making was in progress. It was.

To see this I have to go up to the top of the garden, along the ever more overgrown lane that runs behind it between our fence and the burn, over the remains of a railway sleeper bridge across the burn where it starts its steep descent down to the soundings, and into wild patch of land.






The little wild patch was full of foxgloves

and what I think are chanterelle mushrooms.

The woods above are looking their summer best.

Juxtaposition: foxglove, fence, fallen tree

I climbed back into our garden over the pile of spiraea stem I made last autumn in the western corner. It still has its bouncy springiness. As I wandered down behind the fallen eucalyptus – in order to check if the beech seedlings are still okay (they are, possibly because hidden from deer chompings by some dock plants) – I saw that the first of the Peruvian Lilies are opening.

That and the blooming of the woodshed rose means summer has finally arrived on the Boggy Brae.

woodshed rose

I think I'll go up there again today and do a sniff and taste test on a tiny bit of mushroom.

Orange Hawkweed chomped

See that triangle of Orange Hawkweed I stringed off to protect the flowers from the lawnmower...

...well the roe deer evidently thought I was saving the flowers for them.

Hairy stalks of chomped
Orange Hawkweed

They have eaten every one! Hey ho. There are, in fact, plenty more.

False Oat-grass

dark tops of Tall Oat-grass

On the grassy slope below the ox-eye daisies, this grass is beginning to flower. It took quite a bit of microscopic peering to establish that it is probably False (or Tall) Oat-grass (Arrhenatherum elatius).

Looking at how dark it is in the photos, I'm now wondering if the dark grass in the field, which I'd assumed to be "Brown Top" (Common Bent/Agrostis tenuis) is it as well. Better head out in my wellies and grab a sample. Not that it'll be cut for hay any time soon – soggy boggy-tastic at the moment.

Stoneymollan

Yesterday, the hottest day of the year here so far, I did a walk from Cardross to Balloch over Stoneymollan with my friend, Sonja. There was a pleasant breeze on the moorland so most of the time it didn't feel too hot. We were wisely hatted against the worst the sun could do.

On the way up we passed an old farmstead, still inhabited apparently but very much run down and a veritable museum of old farm waggons and machinery.

Once up on the moor we saw very few people – one man and his two very healthy-looking dogs and, coming down towards Balloch a family or two coming up. It was a hazy day but the view across Loch Lomond to 'The Ben', Ben Lomond, was still lovely to see. Sonja thought that the even hazier peak to the right of The Ben was Scheihallion, which she last climbed one New Year's Eve some years ago.

A hazy Ben Lomond from Stoneymollan moor

Looking eastwards across the south end of Loch Lomond

Coming down the old drove road into Balloch we loved this line of old beeches alongside the track. The well trodden track is quite narrow now though it was obvious from the banks that it had once been wide enough for two carts to pass or, more probably, for a large herd of cattle.




We repaired to the Tullie Inn by Balloch Station for refreshment. I took off my boots and resolved in future to carry a pair of Crocs in my rucksack so that I don't have to put the boots back on for the train journey home! I sampled the chocolate fudge cake (testing, testing...). It was good but not as generous a portion as I had at the Ardencaple. Service was good though so I'd recommend the place for snackeroos  (and bigger meals).