03 June London’s Untamed June

Where there were large patches of dandelions a month ago on lawns, white clover has now often taken over. Occasionally, on some clover flowerheads, one or two flowers are missed by pollinating bees and remain unfertilised. As the rest of the flowerhead runs to seed, these flowers stick out, giving rise to them being called ‘old maids’. Commonly encountered plants include bindweeds, nettles, ragworts, docks, comfreys, spurges, plantains, clovers, chenopods, sowthistles, pearlworts, melilots, willowherbs as well as silverweed, black horehound, goosegrass and the first thistles. More striking newcomers worth searching for include viper’s bugloss, borage, scarlet pimpernel, monkshood, mulleins, evening primroses, nightshades and the rare sinister-looking henbane. Roadsides are also now rich in new species. These may include poppies, campions, ragworts, plantains, mallows, various umbellifers, mustards, fumitories, new chickweeds, stitchworts and Cudweeds and that most elegant of aliens caper spurge.

Others could include the first water lilies, creeping cinquefoil, goat’s rue, red valerian, swinecress, parsley piert, pennycresses, pepperworts and the unmissable metre and a half high great mullien. Rarer plants are yellow foxglove, weld, corky-fruited dropwort and liquorice, the latter still holding on in the Purfleet area.

Poppies were supposedly created by Somnus, the god of sleep and given to Ceres, the goddess of summer crops to ease her cares. She is often depicted wearing them in her hair. They used to be seen almost covering fields in a sheet of scarlet as well as dotting old bomb sites. They are now seen in far less numbers.

There are two common poppies in the London area, the first is the field poppy Papaver rhoeas which can be identified by its hairless round capsules and the second is the long-headed poppy P. dubium which also has a hairless capsule but the capsule itself is much longer. With poppies it is always worth noting the shape of their capsules and whether they are hairy or not. The less common prickly poppy P. argemone has long capsules with a few bristles and the rough poppy P. hybridum has round bristly capsules. The opium poppy P. somniferum, which is a common garden weed in London, is easily identified by its pale mauve colour. This is a subspecies grown for its seeds. They used to be boiled and given to babies to help them sleep. A similar subspecies with white flowers is the one grown for opium, morphine and laudanum which fortunately is not part of London’s flora.

Evening primroses Oenothera spp. are now starting to open their large yellow petals at dusk. The common evening primrose O. biennis and the large-flowered evening primrose O. erythrosepala are probably the most frequently seen. The latter, with its seven centimetre long petals, is a garden favourite. Their most famous feature is the way they dramatically unfurl their petals at dusk in just a matter of seconds. The sepals hold the delicately folded petals until the light starts to fail, at which point the petals suddenly spring apart much to the consternation of any onlookers.

The trumpet-shaped flowers of bindweeds are now also starting to appear on roadsides and railway embankments. The first is usually the attractive pink and white striped almond-scented field bindweed Convolvulus arvensis. These trumpets close at night and rapidly fade, accounting for its old country name ‘young man’s death’. For such a low scrambling plant it has a formidable root system, sometimes penetrating down as much as two metres. This feature accounts for its other name ‘devil’s guts’. When it climbs, it does so quickly, spiralling anticlockwise and can complete a circle in as little as two hours. Towards the end of the month it is joined by the ubiquitous white-flowered hedge bindweed Calystegia sepium. More unusual plants that might get noticed this month are various alien bellflowers on masonry, the occasional garden escape such as goldenrod and pirri-pirri-bur Acaena novae-zelandiae. The latter is an invasive alien from New Zealand which has been used as a lawn substitute even though dogs get covered in its hooked fruits.

On roadsides, in more chalky areas, wild mignonette Reseda lutea is joined now by its much more robust relation, weld R. luteola. With its wavy leaves and long greenish-yellow flowerheads, weld stands out due to its height alone, which can be up to one and a half metres. It has been used to make a bright yellow dye since Neolithic times and also used to be grown as a crop in Kent for the same purpose, where it still hangs on at the edges of some fields. Another striking plant of roadsides is meadow cranesbill or loving Andrew Geranium pratense. Like other cranesbills it ‘fires’ its seeds just a short distance, accounting for the mauve patches we see besides roads.

Of the thistles now starting to appear most common, most disliked and the poorest purple of all is the creeping thistle Cirsium arvense. Its dense, creeping habit means it forms the impenetrable patches so disliked by gardeners but its flowers are greatly loved by bees and its seeds by goldfinches. The parachuting “seeds” in actual fact, bear no seeds and are just parachutes alone. Just the occasional male produces viable seed.

Another common thistle now is the welted thistle Carduus acanthiodes recognised by the wings or welts on its stems. Again an early but less common thistle is the milk thistle Silybum marianum, so called for the distinctive white markings on its leaves. Being so attractive it is now more likely to be encountered in gardens. Possibly the most attractive and certainly the most noticeable thistle is the musk thistle Carduus nutans. It is recognised by its overly large heavy nodding purple flowerheads. Although uncommon, it can be found in grazed pastures in some parts of the Colne Valley where these large plants tend to stand out in the landscape. Its presence near houses was believed to protect them from lightning.

On waste ground, two other plants with rich natural histories can occasionally be seen. Deadly nightshade Atropa belladonna is common enough and may by now have produced its sinister purple berries. Being so poisonous, they were also called ‘Satan’s cherries’, Atropine, a chemical derived from the plant, was once used by women in Italy to dilate their pupils so as to appear more attractive, hence the plants’ specific name ‘belladonna’. ‘Deadly’ is also a worthy name, as a single berry can kill a child, after it has suffered hallucinations and possible coma. The second much rarer plant with an interesting history is henbane Hyoscyamus niger which these days turns up far less. This was the poison of choice for Dr Crippin, the renowned London murderer; it was also used in the Middle Ages for sorcery and at Witches Sabbaths. Such extravagant symptoms of poisoning as jaw spasms, double vision and fits of rage have all been recorded. It was once served as a root vegetable to monks, who became so frenzied that their monastery was compared to an asylum.

Sir Hans Sloane of Chelsea fame recorded a case of four children eating the fruits, having mistaken them for filberts. They promptly fell asleep for two days. In Hades, the dead wore henbane flowers in their hair as they wandered aimlessly along the banks of the river Styx. Culpepper, always practical, considered the plant useful for treating ‘swellings of the scrotum’.