05-June June’s Woodland Mysteries

These indicator species are now joined by others such as yellow pimpernel, wood melick, pignut, pendulous sedge, sanicle, cow wheat, great woodrush and herb paris. Other noticeably attractive species in woods generally include white and red campion, woundwort, enchanter’s nightshade, foxglove, woody nightshade and great valerian.

Great valerian Valeriana officinalis is an impressive plant over a metre high which is usually found in warm, wet woods e.g. Ninehams wood, Bromley. To our nose, its roots smell of stale perspiration; for cats the smell is far more intoxicating and they often even try to nibble their roots. These roots were used to calm people down after air raids in the First World War. The Pied Piper of Hamlin was believed to have carried the roots in his pocket, explaining his hypnotic effect on rodents. Another plant of wet woods is the common figwort Scrophularia nodosa which has unusual small chocolate-coloured flowers that tend to stand out at the sides of woodland paths.

Hedge woundwort Stachys sylvatica was used as a cure-all in ancient Rome. Quite a number of cures have been attributed to it, including a leg cut to the bone mending in a week. It has tiny flowers that come alive when seen through a hand lens, with markings which, although small, are quite worthy of an orchid. Enchanter’s nightshade Circaea lutetiana is often one of the first new flowers to be noticed in woods. The ‘enchantress’ concerned is Circe, who had the unusual gift of being able to turn men into pigs.

The plant’s other main enchantment is that all its floral parts are in twos: two tiny pink heart-shaped petals, two sepals, two seeds, two leaves etc. Another great woodland beauty at this time is the yellow pimpernel Lysimachia nemorum. It used to be abundant in Highgate and Hampstead; but is now rare, yet can still be found in Mad Bess wood.

Foxgloves are also now starting to flower in numbers, especially where woodland has been recently cleared. Its English name derives from an Anglo Saxon musical instrument which, like the plant’s flowering head, has bells of different sizes. These large, open flowers have always been a good place to look for bumble bees.

When massed, foxgloves can provide a formidable sight with plants up to one and a half metres in height with up to eighty flowers or ‘thimbles’ on each spike. It is famous for being the source of the drug digitalis which can cause an erratic heartbeat to become regular and as well as decreasing the heart rate. Any treatment has to be precise, otherwise the heart can stop. In Wales, a dye was extracted from the leaves, which was used to create a painted mosaic effect on brickwork. Any spots in the ‘thimbles’ were believed to be where an elf had touched them. An attractive small foreign relation is the straw foxglove Digitalis lutea which has yellow flowers. It turns up from time to time as a casual all over London. At the time of writing it is growing happily beside the entrance to Highgate tube station. An even smaller and more attractive foxglove is the fairy foxglove Erinus alpinus which has in the past been reported on walls in Headley and Blackheath but is now even hard to find in gardens.

Both black and white bryony are plants more often seen along woodland margins or hedges in chalky areas. Although their small, pale green flowers are similar, they can now easily be told apart by looking at their leaves.

Those of black bryony Tamus communis have an exceptionally high gloss and those of white bryony Bryonia cretica no shine whatsoever. White bryony is unusual in that its tendrils can coil clockwise and then suddenly change to anti-clockwise. The reason for this is that they automatically coil in the direction where they first touch a foreign object. Both plants produce red berries that are highly poisonous, fifteen of either being quite capable of killing a child. Even so, cattle seem addicted to them before “becoming cold to the touch and getting sunken eyes”.