2011 Streak: Day 142/365: Walk - 3 miles, Time - 1hr, Weather - extremely windy
This was a very light exercise day. if you were being unkind you would call it walking to the pub and back. But I don't want to be quite so dismissive. The pub is only 3/4 of a mile away - we made a definite attempt to extend the walk to an acceptable distance.
When walking along a footpath I saw this bladder campion. I doubt if I would even noticed it before. My walks used to be more about general sensation rather than looking for specifics. Now, with the need to take photographs, I am concentrating on the details.
Needless to say I didn't know what the flower was when I saw it (even though it is common) and had to come home to look it up. But this is one of the good side effects of the 2011 project - it extends my knowledge. It might not be by very much, but at least it is something.
I now know it is a widespread roadside plant that is one of the favourite food-plants of little insects known as frog-hoppers, who surround themselves with protect froth when feeding. John Gerard called it a 'Spatling Poppie', 'in respect of that kinde of frothie spattle, or spume, which we call Cuckow spittle, that more aboundeth in the bosomes of the leaues of these plants, than in any other'
This information came from 'Flora Britannica', which is the master work of Richard Mabey. It is not a botanical or horticultural work, but is instead an account of the role of wild plants in social life, custom, arts and landscape.
Richard Mabey is also someone who deserves more attention in this blog because for most of his life he lived, up the road, in Berkhamsted and he has closely observed my local landscape. Perhaps when I am next in the neighbourhood I will take a picture of the street where he was brought-up and use it as an excuse to write a little more about him.
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