Today I thought it was time to check on the floral happenings in our remnant of limestone meadow up on Windmill Hill. It’s a few weeks since I was last up there, and the spring flowers are giving way to summer species. Perhaps one of the most pleasing finds were these drifts of Lady’s Bedstraw, seen here below the windmill.
It is also called Lady’s Tresses, and it smells of honeyed summer pasture. Once it would be gathered and dried and included with the straw that was used to fill mattresses. It was often chosen for the beds of pregnant women, so surrounding those in their confinement with soothing wafts of sweet hay scents.
I think this is a practice we could revive, not that we are allowed to harvest wild flowers. I’m envisaging now a pillow filled with golden stems. Surely it would be just the thing to send us sleep-fractured souls back to dreamland. And even if it didn’t, it would make being wakeful a pleasure.
The spotted orchids I first found last month for Meg are nearly over (by the way, you should see Meg’s sundews found in Australia’s Stanthorpe granite country over at Snippetsandsnaps). But following on from the common spotted are the pyramidal orchids, which range in colour from lipstick pink to purple. I also discover from plantlife.org.uk that these, like many orchids, require the presence of a particular fungus in the soil in order to flower.
I also discover from Richard Mabey’s treasure of a book, Flora Britannica, that when the Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, learned that the name orchid derived from the Greek word orkhis meaning testicle, he urged that the flower’s name be changed to wreathewort. Personally, I don’t think this any sort of improvement. The man was a prude. Besides, the reason that orchids are named after testicles is because their roots’ appearance do a pretty good impersonation of same. Doubtless this was why they were long considered a useful remedy for a lapsed libido – a herbal fancy and fallacy I imagine, so do not try this at home.
While I was scrabbling around on my knees in the grass, thinking what strange things I have started doing since joining WordPress, I became distracted by a grasshopper. This is not the greatest shot. He is lurking on the leaves of greater knapweed, Centaurea scabiosa. Very well camouflaged I thought.
While I was down there, because believe me, once you get down on your knees you need to make the most of it, I also discovered some Lady’s Bedstraw caught inside a web. It looks like a shroud. You can just see the tiny spider due south of the flower:
And now here is one of Windmill Hill’s more sinister-looking plant specimens, – the very upright prickly spires of Viper’s bugloss. Apparently the flower’s fruits resemble adders’ heads, and other names include adderwort and snake flower. As well as colonising limestone areas, you will also find it growing on chalky and industrially contaminated soils. Like other members of the Echium family, which includes borage and comfrey, it is attractive to bees.
And here’s another bee favourite – Wild Thyme:
Thyme is of course a must in the kitchen. It is also a common medicinal herb. All forms of the plant contain the volatile oil thymol, a powerful antiseptic, which is often included in cough mixtures. I use thyme (fresh or dried) steeped in hot water with honey and fresh lemon juice when I have a cold or cough.
And talking of thyme, it’s time to head for home. So I’ll leave you with one last view of the windmill and some more flowers named after testicles. Not that it’s in any way connected, but I had to lie down in the grass to take this shot – a fine way for the minuting secretary of Much Wenlock Civic Society to conduct herself. It was just as well there were none of the usual walkers and their dogs around for me to frighten:
This excursion, but naturally not the bit about the orchid’s etymology, was inspired by Jo’s Monday Walk. Please join her there for some fascinating rambles.
copyright 2105 Tish Farrell
Tish Farrell 
When you say harvesting wild flowers is illegal does this include picking them as well?
Hmm, lying down at the thought of plants like testicles not connected?
Is this a fallacy or a phallusy, I wonder?
Ha! Don’t say I don’t feed you good prompts, pun-wise, Ark 😀 And yes, as far as I know, the picking of wild flowers is illegal these days.
Reminds me of something Terry Pratchett wrote in one of the Tiffany Aching novels about if the Creator wanted people to pick flowers he would have made more!
I quite like this, don’t you?
Good old Terry. Sorely missed for his good spirit on all fronts.
My son mentioned there were plans afoot to continue the Discworld series , probably in a similar vein as the franchised Star Trek novels, but Lyn Pratchett said no. Thank goodness they had the foresight to include her in the copyright.
Yes, that is so good. It would be awful to turn his work into yet another vacuous commodity.
Spectacular and as highly entertaining as it was educational! I love what came of your walk!
Thank you so much 🙂
You’re very welcome.
Educational indeed. I became familiar with the word “orchi” when I was faced with an orchiectomy and went from having two “orchid roots” to having no orchid roots. It is nonetheless interesting to read more about the etymology of the orchid.
Wonderful inspiring walk, Tish… 🙂
So pleased you could come along, Drake 🙂
I thoroughly enjoyed walking with you Tish. Loved the etymology of the orchid, and agree wreathwort is no improvement. That’s one enormous web for one tiny spider! And that last photo! Definitely worth lying down in the grass for. It’s a beauty! I frequently get down on the ground for photos, and prone if need be 🙂
Alison
Photographing lying down is a new approach for me. Glad you enjoyed the post, Alison.
The lying down part I can do. It’s the getting up part that’s the problem!
Yes, often hard to do with dignity 🙂
A delightful journey.
Many thanks, Connie 🙂
Thank you so much, sleep-fractured lady 🙂 I appreciate your rolling in the grass on my behalf (or Meg’s 🙂 ) It fascinates me how you and Jude just trip out the names of these wee beauties. I’m hopeless at naming wild flowers. Your deep pink orchids appear to have much longer stems than the ones I’ve featured from the sandy soil around this coast. Your post title makes it compulsive reading. Many thanks, Tish. 🙂
Thank you, Jo. I do have the best wild flower book in the world, now sadly out of print, but findable in second hand book shops – W Keble Martin – The New Concise British Flora.
A thoroughly enjoyable post…and hope you are keeping cool:) Janet.
Actually, I think I’m melting. Good to hear you had a happy trip, Janet.
What beauties you have in your meadow. I am tempted to go and have a look up on Whitcliffe Common, but I have never noticed any
testiclesorchids there.Lovely flowers in that meadow! I was astonished by the craft of that tiny spider. Very enjoyable walk, Tish!
Hello Tiny. I only spotted the spider once I’d cropped the photo. There is an amazing small world going on around our feet.
I love your interweaving of photos, herb lore, etymology, botanical names – and orchids of course. The first photo is a particular beauty. And I like the image of the minuting secretary sprawled amongst the wreathewort. I don’t have such status at Potato Point to worry about, but one of my son’s mates did say to him “What was your mother doing flat on her face at the tideline?(Photographing seaweed, of course.) I also empathise with making the most of being down before getting up again.
My sundews are honoured to be mentioned amongst your Windmill Hill flora!
Love that vision of you shooting seaweed, Meg.
PS Thanks for the name of a Warsaw plant – greater knapweed scored twenty photos! And bugloss is a weed along the river road at home.
Richard Mabey says his Australian friend knows bugloss as ‘Paterson’s Curse’. Now there’s a name to unravel. Any notions?
A lovely walk Tish, there’s a good range of plants up by that windmill!
And I hardly started, Gilly. When I was down on my knees I discovered there was another miniature botanical world down there, flowers too tiny to photograph well, and ones I’d never noticed before.
Is there also a grasshopper on the stem of the orchid in the third photo? Perhaps it’s just a dry piece of grass. Beds, testicles, ‘phallacies’ ~ no wonder there is floral fecundity everywhere.
Ooh – sharp-eyed you. I do believe that looks like a grasshopper’s knee. I clearly did more stalking than I knew 🙂
😀
What a fascinating post Tish, so much information and the descriptions of your contortions to bring these wild beauties to share with us had me chuckling. I love seeing your leaning windmill of Much Wenlock surrounded by so many wild flowers. I must admit I had to look and then look again before I spotted that very well camouflaged grass hopper. Pattersons Curse is the same plant as your Vipers Bugloss it was brought over here as an ornamental garden plant by a certain Jane Patterson and escaped to become a major pest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echium_plantagineum_in_Australia
Many thanks for the Patterson’s Curse info and link, Pauline – one of many imported major pests then.
We seem to have so many major pests both animal, plant and insects over here brought in innocently by the pioneers.
Just been to the link. What a fascinating little story, but with some very bad consequences. Jane’s Salvation, as an alternative name, caught my eye.
It does look amazingly beautiful though when we drove by acres and acres of purple stretching to the horizon. I’m sure I must have some photos of it somewhere in the archives from when we travelled around Australia
I’ve never seen it grow like that in the UK. I first saw it in a reclaimed chalk pit in Kent, but otherwise only on Windmill Hill. This is the problem with translocated pests, they seem to totally THRIVE in new territory. It’s reminding me of water hyacinth which is a curse in Africa.
Oh yes water hyacinth is beautiful but also a big pest over here too…
Glad you took the thyme to write this one up. Delightful to read. I hope I don’t sound sexist, but it took a lot of balls to write about those orchids… I mean it took a lot of orchids….I mean the orchids…
Ho, ho, Bumba, and I seem to remember you accusing us Brits of making bad puns. I think you win this month’s prize 🙂
Paterson’s curse because it takes over pasture and poisons cattle. Also called salvation jane, because it’s feed for cattle in drought (go figure) and it’s also good for bees.
My first encounter was as a city girl visiting a country property. Not only did I rave about the beauty of a noxious weed. I also managed to shut the farm gate with me on the wrong side of it. And I was supposed to be teaching their children!
http://weeds.dpi.nsw.gov.au/Weeds/Details/102
Oops!
Just been looking at the weeds site. The infested fields look amazing. I have never seen anything like that in the UK. As I was saying to Pauline, apart from a few spikes on Windmill Hill, I’ve only seen it growing in a few rather more prolific clumps in a Kent chalk pit. Never in farm fields. There must be something in Australian soil that hits all its buttons, or else nothing there to inhibit its spread. Weeds = an interesting subject.
What a lovely sight to behold Tish! It was such an interesting walk and I absolutely adore all the flowers and that windmill is absolutely gorgeous! You’ve captured it all so beautifully. Stunning shots! 😀
Many thanks, Sonel. So glad you could join me.
A beautiful wrap of your photos, voice, history, information, humour…especially like the bit about the orchid name, I didn’t know. I put ice cubes on mine (three a week) to keep them hydrated, but not too much. (Ha!)
Ice cubes, eh. I don’t think I’ll go there 🙂
Thanks for indulging me, I thought it might fetch me a chuckle–I’m cheap.
Oh, go on! I anyway go for cheap – of a well qualified sort that is 🙂 I’m thinking of you in this moment of transition. But just think of all the material you will have, living between different worlds. It will be a big trip in all senses.
Spot on Tish–and be on the lookout for creepy bearded Americans this winter because we’ll be scouring through the UK for 90 days, assuming the budget holds up.
Oh that will be fun. If want to drop in on Wenlock let me know.
I will!