How stupid can I get?

Went up through Nortons Wood Lane again today. I wanted to get some pix of Common Vetch that I saw there a couple of days earlier.

Cleavers, AKA Goosegrass, Galium aparine, 

As well as that I had taken some shots of Cleavers, and needed to get some macro pix, of the tiny flowers. I didn't bother to take the ring flash - a big mistake on my part - so I snipped off a few examples. It turned out to be 'a few' too many.

 I got my shots of cleavers and the tiny flower - only around 3/16ths of an inch (5mm) across - together with buds at the head of the tendril.

Then found trouble with the focussing of my Tamron 90mm macro lens when coupled with the kenko 35 mm tube.
I decided to try with the 1.7 tele extender but could not find it. Meantime the other samples I had taken were getting limp. 
I managed a couple of shots of Germander Speedwell Veronica chamaedrys. but another little flower, yet to identify  was too far gone.

Now  ths morning I realised that the extnder was on the A55 on the copier stand that I had been working beneath. 

I know now that I had been a little too ambitious.

Leaf of Germander Speedwell Veronica chamaedrys 

How wrong can I be?

When I came back from the Arnhem Pilgrimage last year I brought with me a couple of Dutch acorns. As I had had a problem with my fridge before I went I bought another when I returned. I used the veg box from the old one to plant the acorns in the last remnants of my compost bag in it.

In the spring I saw that there was a couple of plants growing, one was a very small cluster and the other what looked to be maybe of the doves foot family.

Our of idle curiosity I decided to let them carry on growing. Then I saw that in between the 'doves foot' there was another very finely leaved plant. 

The leaf was little more than a slight green spike and the buds were around 3mm in size.

After watching it for a few days, I decided that there was enough of it to snip off a strand to take macro shots.

The 'flower' if you could call it that seemed to be primitive. I got a few 3x pix and then came to what I thought would be the problem. What was it?

My trusty Octopus: Wild Flowers book, came off the shelf for what I expected would be a lengthy search. Lo and behold on the very first page of the white flower section there it was.  Procumbent Pearlwort, Sagina procumbens,   

Puzzle solved before I had relly started. Now I must wait patiently to see what the other plants are.

Now I have found out why it went smoothly.
The Octopus book had the old Latin name so I had to alter all the tags in Flickr and also the title names.
Trouble is that although the Octopus has good illustrations it is an old book almost 30 years old in fact. 

Privet Lingustrum vilgare

Today we rarely think anything about  Privet except as hedges or border use. Probably popular because it is an evergreen and makes a good barrier when thickset. There is no doubt that Hawthorn or Blackthorn make a more redoubtable hedge but their bleak appearance in winter offsets the advantage of the formidable thorns that back up the greenery in the spring and summer. Yet when we examine Privet flowers as macro images we can find a certain beauty in them.

The dark green of the leaf shows the flower to advantage. Maybe because the flowers are rather more scattered that the thorny plants we don't notice them so much.

 

Culpeper remarks that even in his day it was going out of use as a medicinal plant. Although it seems that in earlier times it had many uses as a herbal treatment.

In his  Complete Herbal his remarks are relatively short.

Government and virtues

The Moon is lady of this. It is little used in physic with us in these times, more than in lotions, to wash sores and sore mouths, and to cool inflammations, and dry up fluxes. Yet Matthiolus saith, it serves all the uses for which Cypress, or the East Privet, is appointed by Dioscorides and Galen. He further saith, That the oil that is made of the flowers of Privet infused therein, and set in the Sun, is singularly good for the inflammations of wounds, and for the headache, coming of a hot cause. There is a sweet water also distilled from the flowers, that is good for all those diseases that need cooling and drying, and therefore helps all fluxes of the belly or stomach, bloody-fluxes, and women's courses, being either drank or applied; as all those that void blood at the mouth, or any other place, and for distillations of rheum in the eyes, especially if it be used with them.

My Scarlet Pimpernel flowers

It appears that I have lost my little weather forecasters. The contractors have sprayed the gravel border where they were growing to kill off the weeds. Last year I had a return of about 6 or 7 plants but this time I can see nothing growing. Unusually this tiny plant and flower Scarlet Pimpernel Angallis arvensis had many nicknames because of its weather foretelling properties. At the first sign of dampness or rain to come it closes up. From this tendency it is AKA  Poor man’s weather-glass; Change of the weather; and Shepherd’s sundial. 

A little flower of only about 5/16ths of an inch (6 to 7 mm) in size at maximum. Yet when we look into macro pictures of it its beauty becaomes apparent.

Lying close to the ground all that we normally see is a little dot of red and a few green stands of foliage

The buds are insignificant.

but a closer look at the flower with its semi-fluorescent centre shows what a little beauty it really can be if we look closer.

Of this plant and flower Culpeper says:—

Government and virtues.

It is a gallant solar herb, of a cleansing attractive quality, whereby it draws forth thorns or splinters, or other such like things gotten into the flesh; and put up into the nostrils, purges the head; and Galen saith also, they have a drying faculty, whereby they are good to solder the lips of wounds, and to cleanse foul ulcers. The distilled water or juice is much esteemed by French dames to cleanse the skin from any roughness and deformity, or discolouring thereof; being boiled in wine and given to drink, it is a good remedy against the plague, and other pestilential fevers, if the party after taking it be warm in his bed, and sweat for two hours after, and use the same for twice at least. It helps also all stingings and bitings of venomous beasts, or mad dogs, being used inwardly, and applied outwardly. The same also opens obstructions of the liver, and is very available against the infirmities of the reins. It provokes urine, and helps to expel the stone and gravel out of the kidneys and bladder, and helps much in all inward pains and ulcers. The decoction, or distilled water, is no less effectual to be applied to all wounds that are fresh and green, or old, filthy, fretting, and running ulcers, which it very effectually cures in a short space. A little mixed with the juice, and dropped into the eyes, cleanses them from cloudy mists, or thick films which grow over them, and hinder the sight. It helps the tooth-ache, being dropped into the ear on a contrary side of the pain. It is also effectual to ease the pains of the hemorrhoids or piles.

SO ---- if by some chance you should have this growing in or near your garden  - Treasure it - A glance at it if you are going off for the day will tell you 

If the weather will be fine the flower will be open. If it is closed there is rain about.

This forecast is almost as certain as the Mist on the moor one.

Rugby pictures

Just found that my 2 best rugby pix, that I posted on www.morguefile.com have become the 2nd and 4th highest downloads on 'Rugby' in that sites pix.

 the one above one with 582 dowloads - Now 633

and this one, has had 500 downloads. - Now 584

Nice to think that well over 1,000 pictures posted on Morguefile of Clevedon RFC are being used to represent Rugby Union all over the world.

While sorting out stuff that should probably have been thrown away many years ago, I came across some negatives taken in the early 60's. It's odd that although I can remember the day of the week they were taken I can't for the life of me state the exact year. I know it was early 60's because they had been taken with my treasured Agiflex III  
The day was a Monday because I had driven the oil van into the Coleridge Estate and noticed the work going on. Although I had not been contributing pictures at that time for the Clevedon Mercury I took a series of shots, purely for local history records.

The Somerset Rivers Board workmen had sealed off the water flow in order to clear the mud from the tunnel that passed under the road there and also under the Binding & Paynes garage complex. I was so intrigued that I even put on gum-boots and climbed down the bank to get pix of the work going on in the tunnel.

They had laid a truck rail under the road way and were manually shovelling (slubbing) around a 2 foot deep mud deposit into a tub to be wheeled out and then hauled to a waiting lorry by crane. When I got back up I found :---

A somewhat eccentric local resident expostulating with the lorry driver on some point of the work. I believe - according to tale - that he had been an architect of some sort but had had a 'brain-storm' and had to retire.
Needless to say he acquired a nickname. 'Cess' Poole The driver was very forbearing but eventually gave the nod to the crane driver who hauled the bucket load up and deposited it in the back of the lorry. 'Cess' who had been splashed a little immediately left off his diatribe and went on his way.