Pignut

Pignut (Conopodium majus) is a member of the Carrot Family (Apiaceae). Members of the Apiaceae have flowerheads called ‘umbels’ – these are a compound flowerheads in which all of the flower stalks arise from the same point. Often the lengths of the flower stalks are so arranged that the outer stalks are longer than the inner, so that all of the flowers are level. Actually, Pignut has a compound umbel - which means that each primary flower stalk terminates in a secondary umbel on which the little white flowers are carried. The plant’s stems arise from a rounded, brown, underground tuber, which is edible for both humans and pigs. The leaves are finely divided and the lower ones are often quite flat to the ground, appearing to form a lacy ‘mat’ around the plant.

Pignut is a plant of woods and rough grasslands and, in some parts of the country, is still quite common. In the Mersey Valley it is now rare and, until quite recently, I had only seen it twice. It used to grow (would you believe?)on a patch of grass by the side of Chorlton Precinct on Barlow Moor Road, and I used to admire it, on spring mornings, as I waited for the bus to take me to work; unfortunately, it is long gone from that site. It also used to occur in Southern Cemetery – but recently that has been subjected to a brutal ‘tidying-up’ regime and is much less biodiverse that it used to be and, as a result, I have not been able to find a single Pignut plant.
I had been about to write Pignut off as extinct in the Mersey Valley – and then found two populations in the space of a few days! The first was in the grounds of Abney Hall, near Cheadle, last Friday (24th April). It was on my list of things to look for there and I spent a couple of hours searching for it. I was just about to give up, and leave, when I stumbled upon a little colony of it. The second population was in and around Barlow Wood, on the edge of Chorlton Golf Course. Hilda Broady had noted its presence there 50 years ago (1) and on my visit, last Monday (27th April), I was delighted to see it there in some abundance – probably the best population that we’ve got left.

I found my Pignut populations by theorising that the species was never a plant of the Mersey Flood Plain but occurred instead on the river terraces. Of course, in South Manchester, nearly all of the river terraces have been built on and most of that habitat is now lost. I think that it’s important to stress that Pignut was once a very common plant, for example Richard Buxton, in his Flora of 1849 (2) described it as “abundant” and Leo Grindon, in his Flora of 1859 (3) stated that it was “abundant everywhere”. Many a country child round here would have been familiar with the taste of Pignuts – perhaps well into the 20th Century. I can’t help thinking that this is the way the world will end as common species disappear, one after the other, from parish after parish - drip, drip, drip - as we busily erode that world around us.

Oh yes, and if you find any Pignuts, please don’t dig them up just to taste the tubers – not only is it illegal to dig up wild plants unless you have the permission of the land owner – but we can’t afford to lose the few that we have left!

Dave Bishop, April 2009

References:

1. “A Study in Chorlton Meadows – Diary, Notes & Drawings of Specimens” by Hilda F. Broady, 1959 (unpublished).

2. “A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algae Found Indigenous Within Sixteen Miles of Manchester” by Richard Buxton, Longman & Co., 1849.

3. “The Manchester Flora” by Leo H. Grindon, William White, 1859.

Strolling and Story Telling - An Entertainment for Chorlton Arts Festival

As part of Chorlton Arts Festival, Ingrid Burney and I will be leading a walk on Chorlton Ees. Ingrid will be telling stories connected with our Meadows and I will be pointing out plants and other wildlife of interest. You may remember Ingrid's spooky tale, 'Mersey Mystery' which was posted on this blog on 13th September 2008.

Date: Sunday 17th May

Time: 3:00pm

Meeting Place: Ivy Green Car Park (on Brookburn Road opposite the Bowling Green Pub).

The event should last about one and a half hours.

Hope to see you there!

Dave Bishop, April 2009

A Glimpse of the Mersey Valley 50 years Ago - Hilda Broady's Journal

I’m a day late posting Hilda Broady’s entry in her journal for 26th April 1959. The reason for this is that I had an opportunity to visit Barlow Wood today so thought that it would be interesting to compare what’s there today with what was there 50 years ... and one day ago. First, Mrs Broady’s journal entry:

It poured with rain today but I made a very brief visit to see whether any effect had been made on my stream. To my disappointment there was merely a little mud in the lower part of the stream bed, but numerous small flies hovering in this part.
The tree was in leaf half way up the tree, and I now recognise it as Sycamore. The numerous shoots mentioned on my first visit are also Sycamore shoots, many of which are in leaf.

Interestingly (not to mention soggily), it poured with rain on the morning of 27th April 2009 as well – some aspects of our climate don’t change much!

You may remember that Barlow Wood, and Mrs Broady’s plot, is now within the boundaries of Chorlton Golf Club and that there is no public access to it.
A few weeks ago I met Ted Brooks (the bird photographer – see FoCM blog 24.03.09 ). Ted told me that he was a past Captain of Chorlton Golf Club and I mentioned to him my interest in Barlow Wood. Ted suggested that I contact Ian Booth, the Club Secretary, and Mr Booth very kindly allowed me access to the grounds of the Club today.

To be quite honest I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had seen the wood very briefly about 20 – 25 years ago as the guest of a friend of mine who was, then, a Golf Club member. At that time it had seemed a bit sparse and a bit tired – so I wasn’t prepared for the astonishing transformation! Here was a very healthy looking piece of ancient woodland. There were, as in 1959, many Sycamores (some of them quite old) but also thriving populations of Oak, Hazel, Willow and Birch. Many parts of the woodland floor were carpeted with Bluebells and nearly all of the spring plants that Mrs Broady mentions were present in abundance (plus some that she doesn’t mention). Her stream now drains the Golf Course and is full of water. It seems to me that the whole area is in much better shape now than it was in the 1980s and probably the 1950s.
I think that I may even have identified Mrs Broady’s ‘plot’ – see the photograph above.

I would like to thank Ian Booth for giving me access to the wood and to Ted Brooks for the introductions. I would also like to thank Chorlton Golf Club and their grounds staff for treating Chorlton’s only remaining piece of ancient woodland with such sensitivity. It is through their stewardship that this unique habitat has survived into the 21st century. I’m sure that Hilda Broady would be thrilled!

Oh yes, and if you’re interested in golf (as opposed to my mad enthusiasm for plants!) you can find out more about Chorlton Golf Club at: http://www.chorltoncumhardygolfclub.co.uk/

Dave Bishop, April 2009

Sweet Vernal Grass

Sweet Vernal Grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum) is one of the first grasses of the year to flower.

As grasses go it's a fairly dainty little thing - but you shouldn't have much problem finding it on Chorlton Ees and in many other places.

It is loaded with a chemical called 'coumarin' - which gives new mown hay its characteristic smell. Like all good things, coumarin is only good in small doses. In high concentrations it has a pungent, bitter-almond scent. Someone once told me that Sweet Vernal Grass was sweet tasting and good to chew. Nevertheless, when I tried it, I found it revolting. The sensation was if someone had coated the mucus membranes at the back of my nose with bitter-almond oil - definitely not recommended!

Dave Bishop, April 2009

Wood Ghosts ?

There’s an intriguing line in John Lloyd’s history of Chorlton (1). He writes that during the 7th Century Anglo-Saxon period and after: “The ancient forest of Arden occupied both sides of the Mersey, the principal trees being oak and willow.” In stating this he appears to have been echoing an earlier writer, Thomas Ellwood, who published a series of articles on Chorlton’s history in a journal called ‘The Manchester Gazette’ in the 1880s (2); and Ellwood was probably echoing an earlier writer, and so on ...

The word ‘forest’ should always be treated with caution. Most people assume that a ‘forest’ is a ‘big wood’ but those people would probably be surprised by Oliver Rackham’s (3) assertion that, “the word Forest does not imply woodland”. In fact, in medieval England, a ‘Forest’ was a hunting reserve and a place for deer. Such hunting reserves could be on moorland, heath or fenland but some could be partly or even heavily wooded.

John Lloyd goes on to state that ‘Ard’ means ‘tree’ and, hence, if “the forest of Arden” existed it may well have been wooded. He also asserts that the ‘Hardy’ in ‘Chorlton-cum-Hardy’ is from ‘Ard-ea’ meaning ‘wood by the water’.

Shakespeare enthusiasts will know that the Bard set his play, ‘As You Like It’ in the Forest of Arden. And there is, of course, a Forest of Arden in the playwright’s own native Warwickshire, although the original work on which the play was based was set in the Forest of Ardennes in what is now Belgium. Perhaps, then, ‘Arden’/’Ardennes’ is just an old, generic name for a wooded forest (?)

The history of woodland in Britain is highly complex and be-devilled by myths. One writer who has done much to sort out this history and dispel these myths is Oliver Rackham and, if you’re interested, I highly recommend his recent book, ‘Woodlands’ (4). What is reasonably certain is that the post-Ice Age landscape with its ‘wildwood’ was heavily modified and reduced by the time Romans and Saxons arrived – even though they are often accused of chopping down all the trees.

In more recent times there certainly seems to have been some woodland in the Mersey Valley – although it couldn’t have been described, in any way, as heavily wooded. Recently, local historian Andrew Simpson (5) has stated that, for example, Chorlton, in 1845, had 680 acres of meadow, 490 acres of arable land, but only 10 acres of woodland. Probably, this 10 acres consisted of Barlow Wood near Barlow Hall, woods along the banks of Chorlton Brook, including Hough End Clough (some of which, at least, was technically in Withington), and a few other scraps, some of which may have been plantations. The last point is important: an ‘ancient wood’ is an ecosystem in which trees predominate but are not the only organisms present; trees, fungi, invertebrates and plants of the woodland floor all interact in a complex web. A ‘plantation’, on the other hand, is just a collection of planted trees – which may never attain the complexity and diversity of a wood that has evolved naturally over a long period of time; you can’t plant an ancient wood!

Given this background it’s surprising, then, that ‘classic’ woodland plants still seem to be present in the Mersey Valley flora. Examples are the beautiful Wood Anenomes (Anenome nemorosa), pictured above, which I photographed a few days ago on the river bank adjacent to Northernden Golf Club. Other examples, which I have found over the years, include Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scriptus), Ramsons (Allium ursinum) and Great Woodrush (Luzula sylvatica).
My romantic imagination likes to picture these plants as ‘ghosts’ of old woodland – persistent and lingering traces of a vanished world – woods from which most of the trees have disappeared. In some cases this may be true. Some of the older hedgerows could be woodland remnants. For example, the north side of Hawthorn Lane (the old boundary between Chorlton and Stretford), although heavily replanted in recent years, contains Bluebells and Wood Sage (Teucrium scorodonia). And hedges by Ford Lane in Northernden and Stenner Lane at Fletcher Moss both contain Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis), often considered to be an important indicator species of ancient woodland.

Nevertheless, there may be another mechanism at work. One of Richard Buxton’s (6) mid-19th century records for the woodland plant, Wild Daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) reads, “A field near the right bank of the Mersey, a little above Jackson’s Boat”. Similar records in Leo Grindon’s flora (7) read, “Barlow Wood” and “Near Jackson’s Boat”. So, if I read these records correctly, the woodland Wild Daffodil did occur in local woodland but was also found in more open locations – probably meadowland. How did it get there? Its bulbs could have been transplanted from the woods, of course, but I think that a more likely explanation is that the bulbs were flushed out of woods further up the Mersey watershed and deposited in the meadows in winter floods (remember that right into the 20th century local farmers deliberately flooded the riverside meadows in order to deposit rich silt on to them). If this sounds a little far-fetched, it seems to be a mechanism which is still operating today. I often find woodland plants growing on the river banks – particularly Ramsons and Bluebells. And among many different types of cultivated Daffodils I have sometimes found specimens that look very like the N. pseudonarcissus wild species.
I made an interesting find last year (2008) when examining the concrete supports of Barfoot Bridge, which carry the Metro across the river from Stretford to Sale and are often under a couple of feet of water in winter floods. Here I found woodland plants such a Great Woodrush and Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium), but most surprising of all was a strange little plant called Town Hall Clock (Adoxa moschatellina). I have seen no other recent records of this plant from the Mersey Valley (although it was more common in Buxton and Grindon’s day).
This view of the Mersey as a dynamic agent moving plants around when it floods is probably an important, though neglected, aspect of local biodiversity.

Dave Bishop, April 2009

References:

1. ‘The Township of Chorlton cum Hardy’ by John Lloyd, E.J. Morten, 1972.

2. 'Thomas Ellwood's Chorlton History Articles': Personal communication from Andrew Simpson.

3. ‘The History of the Countryside’ by Oliver Rackham, Dent, 1986.

4. ‘Woodlands’ by Oliver Rackham, Collins, 2006.

5. ‘Chorlton's History - From Agricultural Village to Suburb’ by Andrew Simpson, FoCM Blog, 29th September, 2008.

6. ‘A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algae Found Indigenous Within Sixteen Miles of Manchester’ by Richard Buxton, Longman, 1849.

7. ‘The Manchester Flora’ by Leo Grindon, William White, 1859.

Swarm

Last week I was walking along the river bank from the Urmston direction towards Stretford. Just past where the Kickety Brook path emerges on to the river bank and adjacent to Stretford Sewage Works, I suddenly became aware that the air was full of tiny black flies or gnats. Looking up, I realised that the main concentrations of these insects were around the crowns of the riverside trees (mainly poplars and sycamores). As I watched, plumes of the insects detached themselves from the main swarms and formed long, descending, smoke-like arabesques. The photograph above shows one of these plumes, just after it had formed.

I've never seen anything quite like this before - can anyone shed any light on this phenomenon?

Dave Bishop, April 2009

A Glimpse of the Mersey Valley 50 Years Ago: Hilda Broady's Journal

19th April, 1959

Another cold day, but it is fine and dry.
The tree is beginning to come into leaf in the lower branches. The tips of the leaves are quite red in colour, changing to green towards the leaf stalks which are quite red.

Grasses (Reed grass: Phalaris arundinacea) growing at the side of the stream bed, these being taller and tougher than grass growing generally in the plot.

The impression I get from, the last couple of Mrs Broady's journal entries is that the season was much less advanced in April 1959 than it is now, 50 years later - Ed.