Rambling Rose

A FIELD ROSE has climbed up amongst the branches of a willow in the wood. Its white flowers are held vertically like miniature wine glasses. The rosebuds are wrapped in ferny bracts. Our more common hedgerow rose, the Dog Rose usually has pinkish, saucer-shaped flowers. It tends to form a bush and wouldn't readily climb up into branches like this Field Rose.

The Field Rose flowers some weeks after the Dog Rose. I was mistaken in my diary entry for the 25th May, in fact only Dog Rose was in flower then.

Nettles and Chives need cutting back in the garden so I try a variation on the Green Herb Soup in Delia Smith's Cookery Course. My experimental recipe needs a little development.

Timothy grass is a taller version of Catstail. There are a few plants at the side of the lane but it is often sown in meadows. The flowerheads have a furry feel and flexibility so the name Catstail suits it. It reminds me of the furry bit you pull at the end of a bell rope.

Tufted Vetch and Toadflax bring purple and yellow to the increasingly overgrown path sides.

Toadflax looks like a small yellow snapdragon. It often grows on the ballast alongside railway tracks.

Tufted Vetch has its flowers in groups like a toothbrush.

Which reminds me of the Edward Lear illustration of Smalltoothcombia Domestica, included in his Nonsense Botany (1871).

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@daelnet.co.uk'