Spotted medick

Spotted medick (Medicago arabica) is found in the south and east of England, mainly in grassy environments such as pastures. It is otherwise known as Calvary clover, from an old folk belief that the dark spots seen on its leaves were caused by Christ’s blood falling on a specimen of the plant that was growing at the foot of the Cross.

The plant grows to a maximum height of 24 inches (60 centimetres) although many stems trail along the ground. The leaves grow as sets of three leaflets, which might lead to people mistaking the plant for a kind of clover. The dark spots are seen most easily as the leaves age and start to turn brown.

Small bright yellow flowers appear on stalks between April and August. These are replaced by pods that coil into a spiral that has a double row of spines. These enable ripe pods to be pulled off the plant and carried some distance on the legs and flanks of passing animals.

When on the ground, the pod does not split open to release the seeds. Instead, one of the seeds will germinate inside the pod and send a shoot through the pod’s wall to find soil in which to root itself. The rest of the pod will often remain attached to the new plant as it grows.

© John Welford

Ornitholestes

Ornitholestes was a meat-eating coelurosaur dinosaur that lived around 155 million years ago which is towards the end of the Jurassic period. This was about the time that the first birds were appearing, having evolved from reptiles, and the name Ornitholestes means “bird robber” because it was originally supposed that the animal preyed on early birds and their nests. However, this is unlikely given that birds were evolving in what is now Europe and the very rare fossils of Ornitholoestes have only been found in what is now the state of Wyoming.

Ornitholestes was no great size, being only about two metres (six feet) from nose to tip of tail. It would therefore have relied on its speed for catching its prey and escaping from larger predators. It may also have developed keen senses of sight and smell for the same purposes.

Ornitholestes had small sharp teeth and strong arms that ended in long claws. These suggest that the animal might have preyed on the young of other dinosaur species, possibly grabbing them as they hatched from their eggs and making off at speed when the parents realised what was happening. The “robber” part of the name was therefore quite likely to have been appropriate, although the eggs and young being attacked were not those of birds!

© John Welford 

Lucerne

Lucerne (Medicago sativa) is a plant that grows wild throughout Great Britain although it is a non-native species (of Mediterranean origin) that started off as a “tame” one but escaped.

Lucerne is otherwise known as alfalfa, and it has uses as a fodder crop due to its high protein and vitamin content. Farmers have traditionally used lucerne to improve the productivity of their land, because the roots develop small nodules that “fix” nitrogen. This means that nitrogen is taken from the air and transferred to the soil where it becomes an essential plant food.

Wild lucerne grows as a bushy plant up to 36 inches (90 centimetres) high. The leaves split into three leaflets that are toothed towards the ends. The plant flowers in June and July, with the purple (sometimes yellow) flowers clustered near the stem tips.

The flower has an interesting mechanism for achieving pollination. The stamen (male) and stigma (female) parts of the flower are tensioned such that when a bee (or other heavy insect) lands on a flower, the stigma springs up and hits the bee, thus being able to collect any pollen that the bee was carrying. Likewise, the stamen deposits more pollen on the bee that it then carries to the next flower.

The seed pods coil into spirals, each containing many seeds. It is possible to make a salad garnish from lucerne/alfalfa seeds by allowing them to sprout in a glass jar and eating the seedlings, which have a nutty flavour.

© John Welford

Dyer's greenweed

Dyer’s greenweed (Genista tinctoria) is a plant that is related to broom and is found in England and Wales but only rarely in Scotland. It prefers clay and chalky soils and in often found in grassy places.

It comprises a small shrub that grows up to 28 inches (70 centimetres) in height. It has smooth green stems from which the leaves, which are discarded in winter, grow directly. Unlike some other brooms, dyer’s greenweed does not have spines.

The plant flowers from July to September, the flowers forming bright yellow spikes at the ends of the stems. Brooms are members of the pea family, and this is especially noticeable from the long pods that contain the seeds. When the seeds are ripe, the pods twist open suddenly and the seeds are ejected.

The name comes from the fact that a yellow dye can be prepared from the flowering stems. In the 14^th century, immigrant Flemish weavers used the dye in combination with blue woad to produce green-coloured cloth. This was traditionally done in the Lake District, where the resultant colour was known as Kendal green.

© John Welford

Indian balsam

Indian balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) is a plant that grows wild in several parts of the United Kingdom but it is no means a native plant, as might be gathered from its name. It is known that it first reached the UK from India in 1839, introduced as a greenhouse plant, but seeds escaped and led to wild populations getting a foothold. Where it occurs, Indian balsam does very well on waste ground and on river banks.

Indian balsam can grow as high as 80 inches (200 centimetres). It has sturdy ribbed stems that bear pointed leaves growing in groups of three and pointing in different directions. It produces large purplish flowers from July to October.

The pear-shaped fruiting capsules release ripe seeds by springing back their sides and throwing the seed a considerable distance. This can happen when the plant is touched by a passing person or animal.

Pollination is ensured by the shape of the flower which closes completely around any bee that visits to takes its nectar, although the trapping is only temporary. The insect has no choice but to touch both stamen (male) and pistil (female) as it moves from flower to flower and therefore to transfer pollen.

© John Welford

Common stork’s-bill

Common stork’s-bill (Erodium cicutarium) certainly lives up to its name in respect of the first element, in that it is commonly found throughout Great Britain, particularly in gravel pits, dry grassland and on the margins of sandy beaches.

The plant grows up to 20 inches (50 centimetres) high, although some of the stems grow lengthways close to the ground. The leaves comprise double rows of leaflets of varying shapes.

Common stork’s-bill flowers from May to September, but each flower can be very short lived – appearing in the morning but dropping its petals by noon. The flowers are pink with the five petals longer than the sepals.

Common stork’s-bill is notable for the extraordinary method it has of propagating its seeds. Each fruit has five narrow segments that together form the “stork’s-bill” of the second element of the plant’s name. When the seed is ripe, the “bill” twists at the base and the five seeds are released, each at the end of a corkscrew-like filament.

When the seed falls the corkscrew is still attached, and this then tightens or loosens with variations in humidity. The effect is that the corkscrew buries itself in the ground, taking the seed with it. There are backward-pointing hairs on the stem that prevent the seed from re-emerging from the soil. When the seed is at the correct depth for germination the corkscrew ceases to operate.

© John Welford

Massospondylus: a dinosaur from the Jurassic era

Massospondylus was a prosauropod dinosaur that lived around 200 to 185 million years ago, which places it in the early Jurassic period when reptiles were the dominant life form on planet Earth.

Massospondylus lived mainly in what is now Africa. More than 80 fossils of Massospondylus (in various states of completion) have been found, which has enabled it to be one of the best-studied dinosaurs.

It was about 4.5 metres long with half of this being its tail. It had strong hind legs, which would have been useful both for escaping from predators and for reaching the high-growing vegetation that was almost certainly its food source.

Given the small size of its head (and therefore jaw), as compared to its body, Massospondylus would have had to spend a large proportion of its waking hours eating. The animal’s front teeth were large and strong – ideal for biting the tough stems of fern-like plants – but its other teeth were not adapted to chewing. This suggests that the food was gulped straight down and then mashed up in the stomach, possibly aided by stones that Massospondylus would have swallowed.

© John Welford

Herb-robert

Herb-robert (Geranium robertianum) is a member of the crane’s-bill family of plants, a number of whose members are found growing wild in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Herb-robert is commonly found under hedges, on rocks and walls and in woodland, preferring shady places rather than full sunlight.

Herb-robert grows up to 20 inches (50 centimetres) high, its stems branching from the base but some sprawling across the ground as opposed to standing upright.

The leaves are fern-like in shape with three to five lobes. The stems and leaves, which are hairy, turn bright red in autumn or if the plant is growing in dry conditions. This might be a reason why the plant has the name it does, in that “robert” is a corrupted form of the Latin word for red, namely “ruber”.

Herb-robert flowers from May to September, the flowers being pink and the petals rounded and not notched. Although the fruits are slightly wrinkled, the seeds are smooth.

It was typical in medieval times for plants to be ascribed curative powers based on their appearance, the belief being that everything in Nature had been designed by God to be of direct benefit to humanity, and He left clues on each plant as to what that purpose was. In the case of herb-robert, the red colour mentioned above signified the plant’s efficacy in treating blood disorders or staunching the flow of blood.

However, the leaves also produce a disagreeable smell, and the plant is therefore sometimes known as “Stinking Bob”.

© John Welford

Dove's-foot crane's-bill

Dove’s-foot crane’s-bill (Geranium molle) is a common wildflower plant in lowland Great Britain, being found in fields, wasteland and sandy areas.

This variety of crane’s-bill is noticeable for the soft hairy down on its roundish lobed leaves (the botanical name “molle” is Latin for soft). The semi-erect stems, which branch from the base of the plant, grow up to 16 inches (40 centimetres) high.

The plant flowers from April to September. The pointed sepals are covered with dense hair and the lilac/purple flowers have five notched petals. Although the flowers are attractive to insects, the stamens (male) and stigmas (female) are in close contact so the flowers are actually self-pollinating.

The name crane’s-bill comes from the shape of the fruit, which has been thought to resemble the bill of the crane – a stork-like bird. When ripe, the fruit ejects a seed which is thrown some distance from the plant.

The name dove’s-foot comes from the shape of the leaf, which some people have seen as resembling the shape of a dove’s foot, although this takes a considerable leap of imagination!

As with many common wild flowers, dove’s-foot crane’s-bill has been used in the past by herbalists to treat certain ailments. One of the more bizarre applications was that advocated by John Gerard in the 16^th century. He prescribed a cure for ruptures in which a powder was made from dried plants to which was added a powder made by grinding up nine dried slugs! The combined powder was then stirred into claret and drunk. Were any ruptures healed as a result? Or did the excuse to drink copious amounts of claret – albeit strangely flavoured - simply make sufferers forget that they were in discomfort?

© John Welford

Hedgerow crane's-bill

Hedgerow crane’s-bill (Geranium pyrenaicum) is also known as the Pyrenean or mountain crane’s-bill, because it grows in mountainous regions of Southern Europe, but it is only found as a lowland plant in the United Kingdom (notably the south and east of England). It is not native to Britain, having first been recorded here in 1762. Formerly a rare plant, it has increased in numbers in recent years and it is especially prevalent in overgrown churchyards, growing alongside grasses and dandelions. It is also found in hedgerows, field margins and on wasteland.

The plant has upright stems between 9 and 24 inches (23-60 centimetres) high. The rounded leaves are “half lobed” in that the indentations go only half way to the midrib. The flowers, which appear between June and August, are light purple and grow in pairs. The sepals are oval and pointed and the petals deeply notched.

The name crane’s-bill comes from the shape of the pointed fruits, which are thought to resemble the beak of the crane (a bird resembling the stork). The fruits are smooth and downy, each containing a single seed. A long thin style runs up the outside of each fruit. When the seed is ripe the style acts like a spring, flinging the seed up to 10 feet (3 metres) from the parent plant.

The botanical name of this plant could be taken to mean that it is related to the garden plants with bright red flowers that are generally knowns as geraniums. However, the latter is a member of the Pelargonium family.

© John Welford

Prosauropod dinosaurs

The Prosauropods, also known as Plateosaurids, were the first large dinosaurs. They lived during the late Triassic and early Jurassic eras (230-180 million years ago).

They were plant-eating dinosaurs with long necks and tails, small heads, wide bodies and four strong legs. Although they walked on all fours, some of them, such as Plateosaurus, may have reared up on their hind legs to reach leaves on tall plants. This was an animal that was up to nine metres long and may have weighed as much as three tonnes.

Riojasaurus lived about 220-215 million years ago in what is now Argentina. It was ten metres long and probably weighed about two tonnes.

Fossils of Sellosaurus, which lived 215-210 million years ago, have been found in Europe.

Lufengosaurus, from the early Jurassic, lived in what is now China and was up to nine metres long. A skeleton of Lufengosaurus was the first complete dinosaur fossil to be found in that country.

The Prosauropods were followed by the Sauropods that were even bigger but with the same basic shape having long necks and tails.

© John Welford

Baryonyx

Baryonyx was a carnivorous dinosaur that lived in the early Cretaceous era about 130 million years ago. The first discovery of a Baryonyx fossil was made in Surrey, England, in 1983.

Baryonyx was about 10 metres long, of slim shape, with a long narrow tail and a crocodile-like mouth and snout. An unusual feature was the strong thumb claw on the front legs. This claw measured 35 centimetres in length and may well have been related to Baronyx’s feeding habits.

Specimens of Baronyx have been found alongside fossilised fish scales, which give another clue as to this animal’s probable way of life.

It very much looks as though Baryonyx was a fish-eating dinosaur that behaved in a similar fashion to the modern crocodile. The signs point to Baryonyx having lived in swamps or alongside rivers. It would dart its long neck forward to snatch fish out of the water, and it would use its massive thumb claws to hook fish and other water-dwelling creatures.

Modern fresh-water crocodiles had not evolved during the era when Baryonyx was around, so it is entirely possible that Baryonyx was unchallenged in its role as a fish-eating predator at this time.

© John Welford

Eustreptospondylus

Eustreptospondylus was a large meat-eating dinosaur that lived during the Jurassic era about 165-160 million years ago. Its fossils have been found in an area that comprises the present-day counties of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire in England.

The first fairly complete specimen was found in 1870 and it was mistakenly categorised as “Megalosaurus”, which was the only genus of meat-eating dinosaurs known at the time to have existed in that region. It was not until 1964 that Eustreptospondylus was identified as a separate species and given its own name.

The name means “well-curved backbone”, which refers to the arrangement of the bones of the spine.

Eustreptospondylus measured about six metres from nose to tip of tail and probably weighed about 400 kilograms (900 pounds). It was equipped with a mouthful of very sharp teeth and would have been a fearsome hunter. It probably preyed on sauropod plant-eating dinosaurs such as Cetiosaurus.

© John Welford

Dilophosaurus

Dilophosaurus was a meat-eating therapod dinosaur that lived about 195-190 million years ago, which was in the early Jurassic period. It was one of the earliest large predatory dinosaurs that is known about from the fossil evidence.

Dilophosaurus was about six or seven metres in length, including its long tail. It probably weighed in excess of 500 kilograms (1100 pounds) which places it in the same weight category as the polar bear.

The name means “two ridged reptile”, which refers to the parallel plate-like ridges on the animal’s head. Given that these do not look to have been strong enough to be used as weapons, it is possible that they were covered in brightly coloured skin and used to warn off rivals or enemies, or as part of a mating ritual.

Fossils of dilophosaurus were found in 1942 in Arizona, USA, but the creatures may well have lived in other places. The species was only designated and named in 1970, due to difficulties posed by the fragmented nature of the fossils.

© John Welford

Coelophysis

Coelophysis was a small, agile dinosaur that lived during the Triassic era about 210 million years ago. It was about three metres long and it would have stood about waist-high to the average human, had any been around at the time. Being of light build, with hollow bones, it would only have weighed about 20 kilograms (44 pounds).

It had long, powerful back legs, so it would have been able to run quickly, and its smaller front legs would have been used like arms. It had “hands” with three clawed fingers that would have been used to catch and hold its prey. Its mouth was full of small sharp teeth.

The “arms” feature contrasts sharply with meat-eaters that appeared much later in the Dinosaur Age, such as Tyrannosaurus, that had forelimbs with no discernible purpose. More than 140 million years elapsed between Coelophysis and Tyrannosaurus, which is many millions of years longer than the gap between Tyrannosaurus and us! There was therefore plenty of time in which evolution could make substantial changes between dinosaurs similar to Coelophysis and those resembling Tyrannosaurus.

Coelophysis belonged to the therapod group of meat-eating dinosaurs. Its food probably consisted mainly of lizards, worms and insects.

A large number of Coelophysis fossils were found at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, USA, in 1940. They may have been a herd of animals that drowned during a sudden flash flood.

© John Welford

Allosaurus

Ask just about anyone to name a meat-eating dinosaur and they are quite likely to say “Tyrannosaurus”. This was a fearsome hunter that lived at the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. However, there was a very similar animal that filled the same niche in the natural world 90 million years earlier; this was Allosaurus.

Allosaurus lived during the late Jurassic about 155-150 million years ago. Fossils have found in the American midwest, notably Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. However, close relatives of Allosaurus may have lived in what is now Europe and Africa.

Allosaurus was 11-12 metres in length (36-39 feet) and could have weighed up to four tons. It had a massive head (up to a metre long) and jaws that could be flexed to allow huge bites to be taken.

The late Jurassic was also populated by massive sauropod dinosaurs including Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus. These may well have formed a major part of the diet of Allosaurus.

© John Welford

Common water-crowfoot

There are nine varieties of water-crowfoot found in the British Isles, and they are easily confused with each other. Their common features are that they are “water buttercups” and that, in most cases, they have two sets of leaves, one of which grows above the surface and the other below.

Common water-crowfoot (Ranunculus aquatilis) grows in ponds, streams and ditches throughout Great Britain, being absent only from highland areas. It has round leaves floating on the surface and feathery ones underneath. There may also be leaves that are transitional, in that they are sometimes above and sometimes below the surface.

The flowers, which are half an inch across, are white with a yellow centre. The globe-shaped fruiting bodies are carried on curving stalks that bend back towards the water. The flowers appear in May and June and often form impressive displays several feet across.

© John Welford

Common St John’s-wort

Common St John’s-wort (Hypericum perforatum) grows throughout Britain on grasslands and also next to hedges and in open woods, having a preference for chalky soils.

It throws up hairless erect stems that are woody at the base. This variety of St John’s-wort can be identified by the two narrow ribs that run up the stems on opposite sides. The small leaves are noticeable for appearing to be punctured if seen against the light (hence “perforatum”), although these are tiny translucent glands.

The flowers, which appear from June to September, are an inch across and have five widely-spaced yellow petals that have black dots on the edges. The stamens are in three bundles, which correspond to the three cells that are apparent in the seed capsule when it forms.

Common St John’s-wort was used extensively in medieval times as a medicinal plant. It was a stipulation of medieval herbal medicine that if a plant resembled a part of the human body then it had been made that way by God because it would cure diseases and injuries of that part. No part of common St John’s-wort has this correspondence, but the “punctures” on the leaves were thought to symbolise wounds, so the plant found a use in treating wounds, particularly if received in battle.

The name of the plant derives from this use, because it was part of the medical kit of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem during the Crusades.

Common St John’s-wort was also believed to have the power to drive away evil spirits. People would hang bunches of it over their doorway to keep the Devil at bay. If somebody believed that they had been possessed by a devil they would try prayer as their first resort but St John’s-wort as their second, wearing it on their person or strewing their cottage floor with it. 

© John Welford

Common scurvygrass

Common scurvygrass (Cochlearia officinalis) is a plant that grows around the British Isles on cliffs, seashores and in salt marshes, but only rarely inland. Despite its name it is not a grass but a member of the cabbage family.

The plant is hairless, throwing up long-stalked fleshy leaves that are shaped like hearts or kidneys. The lower leaves form a loose rosette. The plant grows to 20 inches (50 centimetres) in height.

The small white or lilac flowers appear from May to August. The seed-pods are globe-shaped.

Although the “grass” part of the name is a misnomer, the “scurvy” part is very relevant. The leaves are an excellent source of vitamin C and therefore offer protection against scurvy, which was a disease that afflicted sailors in past centuries whose food consisted almost entirely of salt pork and dried biscuits. When ashore, sailors would gather large quantities of scurvygrass from the surrounding area.

The plant was also used by non-sailors, given that outbreaks of scurvy could occur anywhere when fresh fruit and vegetables were not available, especially in winter. People in the 17th century would take a glass of “scurvygrass water” every morning, and a more appetising variant was a beer called “scurvygrass ale”.

© John Welford

Common poppy

The common poppy (Papaver rhoeas) is a familiar sight throughout the British Isles (except northern Scotland) with its bright red flowers that appear on many roadside verges and on the edges of cornfields. It may therefore be surprising to learn that the petals drop after only one day, but this is hardly noticeable given that a single plant can produce more than 400 flowers between May and October.

The common poppy is a tall, upright plant that can grow to 24 inches high (60 centimetres). The lower leaves are stalked and have narrow lobes and bristles at the tips, whereas the upper leaves, with their three lobes, are stalkless.

The flowers are 3-4 inches across (7.5-10 centimetres) with overlapping petals. The seed capsules are rounded with a ring of pores near the top from which the seeds are shaken when the wind blows.

Another name for the common poppy is the corn rose, which relates to its association with cornfields and the fact that it used to be seen much more commonly growing alongside corn in the days before selective weedkillers.

The use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance dates from World War I when it was one of the few plants that would grow on the devastated fields of Flanders after they had been shelled and fought over.

© John Welford

Common orache

Common orache (Atriplex patula) is commonly found on both cultivated and waste ground, especially near coasts, throughout the British Isles.

The plant is closely related to the goosefoots, and may be difficult to identify for this reason, but goosefoot flowers are bisexual whereas those of the common orache are either male or female. Also, the female flowers are enclosed by two green leaf-like structures called bracteoles, which are up to half an inch long. After flowering, the bracteoles hide the fruit.

Male flowers are more open, but the sepals and green petals are almost alike in appearance.

The common orache grows up to 40 inches (100 centimetres) high, flowering in August and September. The stems are branched and are often coloured red. The leaves are toothed.

© John Welford

Common milkwort

Common milkwort (Polygala vulgaris) grows on heaths, grasslands and dunes. It has the unusual feature of having four possible flower colours, namely white, blue, mauve or pink. This has given rise to its alternative name (in Ireland) of “four sisters”. Its more common name arises from the fact that medieval herbalists used infusions of it to increase the flow of milk in nursing mothers.

Common milkwort is a small plant, growing up to 4 inches (10 centimetres) in height. The stems have many branches and are woody at the base. The leaves grow on alternate sides up each stem.

The flowers of the common milkwort are unusual and attractive. Each one has five sepals, three of which are green and small but the other two are coloured and much larger. The eight stamens link together to form a tube which only just protrudes beyond the coloured sepals. One petal is much larger than the others, which are very small and are joined to the stamen tube. The larger petal is on the underside of the flower and has a fringe. The flowers appear from May to September.

The fruit of the common milkwort is flat and transparent.

© John Welford

Common mallow

Common mallow (Malva sylvestris) is often seen on waste ground and roadsides throughout the British Isles, although it is rarer in the far north of Scotland. It is related to plants such as hollyhock and hibiscus.

It grows to a height of up to 36 inches (90 centimetres). The leaves at the base are rounded but those growing off the stems are more like ivy leaves in shape. The flowers, which appear from June to September, are pink to purple and one to two inches across. They have five narrow petals that are marked with dark veins. The fruits are round and comprise a ring of nutlets; these have given rise to folk-names for mallow such as ‘billy buttons’ and ‘cheese flower’.

In ancient times mallow shoots were eaten as a vegetable, and the plant has also found medicinal uses. In medieval times it was believed that it acted as an anti-aphrodisiac for people who needed to be calmed down! More recently, its leaves have been used to treat wasp stings and the sap has been made into poultices and ointments.

© John Welford

Clownfish

Clownfish (sometimes known as anemone fish) are related to damselfish but are noted for being brightly coloured with contrasting bands across the body. The name comes from the resemblance to a clown’s facial make-up.

They are found on coral reefs in the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans.

Apart from their appearance (which makes them popular as aquarium fish) their most remarkable feature is the symbiotic relationship they have with venomous sea anemones that feed on fish of other species.

The clownfish has mucus on its skin that makes it immune to the sting of the sea anemone which means that it can hide among the tentacles of the many anemones that populate coral reefs. In turn, the clownfish’s bright colours attract other fish that then become prey for the anemones.

© John Welford

Carnotaurus

Carnotaurus was a therapod dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous era about 75 to 70 million years ago. Fossils have been found in Argentina, the first discovery being made in 1985.

Carnotaurus was a medium-sized dinosaur at 8 to 9 metres in length, weighing around one ton.

The skull was relatively tall from top to bottom but short from front to back, which accounts for its name which translates as ‘meat-eating bull’ in reference to the appearance of its head.

Carnotaurus had two small horn-like projections above the eyes, and a row of scales along the spine that produced a series of regularly placed lumps.

Carnotaurus was similar to Tyrannosaurus in that it had tiny ‘arms’ for which the use is difficult to envisage – they would have been too short to reach the animal’s mouth.

Although Carnotaurus was clearly a meat-eater, its teeth and jaws were not particularly large or powerful. This suggests that it would have preyed on smaller plant-eating dinosaurs.

© John Welford

Buttercups in Great Britain

There are four species of buttercup that grow wild in Great Britain, although one of them (celery-leaved) is relatively rare.


Meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris)

The meadow buttercup can grow up to 36 inches (90 centimetres) in height and prefers damp conditions. It has a large number of leaves, which are divided into anything from two to seven lobes, and the small flowers, which can vary in shade from bright to pale yellow (or even white) are evident from May to July and can last right through the summer.

The buttercup is poisonous to cattle, which is one reason why the meadows in the picture (in Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales) are not grazed at this time of the year. However, cows tend to avoid eating them anyway, which is just as well.

Children like to pick buttercups and hold them under each other’s chins to see if the yellow reflects on the skin. If it does, this is supposed to show that the child in question likes butter!

In former times buttercup roots were ground up with salt as a treatment for plague – they were said to cause blisters that drew out the disease. Fortunately, there is little call these days for testing whether the method works.

Another use for buttercups was to hang them in a bag round the neck, as a cure for lunacy. Nowadays one might think that wearing a bag of buttercups might be a symptom of the ailment rather than its cure!


Creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens)

This is the buttercup variety that you do not want to get in your garden! It sends out runners in all directions that, every few inches, establish new plants and make it difficult for plants such as grass to get a foothold. Unless you are able to get every scrap of creeping buttercup removed, your lawn can quite easily be ruined.

On farmland the effect can be even worse because cattle will avoid it when grazing – it is unpleasant to the taste – and take the grass instead. This only leaves more room for the creeping buttercup to spread into. If the land is ploughed, the buttercup plants can easily regenerate many times over from the pieces that the plough has cut up.

The plant can be short or tall, depending on soil conditions. It can therefore be a ground-hugger, only two inches (five centimetres) high, or grow up to 20 inches (50 centimetres) in height. The hairy leaves, on long stalks, have three lobes with the central one being much larger than the other two. The yellow flowers, which are single or in clusters, can be seen from May to September.


Bulbous buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus) (pictured above)

This is similar to the meadow buttercup but each stem has a swollen base and each leaf has a stalked central lobe. The sepals bend down rather being close to the petals. Bulbous buttercups flower earlier than meadow buttercups, being evident from March to June, and they prefer drier conditions to those favoured by the meadow buttercup.


Celery-leaved buttercup (Ranunculus sceleratus)

Not only is this species less common than the others, it is also not so easy to spot given that its flowers are much smaller and it does not throw out runners. It has hairless lower leaves without a stalked central lobe. The fruit forms an elongated head.

© John Welford

Brabant heavy horse

This is a Brabant heavy horse, giving a demonstration of timber hauling.

The Brabant is also known as the Belgian Heavy Draught, being an ancient horse breed with a pure bloodline. It is noted for its muscular neck, powerful shoulders, compact body and short legs. It is known to be easy-going and amiable. Standing at 16-17 hands and weighing about a ton, the Brabant was traditionally used as a draught horse on farms, but numbers have fallen drastically with the growth of mechanisation.

However, heavy horses now have a new role to play as they have been found to be ideal for use in forests when tree trunks need to be transported along narrow forest paths or across terrain where the use of vehicles is impractical. A horse such as this can haul a ton weight across level ground and remove 25 tons of timber during a working day.

Needing no fuel other than food, and producing nothing more offensive than manure at the other end, the future of heavy horses for forestry use seems assured, given that they cause no damage and can access all sorts of difficult places.

© John Welford

The evolution of birds

It is generally believed that birds evolved from reptiles and are the nearest living creatures to the dinosaurs, the last of which suffered extinction some 65 million years ago. However, the exact evolutionary route from Tyrannosaurus Rex to house sparrow is not so easy to work out.

Dinosaurs to birds

It is known that the skies 150 million years ago were patrolled by massive winged reptiles called pterosaurs, but these were not the ancestors of modern birds. For one thing, they did not have feathers and, for another, they belong to a different branch of the evolutionary tree.

Dinosaurs, by which is meant land-dwelling reptiles of the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous eras (251 to 65 million years ago) can be divided into two main branches, the Saurischians and the Ornithischians, based on their hip structure. Confusingly enough, birds evolved from the first-named group, not the second. They are therefore more closely related to carnivorous reptiles such as Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor than herbivores such as Iguanodon and Stegosaurus.

Archaeopteryx

The idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs was first proposed after the discovery in Germany in 1861 of the fossilised impression of a creature from 150 million years that was clearly a reptile but which also had feathers. This was named Archaeopteryx (meaning “ancient feather”) and was widely hailed as being an intermediary between dinosaurs and birds, given that the structure of its bones and the arrangement of the feathers made it entirely possible for Archaeopteryx to fly. It would have been about the size of a modern raven. The discovery came only two years after the publication of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” and was seen as confirmation of Darwin’s conjecture that species could evolve into new ones.

However, there are doubts over whether Archaeopteryx was the direct ancestor of modern birds, or whether that honour belongs to a creature related to Archaeopteryx that has not, as yet, turned up in the fossil record. Another complication has been the discovery of fossils (in China in 1998) of dinosaurs that had feathers but clearly were not suited for flight.

The suggestion is therefore that feathers evolved for a purpose other than enabling a creature to fly. It is quite possible that the original function of feathers was to provide insulation or to attract mates, and that Archaeopteryx and its relatives and descendants adapted them as a means of achieving flight.

One theory is that an ancestor of Archaeopteryx might have hopped along the ground and grabbed insects out of the air. Those that jumped higher would get the most insects and the ability to flap the wings and take off altogether evolved from that activity.

So where might birds have come from?

The fossil record includes later specimens that show how early bird species might have developed. These include Ichthyornis and Hesperornis from the Upper Cretaceous (100 million years ago).

The virtual disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years leaves open the question of how the bird ancestors managed to survive, especially if the reason for the disappearance was a strike on Earth by a large meteor or small asteroid, resulting in worldwide destruction of plant life due to vast dust clouds preventing proper sunlight from reaching the surface for a number of years. It has been suggested that the small size of proto-birds might have been a factor, coupled with the insulation provided by feathers and their ability to fly to whatever food sources were available.

In the post-dinosaur world the evolution of birds took off in many directions, aided by the fact that winged flight enabled birds to reach locations that presented many different ecological challenges that in turn led to further evolutionary development. By 60 million years ago the ancestors of modern herons, vultures and kingfishers are known to have been living, and most of the bird families in existence today are known to have evolved by the end of the Miocene (11 million years ago).

Continuing evolution

Evolutionary changes are still taking place in bird populations. Charles Darwin noted how the finches of the Galapagos Islands had evolved different feeding strategies to cope with the variety of food available between different islands within the same group, and those changes would have taken place relatively recently in the geological timescale, given that the islands themselves had only emerged from the ocean within the past four million years.

An even more recent example of bird adaptability leading to species evolution is that of the feral or urban pigeon which has developed characteristics that are quite distinct from its rural cousin the woodpigeon, due to having abandoned the cliffs of coast and mountain for the manmade cliffs of city buildings.

What all this shows is that evolution is a process that affects all living creatures, as it has done ever since the only life forms on the planet were viruses and bacteria.

© John Welford

Bhutan Glory butterfly

The Bhutan Glory butterfly is found in the mountainous areas of central Asia, at altitudes of up to 3000 metres. Its preferred habitats are meadows and forests.

The wings of the Bhutan Glory measure 9-11 centimetres across. They have dark front wings but bright orange on their back wings, which are normally hidden by the front wings. If threatened they will rapidly open and close their wings to reveal the bright patches, in the hope of scaring any predator away.

Their other main defence mechanism is to feed on poisonous plants, such as the Indian birthwort plant, and absorb the poison into their bodies.

The Bhutan Glory is a protected species due to its great rarity.

© John Welford

Apollo butterfly

The apollo butterfly is one that not many people have seen, due to its remote habitat, and it is also an endangered species.

Apollos are found in mountainous and hilly regions in central Europe, Spain, Scandinavia and Asia. They have furry bodies as protection against the cold at high altitudes.

The food plant of the Apollo is stonecrop. The female butterfly lays hundreds of eggs in July and August and these hatch out in August and September. However, the hatching is only partial, because the caterpillars will stay inside the eggs until the spring. They will then moult up to five times before they are ready to pupate.

Efforts are being made in many places to protect these rare and very attractive butterflies, which have a wingspan of 5-10 centimetres. Habitats are being managed and the use of insecticides reduced in their breeding areas.

© John Welford

The antler cycle of the fallow deer

Antlers are grown by the males of all species of deer, although reindeer cows also grow them. They are used mainly as weapons, particularly during the rutting season when stags fight for control of a harem of does. Antlers are not the same as horns in that they are bony growths that drop off and are renewed every year, unlike the horns of other mammals that are permanent features. The cycle of growth, shedding and re-growth varies between deer species and their location; the cycle described here is that of fallow deer in Great Britain.

Fallow deer fawns are born around June, and in March of the following year male fawns develop stalks, known as pedicles, from which the antlers will later grow. Although antlers are cast and then re-grow, the pedicles are permanent features. The fawn’s first antlers start to appear at the tops of the pedicles in May.

The antlers, which are straight, slender spikes with branches appearing only rarely in the first year, grow rapidly and are complete by late July. The antlers are covered by a hairy skin called velvet which contains blood vessels that supply oxygen and food to the bone as it grows.

When the spikes have finished growing the velvet shrivels, being discarded by the buck as it rubs its head against tree trunks. By mid-August the antlers will be dead tissue, but they stay in place until the following spring.

The first antlers are cast in late May, usually one at a time with an interval of a few days between the castings. There will be some bleeding from the pedicles when the antlers break off, with scabs forming shortly afterwards.

New antlers start to grow within one or two weeks, and growth is rapid, as with the original pair. However, by early July the second pair will show signs of branching into two “tines” on each antler, one pointing forwards and the other backwards. The forward-facing tine will only grow a small amount, developing into a sharp point curving upwards, but the backward-facing tine, known as the main beam, will develop into a much more substantial structure.

Throughout July and August the main beam will grow and several more tines will then branch off it. The ends of the antlers will broaden out to form blades with spikes growing off them, looking not unlike holly leaves in general shape.

In late August, after the growth is complete, the velvet will be shed, as in the first year, with the animal using trees to help rub it off. However, because of the much greater amount of velvet involved, the result will look untidy for several days as bits of bloodstained velvet hang off the antlers. Observers may think that the young stag has been injured in a fight as blood drips off his antlers, but this is not usually the case.

By the end of August all the velvet will have gone and the antlers will be clean and hard, remaining in place throughout the winter until the process begins again in the following spring.

Each new pair of antlers will be larger and heavier than those of the previous year, with the blades becoming broader and the antlers curving upwards and outwards. A mature buck has antlers up to about 20 inches (50 centimetres) in length. This process continues into old age, so it is possible, up to a point, to judge the relative ages of stags within a herd. However, it is difficult to determining a mature stag’s age accurately from its antlers alone. There are also many variations in size and shape between the antlers of bucks of the same age.

© John Welford

Bank vole

The bank vole (Clethrionomys glareolus) is a common animal found in the British countryside. It is 9-12 centimetres long and weighs up to 45 grams. When seen, a bank vole can be mistaken for a mouse, but it is plumper, has smaller ears, and a short furry tail. Their short fur is brown on the back and greyish on the sides.

Bank voles live in woodlands, hedges, gardens and parks, and their food consists of fruit, nuts and small insects. In suburban gardens they sometimes visit bird tables.

Bank voles are an important part of the rural food chain as they are prey to stoats, weasels, foxes and birds of prey.

Females give birth to litters of between three and eight young. They become sexually mature when only five weeks old, but their vulnerability to predators means that most bank voles do not live to be older than five months. Fortunately for the species, their fecundity as breeders means that there is no shortage of bank voles in Great Britain!

© John Welford