Midsummer can seem a quiet time in the natural world – the
riot of spring flowers is over, those chicks that have survived the fledging
process have moved on and the birds no longer need to sing to defend their
territories or to attract a mate. In the
insect world as well, solitary bees have mated and laid eggs for the generation
that will emerge next spring, bumblebee colonies have reached their natural
end, and summer butterflies are now on the wing. This natural progression through the year,
though ultimately driven by the changing day length starts with plants, the
base of the food chain. In our
lawn/meadow the clovers and vetches that started the floral year, are now
dominated by the slower growing and taller plants like ragwort and wild carrot.
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| Wild Carrot Flower |
Wild carrot (Daucus
carota carota) is a sub-species with its cultivated sibling, the familiar
orange-rooted culinary carrot (Daucus
carota sativus). It is an umbellifer,
that is, it has a large flat-topped flower head that looks a bit like an
umbrella. It is one of the more elegant
umbellifers and the buttressed flower heads always make me pause to admire
nature’s beauty and complexity. One
thing that sets the wild carrot apart from most other umbellifers is that amongst
the white florets, right in the middle of the flower head is a dark dot. This dot is actually a couple of florets that
are red rather than white. Why should
these florets be red? I don’t know, but
it is certainly not there so that we can distinguish wild carrot from other
species. One likely explanation involves
looking at what pollinates the flowers.
Bees and bumblebees are rarely seen on wild carrot, they are much more
likely to be pollinated by small flies or beetles, like the orange-red soldier beetles
that frequently use the flat heads as a mating post. So it may just be possible that evolution has
favoured a flower head that contains a dark dot that from a distance looks like
an insect already feeding there or perhaps an insect waiting for a mate?
A couple of other wild flowers that are in flower at the
moment and can be seen around the village hedgerows are woundwort and black
horehound. Both are members of the large
mint family, or lamiaceae, which are also known as labiates after their
‘lipped’ flowers. The mint family also
contains white dead-nettle that provides such good early forage for our
bumblebees. Woundwort has two species –
hedge woundwort and marsh woundwort – the names of which clearly indicate where
they are likely to be found. Plants with
the –wort suffix were used medicinally in the days before large drug companies
decided what is good for us, and woundwort was used as its name suggests as a
wound dressing. Apparently marsh
woundwort was the most effective dressing.
Woundwort is very similar to other plants with tall purple flower
spikes, and I always check that it is woundwort by tearing off part of a leaf
which has a distinctive and unpleasant, slightly antiseptic smell.
Black horehound is another plant with tall purple flower
spikes and an unpleasant smell. It has
such an unpleasant smell that it has earned the alternative common name of
Stinking Roger. It is called black from its dark foliage and
to distinguish it from the much rarer white horehound. It is used as a nectar and pollen source for
later emerging bumblebees and when we are doing bumblebee surveys, we always
check black horehound for the rare ruderal bumblebee, and its rarer cousin the
short-haired bumblebee. Plants run a
fine line between attracting insects to pollinate their flowers and deterring
other insects from eating their leaves which is what the foul smell is all
about.
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| Fleabane winning the competition for pollination |
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| The bizarre spiky seed pods of wild carrot |
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| And no need for lack of beauty while waiting for the seeds to ripen |
