London: Kensington to Primrose Hill (Royal Parks)

4 September 2015

We started at Gloucester Road tube-station.  As usual for London, the busy traffic and crowded buildings do not seem to augur well for finding any vegetation, let only any interesting flowers.

Gloucester Road station

Nevertheless across Cromwell Road and only a few steps up Gloucester Road is the church of St Stephens, with a narrow L-shaped garden on two sides.

St Stephens

This garden, hardly more than a back-yard, is planted with a large variety of species, many of them, like fan-palms and figs, indicating the warm climate of the inner city.  Naturalised here are creeping bellflower Campanula rapunculoides, now only in seed but still recognisable from its pendent seed-pods, Rose of Sharon Hypericum calycinum and mind-your-own-business Soleirolia soleirolii.

Creeping bellflower (with leaf-mines of the fly Liriomyza strigata)

Garden tree-mallow

There were few "weeds", but Canadian and Bilbao's fleabanes Conyza canadensis & bilboana  and great mullein Verbascum thapsus had made their way in.  Garden tree-mallow Malva clementii was still in flower.

          We walked back to Cromwell Road and east as far as the iconic Natural History Museum, where their recently-created wildlife garden would no doubt be of interest, but we turned left and proceeded to the Royal Albert Hall.

One of the carved plaques at the front of the Natural History Museum; we were not sure which plant was represented

On the west side of the Albert Hall stands the colourful ornate façade of the Royal College of Organists, reminiscent more of Barcelona or Paris than of London.

Royal College of Organists

The botanical interest here is a couple of Indian horse-chestnuts Aesculus indica, which has stalked shiny leaflets and small pear-like brown spineless fruits, planted in the pavement outside the neighbouring Royal College of Arts.  This is an unusual street-tree, a great change from the planes, common horse-chestnuts and whitebeams usually seen.

Indian horse-chestnut Leaves

Bark Fruit

Just west of here we walked down Palace Gate to the secluded close of Kensington Gate, where the residents of the undoubtedly high-rent flats have a central garden which is fenced and private, but it is very narrow and one can see everything from outside.  The variety of trees and shrubs planted here is amazing, taking advantage of the warm micro-climate that central London provides.  There was no time to identify most of the specimens here, but among a variety of fruit trees, including flowering crab, were red oak Quercus rubra and ginkgo Ginkgo biloba (unusually in fruit), while grape vine Vitis vinifera clambered along the fence.  Weeds are hardly allowed to become established here, but we did see a tall plant of Solanum nigrum schultzii, a variety of lack nightshade increasingly common across London .

Grape vine, Kensington Gate

Ginkgo in fruit

We walked back northwards and crossed the road to Kensington Gardens, one of three Royal Parks we were to visit in the day.  Along the south boundary is the South Flower Walk, which is gated from cyclists and bird-feeding disallowed, making it a relatively quiet haven with plenty of planted flowers and shrubs, although the robin that hopped beside us was obviously hoping for more than spiritual sustenance.  Most notable tree here is an old weeping beech Fagus sylvatica 'Pendula'.  The trunk had a swollen juncture that clearly showed where this variety had been grafted on to a normal beech base.  The leaves came down to head height, creating a dome above the path.  This tree is apparently mentioned in JM Barrie's "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens".

Weeping beech in Kensington Gardens

On the west side of the park is the Sunken Garden, a formal arrangement of flower beds, but very colourful for this time of year.  A notable feature is a walkway through an arbour of lime-trees rigorously trained to make a tunnel of foliage; the narrow trunks of these young trees were noticeably flattened, why and how we did not know.

Sunken Garden

Directly east from the gardens lies Round Pond, largely used by people feeding water-birds.

Black-headed gull on Round Pond

Waterweeds grew in the deeper parts of this large pond and the wind wafted floating fragments of them to one side.  Most of these were Hairlike Pondweed Potamogeton trichoides, but we also found the common Fennel Pondweed P. pectinatus and Fragile Stonewort Chara globularis var. globularis (our thanks to Roy Maycock for help with identifying the Chara).

Hairlike pondweed

Fennel pondweed

Fragile stonewort

Continuing east we came to the "Physical Energy" statue, a bronze by GF Watts.  This was cast in 1905 after an earlier 1902 cast was erected in South Africa to commemorate Cecil Rhodes.

Near the statue are some quite old London Planes Tilia x hispanica and Sweet Chestnuts Castanea sativa.  The latter bore large numbers of fruit - 2015 seems to have been a good summer for most fruiting trees.  A dead trunk was riddled with beetle emergence holes and had a large clump of dry Sulphur Polypore Laetiporus sulphureus, although it was protected from human encroachment by a thick growth of brambles.

Sweet chestnut

Dead trunk of sweet chestnut with sulphur polypore

From here we turned to the north side of the park, the North Flower Walk, where there was a large variety of planted trees and shrubs, including Medlar Mespilus germanica in  fruit.

Medlar

Here there was also some Forsythia Forsythia intermedia with a plaque to the person it was named after, William Forsyth 1737-1804, who was Superintendent of Kensington Gardens.

          At the far NE corner we turned south alongside Long Water (which eventually becomes the Serpentine in Hyde Park).  Near the famous Peter Pan statue were specimens of both Black Poplar Populus nigra and Italian Black Poplar P. x canadensis 'Serotina'.  At the base of one of the latter we found a group of Rooting Poison-pie Hebeloma radicata.

Peter Pan and fairies

Italian Black Popular

Rooting poison-pie

Crossing into Hyde Park, the shore of the Serpentine was planted with Reeds Phragmites australis, Galingale Cyperus longus, and Royal Fern Osmunda regalis.  However, Gypsywort Lycopus europaeus and Common Skullcap Scutellaria galericulata along the stony banks were presumably natural invaders.  A plant of Primrose Primula vulgaris was actually in flower!  Whether late or early it is impossible to say.

Common skullcap by Serpentine

We followed both the Serpentine and Rotten Row along the south side of the park, the Row being the traditional riding track.

Rotten Row

At the end of the Serpentine we reached The Dell, where there was Strawberry Tree Arbutus unedo in fruit and another splendid specimen of Weeping Beech.

Strawberry tree

Weeping beech, The Dell

Below these was the Holocaust Memorial, a simple plaque surrounded by a grove of birches of many different species, a very useful reference collection.  They included Silver Birch Betula pendula, Himalayan Birch Betula utilis and its variety jacquemontii with very white bark, Black Birch Betula nigra from America, and Swedish Birch Betula pendula 'Laciniata'.

Holocaust Memorial Garden

Cut-leaved Swedish birch

From The Dell we went to the centre of the park, The Old Police House, where there were several Silver Maples Acer saccharinum, the leaves with abundant galls caused by the mite Vasates quadripedes, first recorded in Britain in London in 2002 but now widespread on silver maple.

Shed silver maple leaves

Vasates quadripedes galls on silver maple

We then set out for the NE corner of the park, passing Red Oak Quercus rubra, Norway maple Acer platanoides and more old planes.  Towards the corner is the site of the "Reformers Tree" - an oak used as a rallying point in 1866 for protests by the Reform League (equal rights to vote for all men) which was burned down but still formed a focus for popular assemblies.  In 1872 this part of the park became Speakers' Corner, established by Act of Parliament.  The stump is now gone but a commemorative pebble mosaic replaces it, unveiled by Tony Benn in 2000.

Leaving the park on the east side we made our way through the streets of Mayfair to Berkeley Square, where the nightingales are replaced by ring-necked parakeets.  This was one of the early spaces in London for the planting of London planes in 1789 and there are over 30 trees dating back over 200 years.

Berkeley Square

Bole of old plane about 2m girth

"Mysteries" by Helaine Blumenfeld OBE, 8-ton marble sculpture erected in Berkeley Square in June for display until end of 2015

Just north of the Square lies Brook's Mews in a fascinating area of narrow streets recently gentrified and very active with cafés, boutiques etc, where Olive trees Olea europaea were planted by the Council in 2006 in an attempt to adjust to the increasingly Mediterranean climate of London.  The largest on the corner was fruiting well.

Brooks Mews: olive trees

Green olives

Continuing north we crossed Oxford Street and up James Street, which eventually becomes Marylebone High Street.  Towards the far end of this road on the left is a small park, Old Church Garden, that was once the churchyard of Marylebone Church.  It still has the gravestones of several famous persons of the 17-19th centuries and plaques recording more burials here.  There are small borders of plants and an Indian Bean Tree Catalpa bignoides, but the only natural species we could find here was Hedge Mustard Sisymbrium officinale.  Pride of place, however, went to a large elm standing at the SE corner, a Huntingdon elm Ulmus x vegeta, 150 years old, 100ft tall and reputed to be the last elm in Westminster.  It is still in robust health despite its dense urban surroundings and we measured its girth at 3.11m.

Indian bean tree

The Huntingdon elm towers above other street trees

Continuing north we crossed the busy Marylebone Road and entered Regents Park, our third Royal Park of the day.  At the SE corner are Avenue Gardens with colourful lines of flower-beds, a fountain, and an avenue of Small-leaved Lime Tilia cordata cultivar 'Golden Spire' planted in the 1990s.

Avenue Gardens

Small-leaved limes 'Golden Spire'

Small-leaved lime 'Golden Spire' with galls of the mite Eriophyes lateannulatus.  The curled leaves seemed standard and may be a feature of this particular cultivar.

Gardener with more than green fingers

The gardens were well-weeded, but we did manage to record Perennial Wall-rocket Diplotaxis tenuifolia.

          We crossed the park to the large lake on the west side, past an Atlas Cedar Cedrus atlantica in the centre.

Atlas cedar

Weeping willow Salix x sepulchralis has been planted by the lake.

The grass near the lake was kept well grazed by large flocks of geese - Canadian, greylag and bar-headed were all present.  Despite this there was an area of wet hollows (just to the right of the above picture) where some interesting plants were able to survive in a prostrate form.  These were Water Purslane Lythrum portula, Lesser Swine-cress Coronopus didymus, Sea Beet Beta vulgaris maritima, and most surprisingly, Pennyroyal Mentha pulegium.  These plants, especially the pennyroyal, which is rare except for a few spots in the New Forest, may have been brought in by the geese (like the waterweeds in Kensington Gardens).

Bar-headed goose

Pennyroyal

We left Regents Park along the west side of the Zoo, past numerous animal sculptures, and over Prince Albert Road to Primrose Hill.  We had run out of time to visit the top of the hill, with its famous views, and kept along the bottom through avenues of planted hawthorns, cultivars of Midland Hawthorn Crataegus laevigata, probably 'Paul's Scarlet'.  On the other side of the park, on Regent's Park Road, was the local "star" restaurant Odette's, where we were made very welcome, given a tour including the kitchens and met the chef.  They must have guessed that by now we would both have gargantuan appetites!

Midland hawthorn cultivar