29 August 2014
This walk was
mainly along the tow-path by south bank of the Thames from Kew
to Richmond Lock and back along the north bank, which was partially waterside
and partially through streets. We were right
under the flight-path from Heathrow and the conversation-drowning
brain-pummelling roar of aeroplanes every few minutes was wearing all day, even
blotting out the screams of the Ring-necked Parakeets so well established in
this area.
View of Thames from
Richmond Lock, with tow-path to Kew to the
right
After buying
pastries for lunch from a market stall by Kew
Gardens tube-station, we started off
with a spin around Kew
Gardens . We were too early for the autumn colours of
the trees and although the planted borders were very colourful, many outdoor
flowers were finished. The rampant
Spreading Yellow-Sorrel Oxalis
corniculata gave some brightness to rockeries and bark-mulched soil, where
toadstools like ink-caps and Shaggy Parasol Macrolepiota
rhacodes ssp bohemica were already beginning to appear. A few Meadow Saffrons were variously standing
or collapsing in the grass.
Spreading yellow-sorrel
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Meadow saffron
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At any time of the
year there are always some trees worth a look.
Near the Palm House we noticed the globular brown fruits of an Asian
Pear Pyrus pyrifolia, but resisted
sampling them, although supposed to taste like pear and be very juicy. They are speckled with white lenticels like
Sorbus fruits.
Asian pear
In the
Mediterranean Garden by King William's Temple two trees stood out for their
distinctive bark - Cork Oak Quercus suber
with its soft thick cracked variegated bark now unfortunately going out of
fashion for corking bottles, and the Cyprus Strawberry-tree Arbutus andrachne with striking red bark
peeling in strips.
Cork oak
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Nearby we could
not help noticing several Paper Mulberry trees Broussonetia papyrifera, with their attractive globular orange
flower-heads and elegant leaves. The
fruit is edible (it is a member of the mulberry family) and the bark was used
for paper-making in ancient China . It is, however, an invasive plant in some
tropical areas.
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Paper mulberry flowers and
leaves
Just west of the
Princess of Wales Conservatory is a famous old Ginkgo Ginkgo biloba ("Heritage Tree") with its long pendent
branches of leaves descending like a shower, planted in 1762, when Britain declared war on Spain and Rousseau published his
"Social Contract".
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Old ginkgo bole and leaves
Nearby we stopped
to celebrate the birthday of the 200-year-old Corsican Pine planted in 1814,
the year when the most famous Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte, was exiled to Elba .
200-year-old Corsican pine
There is usually
some artwork celebrating the world of plants at Kew
- on our spring walk here we encountered giant wooden mushrooms. This time it was trees clothed in knitting
patterns and some incongruous sheep.
Leaving by the
Elizabeth Gate we walked through Kew Green to the Thames
tow-path, walking west, to see if any of the exotics recorded for this stretch
of the river remained. These plants tend
to be ephemeral, however, and we did not see the California Brome or the Ball
Buddleia we had seen many years ago, nor Fig or Tree-of-heaven, but there were
still some plants of interest, despite the vegetation being regularly cut and
generally pretty dull. One speciality of
the Thames we were to find, but not until much
later.
Walls had Harts-tongue Asplenium scolopendrium, Black Spleenwort
A. adiantum-nigrum, Wall-rue A. ruta-muraria, Polypody Polypodium vulgare, Ivy-leaved Toadflax Cymbalaria muralis, Pellitory-by-the-wall
Parietaria judaica, and the lichen Cladonia humilis.
Cladonia
humilis
Waterside plants
were mainly Gypsywort Lycopus europaeus,
Purple Loosestrife Lythrum salicaria,
Pendulous Sedge Carex pendula, Wild
Angelica Angelica sylvestris, and
Water Figwort Scrophularia aquatica,
along with some aliens: lots of Indian Balsam Impatiens balsamifera, Orange
Balsam I. capensis, and occasional Garden
Angelica Angelica archangelica with
its thick-winged seeds and greenish, rather than pinkish, flowers. Common blue damselflies Enallagma cyathigerum were active.
Male common blue damselfly
Wild angelica
At this time of
the year we are inevitably drawn to the fleabanes. We identified Canadian Conyza canadensis. Bilbao 's C. floribunda and Guernsey
C. sumatrensis, but did not see any
of the Argentinian with its red-tipped bracts.
Other flowers of the rough grass were Greater Celandine Chelidonium majus, Hedgerow Cranesbill Geranium pyrenaicum, Green Alkanet Pentaglottis sempervivum, Bristly
Ox-tongue Picris echioides, Travellers’
Joy Clematis vitalba, Lesser Burdock Arctium minus, Horse-radish Armoracia rusticana, Black Horehound Ballota nigra, Oxford Ragwort Senecio squalidus and Prickly Lettuce Lactuca serriola. Some of the lesser burdock exhibited an
unusual condition of phyllanthy, a proliferation of leaves below the
flower-heads - we were not sure whether this was the result of an attack by
some virus or just a mechanical response to being severely cut back: the plants
in question were all low and close to the ground. The result was attractive and worthy of
becoming a garden cultivar!
Lesser burdock with a
proliferation of leaves below the flower-heads
Many of the plants
grew on the precipitous stone rampart descending to the river, including many
of the fleabanes and clumps of Michaelmas-daisy. Where we could sample the latter they turned
out to be Narrow-leaved Aster lanceolatus.
Narrow-leaved
Michaelmas-daisy
Trees along the
way included Grey Alder Alnus incana,
Turkey Oak Quercus cerrifolia, Hybrid
Oak Quercus x rosacea (with mines of
the moth Stigmella roborella) and
Hybrid Black Poplar Populus x canadensis
(which had the distinctive spiral petiole galls of the aphid Pemphigus spyrothecae and the leaf galls
caused by the fungus Taphrina populina).
Grey alder
Hybrid oak
Spiral gall on stalk of
hybrid black poplar leaf
There were also
several fruit-bearing trees of the rarely-seen Black Walnut Juglans nigra, which has more leaflets
than the common species, these leaflets being well-toothed. The bark is streaked sooty-brown and looks
very dark from a distance, like Corsican pine.
Black walnut with green
fruit
Just before we
reached Richmond Lock there was a solitary plant of Perennial Cornflower Centaurea montana , an increasing garden escape.
Perennial cornflower
Crossing the
bridge at the lock, on the other side we immediately came across our first Galinsoga, both species at once, not
only lots of Shaggy-soldier G.
quadriradiata, with its long white hairs, but also one plant of
Gallant-soldier G. parviflora,
sometimes referred to as "Kew weed".
Being close to its relative, the smaller flowers and the shorter, less
dense stem-hairs were very apparent. It
was ironic that we had to cross the river out of Kew
before we saw it.
Gallant-soldier
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Shaggy-soldier
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Although there is
no tow-path this side of the river, we could walk beside it almost as far as
Syon House. Quite a lot of the plants were
different on this side of the Thames, including Mind-your-own-business Soleirolia soleirolii, Annual
Wall-rocket Diplotaxis muralis,
Mexican Fleabane Erigeron karvinskianus,
Annual Mercury Mercurialis annua, the
miniature "palm-trees" of Common Liverwort Marchantia polymorpha and, draping the hedges, Hop Humulus lupulus, with leaf-mines of the
fly Agromyza flaviceps and the moth,
restricted to SE England, Cosmopterix
zieglerella.
Hop
It was here that
we saw one of the specialities of the day, on the stone embankment descending
to the river, a plant of Thames Yellow-cress, the hybrid Rorippa x erythrocaulis between Marsh and Great Yellow-cresses,
which has small petals longer than the sepals, longish lobed leaves with
clasping auricles, and fruits on widely spread-out stalks.
Birds on the Thames
mud-banks were mostly Cormorant, Black-headed and Great Black-backed Gulls, and
Canada Goose.
At Syon Park
we had to divert from the river to pass by the House, whose gardens were
unfortunately closed today for a massive Indian wedding, so we could not check
out the old black mulberries planted there.
After this the path sometimes follows the river and at other times we
had to walk through back streets and along busy main roads. Other wasteland plants seen occasionally in
this stretch were Lucerne
Medicago sativa ssp sativa, Tansy Tanacetum vulgare, Sea Beet Beta vulgaris ssp maritima (still within
the tidal reach?), Common Poppy Papaver
rhoeas, Goat's-rue Galega officinalis,
and Autumn Stonecrop Sedum
'Herbstfreude'.
A street hedge had
Hybrid Hazel Corylus avellana x maxima.
When we reached Kew Bridge Station we
crossed the bridge back to the Kew
Gardens side of the river
again. The road goes straight past Kew Church ,
our last destination for the day, for we had one more speciality to see. The churchyard is not too tidily manicured,
leaving plenty of rough grass and a chance for wild plants to survive. Here we saw Meadow Saffron again,
Bear's-breech Acanthus mollis,
Peach-leaved Bellflower Campanula
persicifolia, and, for the first time, Perennial Rocket Sisymbrium strictissimum with unlobed
leaves, hairy underneath, a tall striking plant. Unfortunately it had mostly flowered long ago
and all but one plant were very dry and brown, but the one younger specimen
still had green pods and was possible to photograph in front of a tombstone.
Perennial rocket in seed,
Kew Churchyard
A short walk
brought us back near Kew Gardens tube-station with time for a coffee before
enjoying a meal at the Glasshouse Restaurant and reflecting on a day that was
not perhaps botanically great but still had plenty of interest and two rare
plants in Thames Yellow-cress and Perennial
Rocket.
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