London: Tower of London to St Pancras

12 September 2014

From Bank tube station we walked east along Leadenhall Street.  This is one of the sites where London Ragwort Senecio x subnebulosus has been recorded, but nowadays there is not a ragwort in sight, or even a plant at all, the whole of the City being kept super-tidy.  Only in some planters off the street did we find a flower, Least Yellow-sorrel Oxalis exilis.  We turned south towards the Tower of London.  At least Trinity Square Gardens could not be completely devoid of free-living plants, although mostly carefully tended. 

Trinity Square Gardens

The main tree was, as usual, London Plane Platanus x hispanica, while a few Walnut Juglans regia saplings at the north-east corner looked self-sown.  (They had the mite-gall Aceria erinea.)  A little searching revealed Bilbao's Fleabane Conyza floribunda (possibly now the commonest of this genus in the London area), Recumbent Yellow-sorrel Oxalis corniculata, Common Storksbill Erodium cicutarium, Dwarf Mallow Malva neglecta, and Gallant Soldier Galinsoga parviflora.

The Tower was surrounded by a moat of red poppies celebrating the centenary of the start of the First World War, but these were of the artificial variety. 

Sea of poppies for WWI at Tower of London

Crossing Tower Bridge we took the southern embankment west along the Thames as far as London Bridge, views dominated by the new skyscrapers of The Shard, Gherkin, Cheesegrater and WalkieTalkie.

 

Tower Bridge

Tower of London dwarfed by the new skyline: from left, Walkie Talkie, Cheesegrater, Gherkin

South embankment with The Shard

Embankment walkway beside Thames

This tourist area was again very bare of plants - there was even a person employed to remove nascent seedlings from between paving-stones with a special tool!  Central London seems to be engaged in a war on nature and is winning hands down.  Hay's Galleria, a shopping mall beside the walkway, had the 1987 sculpture "Navigators" by David Kemp, celebrating London's maritime history, a theme continued in the HMS Belfast moored beside London Bridge. 

"Navigators"

Just one spot of unused land immediately before this bridge gave free rein to plants.  Some must have been planted here originally and had spread - Corsican Hellebore Helleborus argutifolius, Garden Lady's-mantle Alchemilla mollis, and Heuchera micrantha 'Palace Purple'.  But many others had clearly found their own way here - Tall Nightshade Solanum chenopodioides, Pellitory-by-the-wall Parietaria judaica, Wall Lettuce Mycelis muralis, Buddleia Buddleja davidii, Mexican Fleabane Erigeron karvinskianus, Hartstongue Asplenium scolopendrium, Guernsey Fleabane Conyza sumatrensis, Bristly Ox-tongue Helminthotheca echioides, Oxford Ragwort Senecio squalidus, Annual Mercury Mercurialis annua and Sun Spurge Euphorbia helioscopa.

Tall nightshade

Crossing London Bridge we walked by Monument and Mansion House stations and down Queebn Victoria Street to the small sunken oasis of Cleary Gardens, created in the 1970s by Fred Cleary, who planted up many of London's bomb-sites.  There are some young Swamp Cypress Taxodium distichum here, Trailing Bellflower Campanula poschkyarna, Dusky Cranesbill Geranium phaeum and Red Valerian Centranthus ruber. 

Cleary Garden

Just past here a line of young elms was set along the pavement, being the disease-resistant Ulmus 'New Horizon' planted in 2004.

New Horizon elms, Queen Victoria Street

Leaves of New Horizon elm

We walked up Pulpit Hill towards St Paul's Cathedral.  At the point where the modern rebuilt road merged with the old Sermon Lane young Ginkgo Ginkgo biloba had been planted. 

St Paul's with ginkgo leaves in foreground

The gardens around the Cathedral were a green haven with interesting trees and full of office-workers on their lunch-break.  In one corner Meadow Saffron Colchicum autumnale was flowering.  Apart from the standard London plane, there were Tulip Tree Liriodendron tulipifera, mature Ginkgos, Strawberry Tree Arbutus unedo, Evergreen Oak Quercus ilex, and two more unusual trees: Trifoliate Orange Poncirus trifoliata (bearing Black Scale Saissetia oleae, a pest on the continent of olives and citrus) and Sweetgum Tree Liquidamabar styraciflua.  The thorny Poncirus originates from China and has a very bitter fruit (made into marmalade) but is very hardy and used as a stock for propagating Citrus trees.  Sweetgum, named after the resin it exudes, is common in the SE United States.  It has star-shaped leaves and spiky globular fruits.

 

Trifoliate Orange - unripe fruit, leaves & black scale

Sweetgum tree beside St Paul's

Leaves and fruits of sweetgum tree

Strawberry tree beside St Paul's

Strawberry tree leaves, flowers and fruit

From the Cathedral we walked up Cheapside to the corner of Wood Street, where there is a large London Plane, now closely surrounded by buildings, but once the perch of a thrush celebrated by William Wordsworth, whose poem is quoted on a plaque.

The site was once a church and then preserved as a tiny churchyard.

London plane, corner of Wood Street

We then walked back to St Paul's tube station, west along Newgate Street and north up Giltspur Street to Smithfield and the Rotunda Garden, once the site of public executions.  There are some old Fig trees Ficus carica and a Hybrid Wingnut Pteryocarya x rehderiana (a North American tree in the walnut family first propagated by Alfred Rehder in 1879).

Hanging spikes of winged seeds of hybrid wingnut

Bole of old fig, Rotunda Garden

Fig leaves, Rotunda Garden

We returned south to Ludgate Circus and walked west to Aldwych to get a lunch at Delaunay, which is open all day, before continuing south to Inner Temple Garden, which closes at 3pm.  While we arrived there on time we found it closed that day for maintenance.  We therefore had to return the next week just to explore this site and add it to this itinerary, although a massive thunderstorm curtailed our visit even then!  The Inns of Court provide a haven of peace and quiet only a short distance from the roar of traffic on the main roads, including pleasant green spaces.  The Inner Temple Garden once housed an old orchard, of which many fruit trees were supposed to have survived, but in fact we found that very few of these trees now remained.  We only found an old Black Mulberry Morus nigra supported by struts, a large Walnut Juglans regia and in a far corner an Almond Prunus dulcis. 

Old black mulberry, Inner Temple Garden

Other trees here were (again) lots of London Plane, Tulip Tree, Atlas Cedar Cedrus atlantica, Silver/Sugar Maple Acer saccharinum, Sargent Cherry Prunus sargentii and Indian Bean Tree Catalpa bignonioides. 

Tulip tree

Sargent cherry: the leaves have deeply impressed veins

Indian bean tree, Inner Temple Garden

Ground plants managing to spread themselves included Mexican Fleabane, the candelabra-like Hungarian Mullein Verbascum speciosum, Balkan Spurge Euphorbia oblongata, Argentinian Vervain Verbena bonariensis, and Orange-peel Clematis Clematis tangutica, while a planted cultivar of Polystichum setiferum had managed to get established on nearby walls.

Balkan spurge

Clematis tangutica

We then walked NW past the Royal Courts of Justice to Lincolns Inn Fields, a more traditional London park.  There are old planes here which include a parent of the London plane, Oriental Plane Platanus orientalis, with their pyramidal trunks very wide at the base.  A large one of these that we measured was 5.88m in girth. 

Measuring an oriental plane, Lincolns Inn Fields

There were also 40-year-old Sugar Maples planted in 1973 and a much younger Rock Maple Acer saccharum planted in 1998. 

Sugar maple

Rock maple

The natural ground flora was the most interesting we had seen so far, as it was given room to cohabit with planted beds.  There was a large area with Meadow Saffron, the hairy form of Black Nightshade Solanum nigrum ssp schultesii, Great Woodrush Luzula sylvatica, Grey Sedge Carex divulsa ssp divulsa, Shaggy Soldier Galinsoga quadriradiata, Canadian Fleabane Conyza canadensis, Green Alkanet Pentaglottis sempervivum, and Butcher's Broom Ruscus aculeatus.  An unusual planted bulb was the autumn-flowering Turflily Liriope muscari 'MonroeWhite', looking like a white plantain.

Butcher's broom

Turflily

Lincoln's Inn Hall

We could walk north from here to Bloomsbury and another series of park-like Squares.  Russell Square contained some old Yews Taxus baccata and Evergreen Oak.  Nettle-leaved Michaelmas-daisy Aster schreberi was spreading itself from planted beds.  It is distinct from all the other Michaelmas-daisies because of its long-stalked cordate lower leaves.  Red-necked parakeets flew screaming among the tree-tops. 

Flower & leaf of Nettle-leaved Michaelmas-daisy

Brunswick Square had both Oriental and London Planes.  One of the latter is said to be the second oldest in Britain, planted around 1800; we measured it at 7.44m girth.

Measuring an old London plane, Brunswick Square

The streets north of Brunswick Square had more Gallant Soldier.  We continued north towards StPancras along Judd Street.  Here at the junction of the pavement and garden walls we found two uncommon alien grasses close together - Cockspur Echinochloa crus-galli and Knotroot Bristle-grass Setaria parviflora.

Cockspur

Knotroot bristle-grass