Nature to look out for in Burwell

I wrote some more flower names in chalk along Newmarket Rd, encouraged by comments from people who have said how this cheers their walks. As I did so a couple walking their dog pointed out white bryony to me in the hedge. I duly chalked its name on the pavement. I then decided to make this scrambling plant my species for today. I thought I would be able to write about it quickly and get started on the piles of papers that are waiting for me to sort. Instead I have been absorbed discovering more about this plant and the piles remain untouched!

What do you think of this plant? I’ve taken little notice of it before, except as a nuisance in our garden as with its vigorous growth it swamps other plants. Now I know more, I will pay it more respect. For first I discovered that white bryony is our only native plant from the gourd family – to which cucumbers belong. Though my attempts to grow cucumber have failed, I recognise the similarity of the leaves, flowers and tendrils. However, there is an important difference: white bryony is poisonous – its roots and berries were used in mediaeval times to scourge people of infection in a way not to be recommended!

Rather cheesily, I also discovered that chalking its name is appropriate as, like wild mignonette that I wrote about yesterday, white bryony likes chalky soil.

I have known white bryony’s yellow-greenish flowers for some time, but I had not realised that each plant is male or female, or that the male flowers are comparatively much larger. The one I had found in the hedgerow was male. In our garden I found first another male, intertwined with a honeysuckle, then I found a female plant in a bit of hedge.

Looking through a hand lens and a microscope. I could see how the male anthers, the plant’s male sexual organs, have split to expose multiple yellow pollen grains. This pollen is ready for a visiting bee to pick up on its legs (and body), and carry to a female plant. Looking closely, I saw how the centre of the female plant, at the base of its sexual organs, the stigmas, is packed with hairs, to make sure that as a bee visits, the pollen that it carries is brushed off onto the female sexual organs, so achieving fertilisation.

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The result – female plants bear berries, which are green at first, turning red in autumn.

In today’s sunshine that was hot work! So my next post will be about something cooler: using the flowers from elder bushes to make elderflower cordial, a perfect drink for a summer’s day…

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