common mallow

Thick-legged flower beetle – this insect has to have been to the gym…

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A male (just look at those legs!) thick-legged flower beetle feeding on common mallow

As I looked closely at a common mallow flower, the plant species I wrote about yesterday, I saw a spectacular metallic green coloured beetle, with huge bulges on its thighs. Do you ‘know’ this beetle? I hadn’t noticed it before. I now know it is a ‘thick-legged flower beetle’, which is commonly found across the south of England. This creature looks as if it could have dropped straight out of a sci-fi set, yet here it is, part of our world in Burwell.

Female thick-legged flower beetle – no bulging thighs! Thanks to East London Nature for the photo.

There are over 4,000 species of beetles in the UK. Many of them are insects with black cases, all a very similar shape and size, making them a real challenge to identify. Beetles put the LBJs (Little Brown Jobs) of the bird world into perspective! But you will immediately know a male thick-legged flower beetle when you see one – as well as its metallic green colouring, sometimes with a hint of copper – from which it gets its alternative name ‘false oil beetle’ – the bulges on the hind legs of the male are a give away! Not surprisingly another common name for this species is swollen-thighed beetle. The female is the same shape and colouring without the swollen thighs – I’m challenging myself to find one.

Ox-eye daisies at Pauline’s Swamp.

These beetles are out and about now feeding on the pollen of open headed flowers, like dog roses, common mallow where I found ‘mine’, bramble and ox-eye daisies, which they specially love. When the sun comes out, you may like to go looking for one in St Mary’s churchyard, the Baptist churchyard or Pauline’s Swamp, off Reach Road as in all these places there are swathes of ox-eye daisies.

Open flower heads, such as dog rose (left), bramble (right) and ox-eye daisies (above) are much loved by insects as its easy for them to get at the flower’s pollen and nectar.
Insects love umbel shaped flower heads – like this parsnip plant which has gone to seed.

They also like flowers with heads in umbels -think umbrella shaped structures – as they provide lots of flowers to feed from right next to each other – so I will be looking on these too.

Thinking about beetles has reminded me of Beetle Drive, which is such a simple game – just needing a dice and paper and pencils – yet quite addictive and can get very exciting. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of playing before: you have to throw a six to start as for a six you draw a body of a beetle. For a five you can add a head, for four a tail, for three a leg (you need six of these), for two an antennae/feelers (you need two), for one an eye (you need two). The first to complete their beetle wins the round. If you score each round played by adding up the value of the parts that have been added to your beetle, it can count as doing maths at home at the same time! That has to be a Win Win!!

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Purply-pink flowers of common mallow decorate our waysides

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Common mallow, out now along roadsides

Common mallow’s purply-pink flowers are out now along our roadsides and anywhere there is a bit of rough unkept ground. I admire the toughness of this rugged plant which responds to the regular cutting it often gets by ducking low, and sticking its flowers out close to the ground, as if to say, ‘I can’t be beaten’.

My aunt, Elsie, tells me the local name in the Fens for these flowers is ‘Pick-cheese’ as their fruits have the texture of soft cheese. They are edible, I am looking forward to trying one. Nearly two hundred years ago John Clare, the Northamptonshire ‘peasant poet’ wrote in ‘The Shepherd’s Calendar’

‘The sitting down when school was oe’er,
upon the threshold by his door
Picking from mallows sport to please
each crumpled seed he called a cheese.’

I think John Clare too must have used the name Pick-cheese for these plants; some of our understanding of this poem would be lost if this local name had not been passed on to us through the generations. Thinking about this, I am struck how these simple wayside flowers give us a link to generations that have gone before us; generations who have enjoyed playing with the fruits of the mallow as a cheese. If our children no longer play this game, we are losing more than just a game. We lose a link to those who have gone before us, and a link forward to the generations to come. These rough flowers on our waysides offer us so much.

Common mallow flowers with their wide open heads are much loved by pollinators.

Common mallows also provide a feast to insects hungry for pollen. Tomorrow I will be writing about an insect with the most fabulous thighs that I caught tucking in…

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