On the Verge of Success

A mere six days after my previous visit, I was back in Moray. Back at the exact same stretch of roadside verge near Dallas, as it happens. Specifically, I was here to take images of Egyptian Clover and to key it through properly. Imagine my horror as I discovered the entire verge had been mown during my absence with not a single flowerhead to be seen. Bloody hell, that was unexpected!

Meh

Despite the fact that the verge had been mown down to the knuckle, as had the verge on the other side of the road, all hope was not lost. Remember I mentioned the open areas on the other side of the road, and the access track down to a large field? Well they'd happily escaped the attentions of the mower, so that's where I headed. To be fair, the mown strip had been planted-up with a wildflower mix, so nothing there was tickable anyway. None of the weird stuff at least (I'm pretty sure the Broom seedlings, Creeping Bent and Lesser Sea-spurrey were genuine colonisers rather than having been sown).

The other side of the road

I spent a merry hour or two wandering through grassy areas, across bare patches and clambering up large earthen spoil heaps. As far as I could tell, the plants here were all natural colonisers, regardless of whether or not the parent plants themselves came out of a packet. Lots of Garden Radish, Crimson Clover, a large form of White Clover and at least 100 plants of Buckwheat in bare areas. According to Stace 4 there are three species of Buckwheat that occur in Britain, so I grabbed a specimen to key through. The results were a bit odd, I may need to ask the local BSBI Vice County Recorder to go have a look, see what he makes of it. 

Buckwheat - the plant, the achene and the tepals

I measured several achenes and tepals, but they were all very similar in their lengths. Which is puzzling, because the achene is 9mm and the tepals 5mm and that doesn't fit any buckwheat listed in Stace. But it's a huge family and so this could possibly be something new to Britain, assuming it arrived via the wildflower mix across the road. Not that I could find a single plant amongst the sown stuff, so it probably is Buckwheat Fagopyrum esculentum. Odd. Yep, I think I need to contact the BSBI chap.  

Lots and lots of young Orange-peel Fungus Aleuria aurantia, plus one mature specimen

But back to the main reason I was here; to find and photograph Egyptian Clover (or Egyptian Plover, as my fingers keep typing - that truly would be an incredible find in Scotland!) I had a good old search around, but very frustratingly all I could find were the leaves. Every white-coloured clover I checked was White Clover Trifolium repens. Very frustrating indeed. So here's a pic of Egyptian Clover Trifolium alexandrinum leaves, it doesn't quite have the same impact as a pic of the flowerhead would, but it's the best I can offer you.

The leaves of Egyptian Clover Trifolium alexandrinum

I admit I was a bit disappointed not to find one in flower, but I reckon the site will throw up plenty more opportunities next year. Maybe the seemingy absent Phacelia that drew me here in the first place will make an appearance too. There's a really great Flickr account that I somehow happened across, belonging to a guy who grows and experiments with various crops. One of his albums is entitled "Introduced Legumes" and contains images of lots of species I've never even heard of (and that aren't listed in Stace!) Well worth a look, I reckon. Click here to view it. 

I wandered across to the huge spoil heaps nearby, finding a few new plants including this clump of Corn Marigold Glebionis coronaria which is a plant I rarely see now that I'm living on Skye. In fact I don't think I've encountered it at all since visiting The Scillies in October 2020.

Corn Marigold with a male Helophilus hybridus hoping to warm up

Wintercress Barbarea vulgaris, a plant I don't see/notice on Skye

It was already mid-afternoon and I decided to head down to Aviemore, find some food and accommodation and then make plans for tomorrow. The temperature inland was decidedly cooler, there was a light dusting of snow across the Cairngorm peaks. I'd be up there tomorrow, or rather I'd be at the base of those mountains. Would the weather hold out or would I get soaked, I wondered.