Friday the Thirteenth (Part one)

Don’t worry. I did think about putting some Spider pictures here to frighten you but then I thought better of it 🙂

Friday the thirteenth was a bit of a damp squib.

So I will tell you about yesterday instead.

First I went back to have another look at the flowers of the Dog’s Mercury  because something in my last photographs was troubling me.

What I had expected to see was a two lobed stigma (the white bit) sitting on the ovary and nothing else but there is something else. There are two extra organs, the thin green things either side of the white stigma.

So I went to the experts to find out what they are and the experts don’t know, at least not so far.

I have done some research of my own and found this

Jefferson, R. G. (2008), Biological Flora of the British Isles: Mercurialis perennis L. Journal of Ecology, 96: 386–412. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2007.01348.x

and that just says, “Female flowers stalked, with perianth similar to the male flower. Two subulate, abortive stamens are transformed into glandular filamentous nectaries.”

If that is correct then they are nectaries but it does not appear to be common knowledge or at least  it is not a common agreement.

Well, it does seem to me that science isn’t an exact science and there is still lots of stuff that we don’t know but here on Tramp we remain committed to pushing forward the botanical boundaries.

It is a pretty flower.

These pictures are pretty special, you will be lucky to find such clear pictures of the pistillate flower of Mercurialis perennis anywhere else on the web, luckier than me anyway because I have searched.

There is something wrong with my search engine.

If I do an image search for “Mercurialis perennis nectaries” I get pictures of Fizz.

Why?

Because Google personalises your search and returns the results that it thinks you want to see.

I find that frustrating, I want to see flowers and I have never in my life searched for a picture of Fizz, I own them.

Plus I have just kicked her out of my flat for being a mucky pup.

I took pity on her when we got back from our walk today, she was cold and wet. “Come into my home,” I said, “Be warm and have company.” She ran in circles for about an hour and then peed on my floor.

Let’s talk about Cramp Balls. Fizz likes them.

She likes to sit on her cakes. That little brown thing by her feet is a fungus.

It is known as King Alfred’s Cakes or Cramp Balls. (Daldinia concentrica)

King Alfred’s Cakes because it looks like a burnt cake and Cramp Balls because it was once believed that carrying these around with you would relieve the pain of cramp.

They can usually be found on fallen Ash wood and in truth I think that it is the wood that Fizz likes rather than the cakes, she thinks it’s furniture and so she gets on it.

Chop one in half and you will see where the scientific name  concentrica comes from, it grows in rings.

So you can’t eat them, what are they good for?

You can start a fire with them.

They are an excellent natural tinder and take a spark very easily.

That is important because…. In England it is always wet and cigarette lighters and matches don’t work when you really need them. So you carry a firesteel. A modern firesteel is a rod of metal alloys that will produce sparks when scraped with the back of your knife. It always works, it still works when it is wet but it only produces sparks and not a flame. You need something that will ignite with a spark.

Birch bark is good. You have to scrape it with your knife to get a little pile of tinder.

Pop it in your brand new titanium burner and have plenty of dry twigs for when you get a flame.

Give it a little spark and whoosh, up it goes.

That little burner is one of the best bits of kit I ever bought. I don’t normally do camp fires because dead wood is the most valuable thing in the forest and burning it is stupid but the smaller the wood the less value it has and this burner lives on twigs and leaves. There is always free fuel, the only problem is because the fuel is so small I have to constantly feed it, even to boil a kettle. That burner is carbon black today, it was shiny five years ago.

Cramp balls take a spark well but I always prefer Birch.

Have you finished burning the cakes now?

What do you think?

Next we have Primroses and we had thrums last time so I am only doing pins today.

Well there is no wildflower post today because my time has been taken up trying to find out about the Dog’s Mercury.

Instead of wildflowers you can have an absurdly cute cartoon dog.

She  is not real, she is a Toy Dog (I read that on Wikipedia)