A-Z Challenge 2016 - Wildflowers 'E'

My theme this year is wild flowers. Most of us will be aware of the flowers that grow in our gardens but what surprises me is how few wild flowers that I know.


I pass them every day but rarely look at them. Well this year will be different - even if many of them may fall under the letter 'X' for unknown.

'E' - Eggs and Bacon, Elder

I was surprised when a flower that I've known since I was a boy and that has its name in the Oxford English Dictionary does not appear with that name in my wildflower books.

Eggs and Bacon (on Portrack Nature Reserve, Stockton)

The dictionary says that eggs and bacon is the name of any of a group of flowers marked with orange, red or brown suggestive of eggs and bacon, especially - 

Bird's-foot-trefoil (on a rocky shore)

The common name of this plant comes from the elongated seedpods - each with a hood at the tip, which resemble a bird's foot. Besides eggs and bacon, it has numerous folk names including granny's toenails and devil's claws.

Bird's-foot-trefoil is highly toxic to humans although it has been used in a compress to relieve inflamed skin.


A bush commonly found in woodlands and roadside hedgerows is the Elder which has flowers and berries that can be put to good use.

Elderflower

Elderberries

In June the clusters of white flowers have a heavy fruity fragrance and may be used to make tea or add a musky flavour to pies.

The berries are favourites with birds; their droppings help to spread the elder. You can recognise the droppings by the purple stain they leave behind. The black juicy fruits make a distinctive flavoured wine and may also be used in pies and jellies.

The elder thrives on rabbit warrens as rabbits find it distasteful. It may also be found around badger setts and below tall trees where starlings and pigeons roost.

The pith in elder twigs is easily hollowed out with the twigs being used for peashooters or whistles - not that I've seen these for years.

Elder stems develop hard white wood which among other things may be used for carving combs and chessmen.

Attribution:

• Bird's-foot-trefoil - 19 may 2008, ex geograph.org.uk, by David Baird, CC BY-SA 2.0 generic

A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'E' - Elderberry

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – wishing they were here.

E - Elderberry, Earthworm, Earwig

This post has no birds – perhaps this is strange because they do like the elderberries.

Elderberries

In Denmark there is a tradition of a female elf in the elder tree. She leaves it at midnight; strolls around the fields, but returns to it before morning.

Elder Flowers

 The winsome, winsome elder tree,
Beneath whose shade I sit reclin'd;--
It holds a witch within its bark,
A lovely witch who haunts the dark,
And fills with love my mind.

What I did not know about the elder was its association with death, even Wordsworth recognised this.

 The Elder-tree that grew

Beside the well-known Charnel house had then

A dismal look

An unsung hero of any garden is one that works below the ground.

When the earth is turned in spring

The worms are fat as anything.

Earthworm

And birds come flying all around

To eat the worms right off the ground.

They say that the early bird gets the worm but worms take a different view; for them the early worm gets the bird!

Earwigs are readily recognized insect pests in gardens. Although they can devastate seedling vegetables or annual flowers and often seriously damage maturing soft fruit, they also have a beneficial role having been shown to be important predators of aphids.

Female earwig in its nest with eggs

 This nest was found underneath a house brick in a Chester garden.

A silver trail across the monitor;
fresh mouse-droppings beneath the swivel-chair;
the view obscured by rogue japonica.
Released into the wild, where earwigs dare

Poems:

• The Elder-Witch – George Borrow
• Elder-tree – Wordsworth (Growth of a Poet’s Mind – Book VIII)
• The Worm – Ralph Bergengren
• Where Earwigs Dare – Matt Harvey

Photo attributions:

• Earthworm – 2011; by Rob Hille – Public domain
• Earwig - Nabokov at en.wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0