19th of July, IJmuiden, The Netherlands. — This place pictured in the title image is just a road embankment in the center of my little town. This is the Old town, formerly ruled by Hell’s Angels (whose habitual cafe is/was just behind, out of view, upside this hillock). Currently the place undergoes “urban redesign”, but before I get into politics, a part of its charme is that it had got many of its buildings and its public design in the 50s-60s expansion phase. Back in those times, it was, here in continental Europe, a while in vogue to plaster embankments and little hillslopes and such in between spaces with red brickwork. I dont know the term for it in English, it’s “Ziegel” in german, basically stone burnt from proper mud. Not concrete, not modern artificial stones, traditional “bricks”.
So it was done here too. This road is on my daily commute, it goes down the south side of the dune that forms the backbone of Old IJmuiden, the place that was not supposed to ever exist but still formed from a settlement of the abandoned canal diggers in the 1860s.
Our land is dune land, that means, it is sand. Normally, stones — rocks of any kind — would be completely absent. Back in glacial till country, they at least have the till stones. Here in the alongshore aeolian dune belt, anything > 1 mm would be rare. So this is a man made habitat, but still for the plants and the life off plants, its a little mini habitat, right in the center of town. As you can see, long since, the city has stopped trying to “keep the stones neat”. All under there, the red bricks still lie, and the community would act if there were trees coming up, threatening to do serious damage. But other than that, they are sensibly letting “weed” cover it.
So — there is a little plot where nature can run its way, relatively undisturbed — but of course under the foot of cat and dog —, in a busy town that is very much not environmentalist in spirit. Just as a matter of saving some money. So all the years, in the course of the seasons, I cycle past, and watch what grows there. I “should” document its appearance through the seasons. But one “should” do many things before life is out. This evening I at least took a breath and stopped and looked a bit closer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first thing you see on the title image, with a bit imaginatiuon already is, the usual bushes are having their place — that is, brambles (rubus) — and wild roses. But they dont take over, whether there is a human hand in it or it is just too hot & dry, I dont know. As south facing incline in the full summer sun, things are burning out. Another thing you can see on the title image is that “yellow composites” are frequent. These are a large group of yellow-head composite flowers, but they are not dandelion. They are very hardy things (mouse-ear, hieracium, leontodon etc), and very complicated to learn, I havent mastered them yet so I am afraid I have to leave them alone. (For now.) They dominate this season — high to late summer.
The second photo (above) is just an attempt to show .. what was green grass and lush weeds in spring is now brown husks. Still, achillea millefolium forms the little white screen-flowers — You people know it as “yarrow” — It doesnt seem to mind. Another ground cover, better to see in a magnified cut out, is a very hardy clover, “hazepootje” (rabbits foot, trifolium arvense).
they are the dried out husks of the original flowerheads, which were in bloom earlier. Its very widespread around here. You cant see that a lot of the ground green is a plantain — plantago lanceolata, indeed you can make out the used-up flowerheads of this species, the “thin-leaf” plantago. You can see that actually most the groungs cover is not grass but weeds. The grasses are there, but they are all the stalks shooting through the image — high-growing, long-stalk grass.
But the most of the green that is still there comes from a very delicate little thing:
the remaining flowers just didnt make it into focus, but you get the impression? I think it is common in america too. It just forms an interlocking mat of individually frail but collectively resilient plant shoots, and its masses of tiny (1 mm) flowers in sum total add quite some to the overall yellow appearance of the bank. Now the interesting thing is, I believe I have heard that the walstro (galium) species, at least several of them (not galium aparine) are in some way linked to subsurface life — microbes or fungi? I have forgotten it, potentially someone can say in the comments. It is said that in the dunes it is a good “indicator” plant for spots where rapes and other parasitic plants, and or orchids, might be found. This, if true, I find interesting because it (would) show that even below the manmade layer of bricks, the soil (life) is developing. It just takes time and being left alone.
But enough of unrecognizable, unfotografable weeds on the ground cover. There are also big and illustrious flowering plants growing on this embankment! The first is actually an import from the US, which has long since spread to wide dominance here. Helaas, it’s past its flowering time. The big seeds now sit on the stalks. It’s the genus oenothera, what we call “teunisbloem” — whatever its called in the US: You tell me.
Not a good foto (In reality its easy to see, but the foto is overwhelmed by unwanted background complexity). I cut out the upper part so that you see at least something. But I guess most of you know it. Now, oenothera came here from the Americas already in early postcolombian times, its long since established, a “neophyte” as the term goes. But, it takes the same ecological niche as one of our own, very famous flowers, the verbascum genus — the “candles”. And though they are being displaced, one candle is standing on the embankment in full glory:
I spent a while checking it out and its really the true “King’s Candle”, one does not see these very often. This one is standing higher than I am. Its really a towering plant. And its just there, by the wayside in my town, as wild plant :) As with oneothera, verbascum has a lot of species variety. Just to illustrate that point there is right another verbascum species also on the embankment:
I did not check this one very closely, but it could well be the “black” candle; v. nigrum. Note that it is much smaller. We have about six or so verbascum species, and two are here … By this time, I was beginning to feel exposed to passer-by eyes and was getting nervous. so I just did a quick shot of something else, growing close at the embankments feet. A little one a flower more of garden size.
I thought it was a scabiose (S. columbaris). I shot it and fled. But since, Besame has attended me that it also could be knautia arvensis, a related flower, and having looked at the leaves, I am suspicious that it is the latter. However, these are also (for obvious reasons) used as garden flowers and that means they are developed in lots of “cultivars” and this is after all, the middle of town. But both also do occur in the wild, as original wild things in the dunes. So one would have to have a close look and I have to leave it open. Its a grey area, by definition and the plants themselves dont really mind.
Nor do the other living things. I can’t photograph butterflies. Butterflies have become infrequent nowadays, and what one does see, is nearly always a “witje”, a “whitie”, the cabbage-feeders. But here, on this bank, after having been there a while I began to notice that there were the typical “brown” butterflies (I call them sand-eyes as a group) and there was even a “blue” butterfly — a group we call the “blauwtjes” — and which one really doesnt expect to see in the city.
So .. Lets take stock.
Bushwork (not my forte) — At least hedge rose and brambles
Tall flowering plants — Vipers bugloss, Two species of verbascum (including a fine specimen of King-s candle), At least one species of oenothera,
Ground cover flowering plants — Plantago sp, Trifolium arvense, Achillea millefolium, galium verum, tanacetum vulgare, several species of “yellow composites” (not looked at)
Grasses — Mostly long-stalked grasses, dried out now
One possible “garden plant” form but of a flower that does have its wild form here.
What does it mean? Amazingly, this is not very different of a “dune plant” assemblage out of town. The wilderness flora of outside grasslands has simply come into town and appropriated a little space that was left in “benign neglect”. One might have expected that here it should have been swamped in “human-followers” — sand rocket, stinging nettle, ray grass, chelidonium maius, and all this. But no — The stuff that uses to grow here, has reasserted itself. Isnt this impressive? And the following insect life also has made full use of a little oasis in town — a “blauwtje”! Who’d have thought?
Note — since I am publishing from CEST, times could all be off and it might publish at an unexpected time and/or not when I am around. I hope not.
*******
"Spotlight on Green News & Views" will be posted every Saturday at noon Pacific Time and every Wednesday at 3:30 Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.
*******
|
Now It's Your Turn
What have you noted happening in your area or travels? As usual post your observations as well as their general location in the comments.
Thank you.