Fireweed
31/07/10 23:49
Get up when the sun shines and head into the breaking
cloud with the cameras to film timelapse and bee
fly-bys. As we drive along the A386 to Dartmoor,
massed plants light up the verge, blazing pink. The
rose-purple flowers open just after sunrise and
provide nectar and pollen for bees at the tail end of
summer. Honey made from its nectar is spicy. Park up
below Sheepstor and follow a pony path through the
rough wet grass to a big clump of brambles where we
did the sound recording. A Golden-ringed dragonfly,
yellow and black striped with glinty green eyes, lots
of bumble bees, about 3 honeybees, several small
Ringlet butterflies, chocolatey wings with a
scattering of white spots; and a male Orange tip.
Scouting around for views, see a haze of Rosebay willow herb. The spikes are over 2 metres tall, narrow serrated (willow-like) leaves spiral around the stem. Pointed blood-red sepals support 4 large soft lilac-magenta petals around a drooping fringe of 8 stamens or a prominent 4-lobed curly white stigma. In the grass below, a small dark brown turd is a toad with slitty eyes.
Rosebay willow herb (Epilobium angustifolium or Chamcenerion angustifolium) is from the same family as the Evening primrose, and grows across the Holarctis, a broad sweep of land across the northern half of Europe, Asia and north America, and Greenland. The seeds germinate on disturbed ground, especially after fire. The dried leaves can be made into a tea (known as Kaporie tea in Russia). In Kamchatka the leaves are fermented with the sweet gelatinous pith inside the stems and dried Fly Agaric (Agaricus muscarius) to make a trippy shamanic brew.
Huge heat in western and southern
Russia, the highest temperatures for more than a
century, hundreds of forest fires. Three
quarters of China is flooded. A man struggles
through shoulder-deep milky tea floating with
polystyrene chunks, wood, plastic. After 50+
temperatures, the worst monsoon floods since
1929 in north west Pakistan. The ground
disappears; water and mud all around the roofs
and treetops. Waist-deep families carry children
and wade south to safety. Here, the lowest
rainfall for the first half of the year since
1929, but Burrator reservoir is almost full, the
air is soft and moist, light grey cloud flashed
with blue; rowan branches bend as the berries
turn.
A large Green woodpecker with a
red head flew across the track into the deep
forest. On the hilltop two cloud layers moving
in different directions overhead as the sun set
and a robin pulled worms from the grass.
Scouting around for views, see a haze of Rosebay willow herb. The spikes are over 2 metres tall, narrow serrated (willow-like) leaves spiral around the stem. Pointed blood-red sepals support 4 large soft lilac-magenta petals around a drooping fringe of 8 stamens or a prominent 4-lobed curly white stigma. In the grass below, a small dark brown turd is a toad with slitty eyes.
Rosebay willow herb (Epilobium angustifolium or Chamcenerion angustifolium) is from the same family as the Evening primrose, and grows across the Holarctis, a broad sweep of land across the northern half of Europe, Asia and north America, and Greenland. The seeds germinate on disturbed ground, especially after fire. The dried leaves can be made into a tea (known as Kaporie tea in Russia). In Kamchatka the leaves are fermented with the sweet gelatinous pith inside the stems and dried Fly Agaric (Agaricus muscarius) to make a trippy shamanic brew.
Huge heat in western and southern
Russia, the highest temperatures for more than a
century, hundreds of forest fires. Three
quarters of China is flooded. A man struggles
through shoulder-deep milky tea floating with
polystyrene chunks, wood, plastic. After 50+
temperatures, the worst monsoon floods since
1929 in north west Pakistan. The ground
disappears; water and mud all around the roofs
and treetops. Waist-deep families carry children
and wade south to safety. Here, the lowest
rainfall for the first half of the year since
1929, but Burrator reservoir is almost full, the
air is soft and moist, light grey cloud flashed
with blue; rowan branches bend as the berries
turn.
A large Green woodpecker with a
red head flew across the track into the deep
forest. On the hilltop two cloud layers moving
in different directions overhead as the sun set
and a robin pulled worms from the grass.