Growing out of the crack between wall and lintel is this Wavy Bittercress Cardamina flexuosa. Not a striking plant, but one which clearly knows how to survive in unusual places.Shop owners, restaurateurs and pub landlords in The Pantiles have clubbed together to bring a falcon and its handler in for the day, to scare off the pigeons. Attracted by crumbs and other detritus, the birds have become a nuisance scavenging on the pavement with beady eyes and nodding heads. It is no coincidence, we suppose, that the number of pigeons looking for worms at the grass in The Grove has greatly increased in recent days. They now benefit, it occurs to us, from a diet much healthier than baguette crumbs, pizza crusts and potato over salted potato crisps.
Having left the ordering of seed potatoes rather late, I learn from the seed merchant that my order, if I give it, will take at least two weeks to arrive. I find another much friendlier supplier with the help of the Internet. The girl at the end of the telephone forgets to ask for my first name when she takes my details. She rings back to explain. "My name's Joe as well," she says. Probably Jo, but all the same I warm to her for sharing my name and for the prompt dispatch of my King Edwards, Picasos and Maris Piers.
3 comments:
Bless you, dear one, for posting this photo and the name of the plant. I have been wondering what they are. I live in the Pacific NW (US) and my Boston Terrier forages for these on our walks. I call it his salad and he always searches these out. No other plants will do.
How interesting. It never occurred to me that it man or beast would want to eat it. It is not the sort of plant that many people notice and tends to grow in waste places as well as out or cracks in walls. I only refer to it because it appears early in the year, and, I suppose, because few people take heed of it.One of my flower books tells me that it is related to the far more showy lady's smock, Cardimine flexuosa.
I always thought it some sort of digestive. He always eats the tender leaves from the center of the plant. He's also been known to eat very young arugula leaves.
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