Of Umbels and fragrance

The long spell of hot, dry weather has finally broken and yesterday we had torrential rain with some hail. Nevertheless, when I visited Kentle Wood earlier today it was clear from the hard ground that a lot more rain is still needed.

As I made my approach along Brown's Lane I passed a row of poplar trees giving off a lovely balsam fragrance. Somehow it made a good start to the day. I was pleased to see that the hogweed was blooming well. It was a relatively cool morning but the umbels of the hogweed were attracting many insects. These included the handsome hoverfly, Volucella inflata.

Volucella inflata was new to Kentle Wood. 8 June, 2020

This is not the commonest of hoverflies and records are largely confined to the south of England, with Northamptonshire being close to the edge of its range. It was a new record for Kentle Wood.

Far more common is Myathropa florea. Sometimes called the Batman Hoverfly due to the marking on the thorax it is another bee mimic, found widely all over the UK.

Myathropa florea is a familiar insect even in gardens.

Kentle Wood, 8 June, 2020

The third photograph shows Eristalis tenax. There are ten species of Eristalis found in the UK and this is one of the commonest. Known as the Drone Fly it will occasionally be on the wing on a mild winter's day and people write to newspapers, convinced that they have seen 'the first honey bee of the year'.

Eristalis tenax is known as the Drone Fly.  Kentle Wood, 8 June, 2020

All these hoverflies - and several more species - were on hogweed umbels but another interesting umbellifer was growing beside the track. It was already two metres high and growing fast. I was confident that it was Hemlock, Conium maculatum.

The Hemlock, Conium maculatum, is already very tall.

Brown's Road, Daventry.

The specific name refers to the spotted stems and on checking there was indeed a rash of these purple markings present. The foliage is delicate and ferny.

The purple spotting on the stems is very distinctive.

Its deadly properties have been known since ancient times and our history books tell us that a draught prepared from this plant was administered to the philosopher Socrates. In his book A niewe Herball (1578 ) Henry Lyte called it 'a naughtie and dangerous herbe'. It grows alongside canals rivers and along roadsides, and is prolific along sections of the M1.

Nevertheless it seems to be a long-established alien but if it was introduced deliberately one would have to question why. Perhaps it was valued by early apothecaries for it has apparently been administered in the past for the control of spasms in, for example, epilepsy.

Many people have died after eating hemlock, perhaps having mistaken it for carrot or parsley, but this is difficult to understand: not only is the purple spotting distinctive but the leaves of the plant give of an unpleasant, rather mousy  and off-putting smell.

Anyway, enough of hemlock and other umbel-bearing plants. I moved on to check on Kentle Wood's colony of Common Spotted Orchids, Dactylorhiza fuchsii. It is common in light woodlands over much of Northamptonshire and a couple of years ago about twenty spikes were present at this site.

Only one spike of Common Spotted Orchid could be found.

Kentle Wood, 8 June, 2020

Today however, I found only one small spike. It was  difficult to locate (or photograph)beneath a sprawling mass of brambles, and the colony may be getting overwhelmed. Very sad.


My spirits were lifted as I rounded a bend and was immediately met by the fragrance of an elder in full bloom. Some people find the scent too heady by I love it, not least because it takes me back to a childhood spent wandering along hedgerows looking for birds' nests and … sorry, I've got something in my eye.

At this time of the year people begin sending photographs into Facebook and similar sites asking for help over certain strange, insect-like creatures. They generally turn out to be the larvae of ladybirds. This example, which I photographed on bramble, was a specimen of the Fourteen-spot Ladybird, Coccinella 7-punctata.

This larva of the 7-spot Ladybird was on bramble leaves.

Kentle Wood, 8 June, 2020

There were fears, some years ago, that the alarming spread of the Harlequin ladybird, Harmonia axyridis, could lead to serious depletion of our native ladybirds, as the Harlequin larva readily consumes not only aphids (good) but the larvae of other ladybirds (bad, or naughtie as Lyte would have put it). 

It is easily distinguished from the Harlequin Ladybird.

In fact this appears not to have happened on any large scale and the Seven-spot is doing well. Even so, the Harlequin is abundant across Britain and most naturalists have become familiar with its larvae. Other ladybird larvae are quite elusive and I rarely see those of any other species.

So home, with a collection of tiny (2-3 mm) flies from the hogweed. Their identification will keep me occupied for quite a few hours.