It was summer when we sat together in the garden discussing plans to start a monthly herb walk. ‘Should we continue through winter?’ someone asked, clearly aware that many of the medicinal plants and flowers are not so evident in the fields and hedgerows of winter.
Quickly the consensus was ‘yes’.
Yes, because it sets a good rhythm for the year: if we always meet on the first Saturday of every month there’s no ambiguity, there’s consistency, we build a better flow.
Yes, because, who’s to call which are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ months for a herb walk? Herb walk’s aren’t for foraging, we’re not gathering, we’re simply looking, seeing what we find, learning about the plants around us. The focus more on variety than abundance.
And yes because actually it can be in the colder, more sparse months that we get to see the structure of our landscape, the spaces that hold the plants and by seeking them year round we can better appreciate how their year cycles.
Breakheart Quarry
So on the first Saturday in November we gathered as usual, with notepad and plant id book, plus the welcome addition of a flask of coffee. Varying the site of our walk each month, for November we chose Breakheart Quarry as somewhere that offers a variety of scenery, from wooded areas to open limestone and stands of birch, and the promise of some great autumn colour.
Roses
Dog Rose
Appropriately, our first colourful encounter was rosehips on the Dog Rose (Rosa canina), the featured plant in our October newsletter – if you missed it, take a look at the recipe for power balls we posted, made from dried and ground rose hips and packed with vitamin C.
Guelder Rose
Guelder rose, Viburnum opulus, has very shiny red berries. In America they call it ‘European cranberry’, presumably thinking it’s the nearest we have to their favourite red berry. It is sometimes used as an alternative to cranberry, however, it should not be eaten raw, like elderberries and haws, it needs to be cooked before being eaten.
Rosebay willow herb
Rosebay willow herb, Epilobium augustifolium, is now in its late summer super fluffy state – it could make a duvet filling for mouse or hibernating squirrel. While for us this is a very common herb, seen along many roadsides and open spaces, just 100 or so years ago it was one of the very few herbs that the Clifford sisters, who compiled the Frampton Flora, could not identify, it was so uncommon then. It is thought that it was the devastation caused by successive World Wars that created the open, recently burned ground that is so suited to Rosebay willow herb. In America it is known as fireweed due to its habit of colonising recently burnt spaces. By the 1960’s Edward Salisbury wrote ‘I have seen a Gloucestershire woodland in early September as though in a summer snowstorm with the multitudes of plumed seeds that appeared in the air’, a far cry from 19th Century observation from botanist Edwin Lees that in the Cotswolds ‘it would be fanciful to consider [rosebay willow herb] indigenous’.
Traveller’s Joy
Another fluffy presence in the winter hedgerow is Clematis vitalba, named by John Gerard in the late 16th Century as ‘Traveller’s Joy’ reflecting its nature for ‘decking and adorning waies and hedges where people travell’, and otherwise known as ‘Old Man’s Beard’. It would make an alternative cosy lining for a nest or burrow – nature provides for all needs. Using the Frampton Flora as one of our reference sources for Gloucestershire herbs, we learnt a plethora of other common names for this most common of climbing hedge plants. It may be called bedwine, bethwind, honesyt, half-wood, withwind, willow-wind or tuzzy-muzzy. The last a name peculiar to Gloucestershire, likely referencing the feathery seed plumes we were admiring, they could be mistaken for small tussie mussie’s, or posies.
Last year I used Travellers Joy as a light and fluffy addition to my Christmas wreath. If you’d like to have a go at making your own wreath, there are a number of different courses being held locally, we’ve listed some of them in the Events Calendar on our website.
Seasonal wreaths
There were lots of other inspiring plants for potential wreath making during our walk around Breakheart Quarry, including the red stems of dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) and the juicy berries of bryony, they look like a string of mini tomatoes – but don’t be tempted to eat them, they’re highly poisonous. Have you spotted these strung through hedgerows like a bead necklace?
Curiously, several different plants have been given the common name bryony, though their berries look similar, the leaves are very different, a sign that, though they share a common name, they are from different plant families, as indicated by their Latin names. Black bryony (Tamus communis) has large, glossy heart-shaped leaves and shinier berries; Red bryony – also called white bryony – (Bryonia cretica) has smaller, five-lobed leaves and duller, spherical berries.
Berries
Other shiny berries you might come across from the nightshade family – Solonacea – are poisonous. This is a family of plants that have been given somewhat of a ‘bad rep’, people can be fearful of them, calling them ‘witchy herbs’. Locally you can look out for black nightshade (Solanum nigrum) which has black berries and woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) which has red berries, also known as Bittersweet (a good indication that you’re not going to enjoy eating it). Another family member is Belladonna, once gathered medicinally from the wooded areas of Stinchcombe Hill.
Emerging from among blade-like leaves the seed heads of Stinking iris are encased like red peas in a pod, not to be eaten. Closer to eye-height and typically a duller red are haw berries, and shiny black alongside these we spotted viburnum berries. Most spectacular were the cotoneaster berries covering both large and small bushes, three different types of cotoneaster in all.
We also found hypericum in multiple forms including the large-flowered shrubby variety and our old friend, SJW (St John’s Wort).
Rainforest
In parts of the Quarry, moss abounds. Occasionally you’ll come across patches like this in the UK, there’s a stretch along the side of Stinchcombe Hill and a fantastic example along the edge of Buttermere in the Lake District. When green and velvety like this it is classified as temperate rain forest, a space associated with the lushness of heavy rains, but in these cooler climes more dank than steamy. Perhaps something we can be thankful for as a consequence of our ubiquitous rain.
Fungi
As featured in our newsletter, we were particularly on the look out for fungi, and Breakheart Quarry did not let us down. As well as black ear fungus and razor fungus we found a dramatic bracket fungus on a damaged birch, the fugus has taken advantage of a broken trunk, happily devouring and keeping the cycle of death and renewal going. We can’t resist touching their smooth, waxy surface as we learn they have been used in the past like paper to draw and paint on.
Calm
So again we learn the lesson of paying attention, going with an open mind and seeing what you find. Though the shortening days draw us deeper into winter, there are promises of spring even now as we see peeping primrose leaves, indications of magical alchemilla and a splattering of burnett. All reminders that there will be plenty more to come. Anyone who’s been to Breakheat Quarry in Spring will know the promise of wild garlic, incredible to think of it hidden underground biding its time, waiting to burst.
At this sometimes frenetic time of the year Breakheart Quarry offers quiet calm. One of the most prominent plants there are Birch trees. Known as the gentle restorer, birch is a pioneer species, able to restore landscapes and facilitate others to follow. For now their gleaming white bark stands out strikingly, they would shine in the moonlight making natural sculptures.
We’d exceeded our allotted hour, but happy to have done so in such good company. Some treasures and some surprises found, as well as a list of reasons to return. Herb walks are open for all to join, our meeting place will be detailed on the Events calendar and in our newsletter – to make sure you don’t miss it, sign up here.
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