The Community of the Roadside
On and off the generous ivory saucers they come and go : a multifarious crowd of pollinating insects congregate to feed and forage from the flowerheads of this ubiquitous plant of the late-summer verge, the hogweed. Watching from the side of the lane somewhere between Shabbington and Long Crendon on this last, gloriously warm day of July makes me smile at it’s simple but uplifting commonality. This minor spectacle – that of a miscellany of insects engaged in the one of the most wondrous exchanges in nature – that of plant food for insect pollination – is one you can see almost anywhere, on almost any rural road-verge. It puts me in mind again of a recent and even more perfect one, personally – seeing my daughter (at last) learning to swim. At a sunny lido pool, just as eclectically-peopled, I watched her, under the gentle guidance of her father, gaining a sudden confidence in the water during her first attempt at swimming for many months. The journey to Chipping Norton, where the lido was, had been an experience of almost equal pleasure, through a string of limestone villages and between uncommonly colourful wild-flower verges of scabious and knapweed and ragwort and yarrow and meadow cranesbill and tufted vetch and meadowsweet. Back in the here and now, as the occasional car sweeps past on it’s own private journey, relaxed gatherings go on on these more routine of roadside plants. The tiny-fly assembly on the sunshine-yellow ray-florets of a sow thistle. The soldier beetles – like whizzing orange embers in flight- procreating in their own peculiarly leisurely fashion on an accommodating head of hogweed. The red-tailed bumble bee feeding solitarily from the soft lilac head of a creeping thistle. The honey and the bumble bees nipping between lippie-pink flowers of great willowherb. The almost imperceptible hoverflies who hang in the air like tiny flying pencil marks at the edges of the hogweed and the willowherb as if scenting opportunity, but uncertain what to do next. Gatekeeper, meadow brown and green-veined white butterflies drinking with their long uncurled probosci the sweet offerings of another generous commoner– the bramble. The flowers give sustenance to a catholic range of insects, the berries feed mammals and birds (and of course, people) and the whole plant offers a thorny imbroglio of shelter useful to various creatures, such as rabbits. I watch four butterflies – gatekeepers and meadow browns –sharing the flowers of a single spear thistle, one each on a fat purple shaving-brush head. This would have made for a perfect photo but if course as soon as I try the picture fractures. I’m not much good at photography anyway – but I’m hoping to improve.
I turn back to the hogweed, where the insect-presence is more reliable. It’s name gives a clue to the plant’s past use – as pig fodder – and also a hint towards it’s less-than-delicate scent, said to smell like meat on-the-turn. This may not be a ‘perfume’ we admire, but numerous insects find it attractive enough to lure them to the hogweed’s ample supplies of nectar and pollen. A bumble bee, and a black and white hoverfly, species, still, as yet unidentified (despite an extensive search of field guides) along with a honey bee (Apis Mellifera) and the striking-looking if gruesome-sounding flesh-fly (Sarcophaga Bercaea) - each attend individual flowers amongst the creamy compound-head. Meanwhile, the soldier beetles (same pair) continue with their own activities. More recently, I noted a meadow brown butterfly nectaring on Hogweed, which surprised me. Indeed, an Irish study counted 118 species of insect "visiting the Common Hogweed". It’s a plant whose qualities I’ve lately begun to appreciate. It’s not just it’s robust though elegant aesthetic. A typical umbellifer – or member of the ‘carrot’ family (Umbelliferae) – it’s sturdy, ribbed, hollow stem is topped by multiple sets of lime-green umbels (like the spokes of upturned umbrellas) supporting a large flowerhead of groups of small, irregularly petalled off-white or pale pink individual flowers. The plant itself, to me, is suggestive of hippie-ish things. Flower-stencilled camper vans. Gatherings of diverse but tolerant all-comers. Common, unglamorous things of the verge that you can grow to love. Having said all that, it, like a number of plants, comes with a bit of a health warning. Although perhaps not as potentially harmful as it’s non-native relative, the Giant Hogweed, my personal experience suggests that contact with even common hogweed can cause skin-blistering. These photo-sensitive blisters can be further aggravated by sun exposure. It should be handled in the right way and under the right conditions. The problem (to us, at least) is a chemical contained in the sap of both common and giant hogweed called furanocoumarin, which builds up as the plant matures and photosynthesizes. If you plan on cutting or otherwise making contact with it, expert advice should be sought before doing so.
In the autumn and winter, the seeds provide food for seed-eaters such as goldfinches. The insects sustained by hogweed are also food for birds, and smaller insects in turn provide prey for larger insects, such as the dragonfly, who, no more than a streak of pale-golden iridescence, whisks past me, disappearing over the hedge. I see it as some sort of sign, a break in the dream-state I’ve been inhabiting for the past 10, 20 or however many minutes it is that I’ve been standing here, staring, which says I ought to go home now. As I walk back along the lane I remember a more tangible kind of dream, one already fulfilled by my daughter. She has become, quite suddenly and in the space of just a few weeks, a fully-fledged swimmer. She swims lengths. She is, we are; very happy. Something else occurred to me - as we drove along those inspiring West Oxfordshire roads with their brilliant bio-luxuriance. What if this particular ‘community of the roadside’ could become similarly diverse (and colourful)? I read up about it later on the website of ‘Plantlife', which said that later spring and summer mowing-times, along with the removal of those cuttings which are usually left behind, (and which tend to enrich the soil thereby discouraging the growth of plants which prefer poorer soil, such as the scabious) can help encourage greater diversity, and some of those more delicate wildflowers (which I’ve seen here too, but in hints only). A greater variety of plants means a greater diversity of invertebrates, and that can hopefully only blossom upwards, and outwards, into more and more communities.
