The countryside in July
Sarah Ryan takes time to study the beauty among the hedgerows and verges on a languid summer’s walk
THE ROADSIDE IS an eruption of green. All along are towering bracken and ferns stretching and curling; striving upwards and bowed down with their own weight. They are still growing, with their pale green tips coiled tight. They will spring out in any direction: between trees, over slower-growing flowers; reaching always for the dazzling sunlight. One bold plant has forced its way up between them. It is a foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, which is almost as tall as me.
The bells at the top are still tucked safely into small green buds, the ones beneath them stretched to a paler green. Under them, they are further along still; the pink visible, though not yet at its richest hue. The colour becomes more intense and the buds larger, the lower down the stalk they grow, and the more openly they have flowered. Here, they are brazen as ballgowns; flashing a purple and white spotted petticoat. At the very bottom, their moment of glory already past, the first flowers have fallen from the stem to land on a bracken leaf below, like exhausted dancers.
One bee cannot resist the scent and the little patterned footsteps leading to the nectar inside. It snuffles right in; its fluffy bottom wiggling, then drops out and flies off with a loud hum. It is the tipping point of summer: a moment when everything is at its fullest.
Barefoot on the grass
It is hot today, and the air is heavy with the warm, dusty scent of pollen and baked earth. My sandals slap against my feet as I walk along the road, enjoying the heat of the sun on my skin. A slight tang of hot Tarmac underlies the scent of the plants, and I can feel the warmth radiating from it. The moment I step off the road and into the grass, the temperature changes. It is a small change, but a noticeable one: a coolness that makes me immediately slip off my sandals so I can walk barefoot.
The trimmed grass is dry and tough beneath my feet, like walking on a bristly doormat. A good soaking will revive it again, but I walk closer to the hedgerow, where the grass is longer, more lush and softer underfoot. Tangled there, almost dwarfed by its own leaves, is a tiny bold flower; its five petals a rich purple, and its five butteryellow anthers pinched together to a fine point. Bittersweet, Solanum dulcamara, or woody nightshade, is named for the supposed taste of its berries, as tempting as small blushed tomatoes, which I later learn belong to the
“Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes, Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes When scatter’d glow-worms, but in twilight fine, Shew trivial beauties, watch their hour to shine”
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, ÔA Nocturnal Reverie’
same genus. I leave them hanging from the stalk. Although they are not deemed deadly, these are still poisonous plants.
Wild flowers
A wooden gate leads into a paddock of grasses and flowers, allowed to grow long and heavy, with sweet, mellow scent. There are golden grasses, uncompromising thistles, tangles of tiny yellow flowers, threads of purple ones and puffs of cream. As I bend to slip my sandals back on, I spot a particularly untidy-looking little flower. It stands straight up: rags of lilac petals clinging to its scaly green and maroon-edged flower stem. It is selfheal, Prunella vulgaris; a long-used herbal medicine. Nearby is another plant often foraged for medicinal or eating purposes; the ribbed leaves of ribwort plantain, Plantago lanceolata. Yet another is the distinctively lobed foliage of common sorrel, Rumex acetosa, also dubbed ‘sour ducks’.
I lift and place my feet carefully, trying not to crush anything, but absent-mindedly catch a couple of grass heads between my fingers, strimming off the seeds as I walk. Yorkshire fog, Holcus lanatus, is thick with them, and I sprinkle them beside me as I go.
As the sun begins to dip, the air cools and a pale thumbprint of the waxing moon glows more clearly above the trees. But I am in no rush to go home just yet.
“These tiny loiterers on the barley’s beard, And happy units of a numerous herd Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings, Mocking the sunshine in their glittering wings”
John Clare, ‘Insects’