Rangers View
The month of September
September is the month of change in that the nights are already drawing in and are much colder. The mornings are dew-laden and it feels like autumn. With the colder weather come some spectacular blue skies. In addition, this the month you can see the Swallows and Martins start to gather in groups before their long flight to Africa.
Apples
The farmers are busy this month ploughing their fields before the rain comes and soon they will be sowing wheat. They will also be harvesting their maize and potatoes. Orchards are busy with apples and pears being picked.
Some farmers will be growing a crop of grass over winter in maize stubble and this helps to reduce the risk of soil erosion and gives the field surplus nitrogen for a spring cut of silage. Some farmers will be hanging up their tractor key on a few days this month for some Pheasant shooting that starts this month.
Pheasant
We would like to see the farmers refraining from cutting back all the hedges before January to allow wildlife a better chance of finding food. This goes for garden hedgerows too! Another thing is for farmers to leave a one-metre margin beside the hedgerows to allow seed producing plants to be fed on by birds and animals.
Some of these plants are a good source of nectar for insects still around like the Peacock and Red Admiral butterflies. In the orchards, if the windfalls can be left it benefits the birds and animals later in winter when food is not so plentiful.
Peacock
When up on the Downs look out for the yellow coloured Common Toad Flax (Linaria vulgaris). The flowers are supposed to resemble the shape of a toad, it is certainly shaped like a snapdragon flower.
Common Toad Flax
Also, look out for the purple-flowered Autumn Gentian (Gentianella amarella). It has the other name of Felwort. This plant has been used to treat a number of ailments and conditions like cramps, bites for mad dogs, bites from venomous beasts and the loss of appetite. The gentian was named after an ancient king of the Illyrians named “Gentius” who first discovered its herbal properties.
A tall plant with blue flowers to look out for is Chicory (Cichorium intybus). This plant used to be pulled up for its roots which were roasted and then ground and made into a kind of coffee.
Chicory
Another flower to be found out on the downs is Autumn Lady’s-tresses (Spirathes spiralis), which is an orchid. This white-flowered orchid is unusual in that its flowers grow up the stem in an almost perfect spiral. It is not only found growing on the Downs but on short turf of some garden lawns and in some cases is found growing in the hundreds. The plant has a pleasant fragrance although you can only smell it during the evening.
Look out for the variety of wild fruit and nuts in the hedgerows like the blackberry, sloe, hazelnut, hawthorn berry and crab apple. In the woods, the elderberries can be found on woodland edges and these are a good source of food as well as they can be collected to make wine.
Elderberry
You may find Hops hanging on trees on woodland edges too! Hops are the main ingredient for flavouring beer. They have tiny hooked prickles that enable them to climb and smother any neighbouring plant in its search for sun light. The tree of the month, although not usually associated with woodland, is the Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum).
September is the month for the “conker” which is the fruit from the Horse Chestnut tree. Although this tree was introduced from the Balkans in the sixteenth century, it has become a symbol for the typical village green in this country. It has been sung about too such as in the well-known song “The Spreading Chestnut Tree”. The fruit of this majestic tree has been given a number of names like Cheggies, Obblyonkers and Conker. The reason why this tree is associated with the horse is because if you look closely at the twigs you can see where last years leaf stalks broke off to make a scar shape like a horseshoe with the nail marks too. The conker is still collected by children to have holes bored through their centre and string attached and used to smash against their opponent’s conker to see who has the strongest.
Conker
In our wetter areas, you will still see the odd water lily in flower and the odd Southern Hawker dragonfly fly by. However, some thing you will see less in the water will be the newt. Newts leave the ponds and lakes and go in search of somewhere close to hibernate. These are the earliest of our amphibians to do so.
In our meadows much of the colour has died back but you may be lucky to see a number of flowers still out in bloom giving nectar to the insects. A colourful purple flower is the Devil’s-bit Scabious (Succisa pratensis). In the past, this plant was used for all sorts of ailments with a lot of success. There is a legend that says that this plant was so successful at curing people of all kinds of sickness that the devil was not having enough people dying so he could possess their souls. He was so angry that he pulled the plant from the ground and took a large bite of the root. From that, day on the plant has only appeared with a short stumpy root. The Devil had hoped that by biting off most of the root the plant would lose most of its potency. However, much to his annoyance this flower has remained a very useful medicinal herb. Some of the ailments it is supposed to help are wounds, snakebites and even the plague. This plant is found in every county in the country and is found on most soils and in many habitats.
Parasols
Another thing to look out for in our meadows this month is the Parasol mushroom Lepiota procera. This impressive large fungus is edible when fresh but otherwise should be avoided because it soon decays as bacteria take hold or invertebrates, slugs and snails devour it.
Spiders Web
On our heaths there will still be some purple flowers of the Ling or Bell Heath attracting some insects to feed on their nectar. This month Young Adders are still being born and appear as miniature snakes from birth. Look out for a yellow flowered plant called Goldenrod (Solidago virgaurea) that at first glance resembles ragwort but on closer examination, you can see that the leaves are not the same. This plant seems to prefer sandy areas especially on the edges of heathland. The Latin name “Solidago” means “to make whole or heal”. It has long been associated with healing and was sought after especially in dire circumstances such as when duels were challenged or for stabbings in dark alleys. Such was its importance during the Elizabethan period that the selling of Goldenrod became a lucrative business and it started to be imported from the continent. This continued until it was realised that with a little more searching this plant could be found on our heaths. When it was realised anyone could get hold of it, it lost its commercial value but not its medicinal value. Today it is a much-overlooked plant but because it flowers late in the season it is an important nectar source for insects.
Next month we will really notice the nights drawing in and I will talk about who will be taking advantage of these darker nights.
