Where There's Muck - Part II

So the visits to sewage works have continued and, despite the lateness of the season, so have the nice finds. They really are fascinating sites and a lesson in the resilience of seeds. At one site there was a veritable fruit salad with the mandatory Fig (Ficus carica) and Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) being joined by Cape Gooseberry (Physalis peruviana), Strawberry (Fragaria ananassa) and even a well established Grape Vine (Vitis vinifera).

Life behind bars! - Fig tree making its way into the light(?) of autumnal Dewsbury (VC63)

This one has really got its roots down, that's one happy Fig - Knostrop (VC64)

Cape Gooseberry at Harrogate (VC64) - where else, Tomatos are so last year

Or how about this as an oddity, no idea what this says about the diet of people in Dewsbury!

Orange Bladder-senna (Colutea x media) - Dewsbury (VC63)

However, the best find for me of the last few weeks had to be the huge population (1000's) of Musk Stork's-bill (Erodium moschatum) at Knostrop (VC64). Nothing to do with the sewage treatment process, but it obviously liked the management regime at the site.

Photo by Dick Culbert from Wikimedia Commons

Where There's Muck ...

Sewage Works are not the most glamorous of locations but they are always interesting places to visit (with work I should add - not my normal idea of a good day out!). This time of year is particularly good when all sorts of rarities pop up in composting and other marginal areas.

Yesterday rewarded me and my colleague Hannah with several plants of the stunning Apple-of-Peru (Nicandra physalodes var. violacea) at Esholt (VC64). The colour and size of the flowers never fail to impress and seem out of place on a grey autumn day.

We were also rewarded with a single plant of Cape-gooseberry (Physalis peruviana), unfortunately not in flower. Here are a couple of photos taken at Knostrop, Leeds (VC64) a couple of years back. It has also been seen recently elsewhere in the VC near Spofforth.

And to round off an interesting trip we found one plant of the hybrid between Oxford Ragwort and Sticky Groundsel (Senecio x subnebrodensis) growing with both parents. I was too excited to take a photo, but there is a reliable image here. This find nicely updates an old record for this area by Jesse Tregale.