#68 - Teasel

Teasels inhabit the landscape of my childhood. I remember them growing in the fields around Northamptonshire and in dried flower arrangements. They always seemed strangely magical, otherworldly. Visiting my parents in Herefordshire, I saw a magnificent thicket of them in a field.

#67 - Late Yarrow

My 'Concise British Flora in Colour' states that Yarrow flowers between June and August but on the hills in our park there is still quite a bit of it even as we near November. I was delighted to read that in some parts of America it is called 'plumajillo', Spanish for 'little feather', because of it's delicate, fern-like leaves.

#66 - Clover

I love clover flowers, they remind me of my back garden when I was a small child. Graduating from white to mauve, through variously deepening shades until you see this vibrant purple flower-head. I was thinking of field of lavender fading into the distance.

#65 - Beech Leaves

Really, I just wanted to showcase these two gorgeous little copper leaves, then I got distracted by the colours of the other leaves in the beech hedge by the car park. It was a very windy day and my leaves kept blowing away, hence the slightly haphazard arrangement; in the end, my seven year old came and acted as a windbreak and we got a picture before the delightfully burnished top leaves whisked joyfully away again. 

#64 - Blackthorn

Out of the city today, visiting friends. Our sloes have all been eaten but just a few miles away the hedges are still blue with them. The leaves are being whirled away by the Autumn winds and in some places the twigs are covered in delicate fronds of silver and gold lichen.

#63 - Blown Dandelion Clocks

My three year old loves blowing dandelion clocks and when I noticed the lovely silvery green of the empty head I managed to prise the one she was clutching out of her chubby fist and she helped me find some others to match it. 

#62 - Buttercups on Still Water

I think this is the Creeping Buttercup, it doesn't grow naturally in water but when there has been heavy rain a pool appears between two hills in our park - hidden away from the path it lies calmly in  the cup of the land with the grasses and wild flowers which normally grow there floating dreamily in the fallen rain.

#61 - Autumn Oak Leaves

Oh come on, if you were creating a world don't you hope you'd think of leaves that died like this! Talk about grand gestures of farewell - this is "Hasta la vista, baby" at it's finest! Had just laid out these leaves yesterday when the sun slanted down through the trees and caught them perfectly, it was one of those special moments...and then, a moment later, a friend rang me to say another friend had died unexpectedly last night. Shed a few tears there in the wood, not for our friend whose body was so tired and worn out, but for her family left behind, and we held hands and said a prayer for them over the oak leaves who die so beautifully every year. 

#60 - Dripping Elder

I don't care what everyone else says, I like the rain. Everything looks wonderful and bejewelled and the steely October skies close the world in so that everything is filled with the sound of water dripping from the trees, all the colours darken and in the depths of black and brown droplets of silver glisten mysteriously from every edge. Isn't it rather wonderful that you can be alive in the world for so long and still find a new favourite thing?

#59 - Maple Stems

This day last week I couldn't see. It was the day after my eye surgery and my eyes were so painful I could only open them for a few seconds at a time. We took the dog to the park and I sat miserably on a bench in my sunglasses, in the rain, listening to the children play and the dog's collar tags tinkling together as she ran around. It wasn't a day where much appreciation of natural beauty went on except that as we waited to cross the road outside the park I had to open my eyes and I couldn't help noticing the ground was littered with the stems of the maple trees, even through the blur of pain they were such wonderful colours, rich mahogany, crimson and gold on the rainy road. Apparently, once when G K Chesterton had a bad leg he wrote an article entitled, "The Advantages of Having One Leg" in which he claimed, "the way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost." I promised myself last week that when I could see I'd go back and photograph the stems on the road - it's possible that the image isn't as beautiful as it appears to me, coloured as it is by the memory of my heightened appreciation for sight. 

#58 - Raindrops on Oak Leaves

Another rainy walk in The Park with the Perfect Leaves. I don't know why but the matt underside of oak leaves seem to hold raindrops so wonderfully - they make me think of what Wendell Berry wrote, "...I see that the life of this place is always emerging beyond expectation or prediction or typicality, that it is unique, given to the world minute by minute, only once, never to be repeated..." The leaves lie on the grass holding the raindrops in perfect little globes of silver, then the wind flicks them over, or the rain falls more heavily, or I tread on them and the picture is gone. Every unspoilt glimpse is a gift.

#57 - Guelder Rose Berries through a Leaf

I had no idea what this tree was but the berries look so beautiful and bright I was sure they were poisonous, they look amazing, with a sort of waxy sheen that makes them glow in the sunshine in an almost menacing way . Apparently, it's Guelder Rose and not even that poisonous, merely 'mildly toxic'. 'Edible in small quantities' according to Wikipedia, still, I don't fancy trying them, they look like they are daring you to! I love the lacy leaves though, all eaten away, barely there green rags - slightly apologetic beside the bold berries.

#56 - Dock and Nettles

My seven year old has been saying for some time that she wants to make a picture out of nettles which made me see them rather differently as I had not particularly noticed anything picture-worthy about them before. Saw these wonderful speckledy dock leaves on my walk today with frilled edges which I thought would highlight the toothed edge of the nettle leaves, and of course, docks and nettles always go together...

#55 - Field Maple keys

We used to play with these in the playground at our infant school - we called them 'helicopters' and we would throw them up and watch them twirl back down into the dust under the big tree. Ours were a plain green that would fade to pale brown, not nearly as beautiful as these pink keys that I found growing on a Field Maple.

#54 - Robin's Pincushion

It was my seven year old who first noticed one of these on a wild rose bush and who also told me it was called Robin's Pincushion. I thought it quaint but highly unlikely, especially as she informed me that she had read it in her Flower Fairy Book.  I asked my sister to buy me the Cicely Mary Barker Omnibus  for purely nostalgic reasons (my grandad and grandma used to have the little versions at their house when we were small) and I must admit it was long before I had the excuse of children of my own. My oldest now enjoys reading about the fairies - what little girl wouldn't? - and it turns out the books are a wealth of information about the British countryside. The illustrations are wonderful and although the poems are pretty dreadful they are factual, sort of. At least, it does say that these galls are caused by 'a naughty fly', which is actually a wasp.

#53 - Dappled Bramble leaves with Unripe Berries

Pied Beauty (by Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Glory be to God for dappled things -
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

#52 - Herb Robert on Field Maple

One of the best things about having a dog is rainy day walks! Seriously, I love walking but I seldom went out in the rain by choice. Everything looks different in the rain, the colours stand out and light shoots out of the heart of millions of little silver globes on the grass and in the hedgerows. There aren't many flowers still out now it's colder so the ones you do see look especially brave, like these little Herb Robert flowers which were in the middle of a bedraggled looking bramble patch.  I love the purple against the pale yellow  of the Field Maple Leaf.

#51 - Leaves on a River Stone

It's my lovely mystery tree again, the one I think may be a Wild Cherry. It grows right by the water and it's leaves are the most beautiful in the wood.

#50 - Blue Feather

I think this is probably a magpie feather, black with a blue edge. The woods are full of beautiful things.

#49 - Queen Anne's Lace

'Cow Parsley' is an ugly name for this beautiful weed which makes stars and sparkles as it dies back, I much prefer the name 'Queen Anne's Lace'. Most of it has gone to seed but there are still some flowers left, difficult to photograph due to the October winds, but worth it in the end. The children and I think these little florets look like snowflakes.

#48 - Airy Leaves

Okay, I'm still stuck on the sycamore/maple thing. Couldn't decide whether the trunk was patchy or not. But gawjus anyway - the tree is huge and standing underneath you see all these wonderful leaf combinations against the blue sky... 

#47 - Dog Rose thorns on a stripped stem

My brother thinks it is pretentious to say that colours 'sing' together so, in the interests of authenticity, I will simply say, "Look at these lovely scarlet thorns on the pale green stem..."

#46 - Rosehips in Water

More fun at the river...

#45 - Acorns and Shepherds Purse

I was struck by a burst of intense nostalgia when I noticed these little Shepherds Purse plants by the road - I remembered asking my mum what they were called when I was at junior school, they grew along the edge of our school field and we used to collect the little heart-shaped seed pods to play with. It reminded me how you see so much more when you're a child and just how long it's been since I noticed Shepherds Purse. I feel that in doing this blog, in taking the time to really look at everything, I have found something of myself that I lost long ago.

#44 - Maple Leaves

Well, I thought it was a Sycamore tree but apparently they have patchy coloured trunks and this doesn't so it must be some kind of maple. We pass it almost everyday on our way to the park and the ground is covered with perfect leaves - the children are guaranteed to pick one up and exclaim over the colours. It was so windy yesterday I couldn't take a picture without putting them into water to hold them down. I'm afraid this may be the start of a spate of Autumn Leaf pictures, I just don't think I'll be able to help myself!

#43 - Sloes

I love the colour of these sloes, of all the beautiful Autumn fruits in the hedgerows at the moment these are my favourite. And it's really hard to take a good photo of them, so this, my fifth attempt at a composition which can even hint at their gorgeousness, is just a very simple one, with the red sycamore leaf behind the blue-purple berries.

#42 - Elder

I love the bright pink stems holding the dark clusters of elderberries. The berries themselves are rather plain but look wonderful on their vibrant stalks.

#41 - Raindrops

These raindrops on the long grasses in the shadow of the trees were sparkling in the afternoon sun. Of course, the photograph does not do them justice. 

#40 - Wild Cherry

I'm not actually sure what this tree is, it doesn't have any berries on it but it looks similar to the Ornamental Cherry in my garden so I'm guessing it's some kind of cherry tree. The leaves are incredible - once again, no editing needed, these leaves are exactly as I saw them in the woods today.