THERE are still many wild flowers in bloom in early autumn, although the great spring and summer array has mostly turned to seed. A plant that is now clambering up walls and fences everywhere is pellitory-of-the-wall. It is like a hairy nettle, though its leaves do not sting, and it has dense clusters of little pinkish or white flowers all the way up its red stem. Another climbing plant is woody nightshade, which is very colourful just now. Its flowers are like tiny pointed hats, with a yellow crown and a purple brim, and on the same stalk as the flowers there can be found new green berries, berries ripening to yellow, and scarlet berries that are already ripe. It has often been considered a sacred plant, and these berries have been found in the funerary wreaths of Tutankhamun.
On the moors, heather is still in flower, and the lilac harebells tremble in the wind. On sundew, which grows in boggy spots, the spikes of delicate white flowers are tumbling, but it still has its leaves, which catch insects in their sticky red hairs and absorb them as nutrients.
DJM