Self-heal

We spent some time yesterday on a blue flower in the grounds of an open garden called Haseley Manor, not a regular visitor attraction, but open on occasion and for weddings. See reference 1.

First spotted in the rough grass of the orchard, then in the shorter grass of the lawn. BH's opening offer was some kind of clover, to which I, after close inspection, did not agree with. She conducted what might be termed a fighting retreat.

We then found some much taller plants in the margins of a shed. Also a couple who had taken some home at some point in the past and found that it took pretty well. Too well even.

Fiddled about with the telephone for a bit, eventually getting some quite decent snaps. 

Bilateral symmetry, with one large lower petal exhibiting three lobes, which reminded me of the orchids of recent interest. With the snap immediately above being close to upside down. And I think I am getting better at inspecting flowers, being able to sort out their underlying structure from the tangle or mess of a real world image. And getting better at using my telephone as a magnifying glass.

Google Images had no trouble at all this morning with a near unanimous vote for the common self-heal (Prunella vulgaris), a member of the mint, dead-nettle and sage family with a long history in the annals of herbal medicine, here and overseas. But not a name that I had ever heard before. See reference 2.

With the best link with the clovers being at the august level of the eudicots, a clade mixed up that once known as the dicotyledons.

PS 1: my elder brother, who used to be into field natural history, usually carried what was then called a pocket microscope, which looked like a fat fountain pen. You looked through it. I think they have vanished from the market, displaced by new toys, but I am not yet convinced that my telephone does better - one needs too many hands - although it does have the advantage that one carries it about with one anyway. One does not have to remember to take it, just in case.

PS 2: I read in a print copy of Friday's Guardian this morning that we in the UK look set to lose our ability to make steel from iron ore, and will have to rely on steel from scrap instead. Should we decide that as a second class power we must be able to dig for our steel, for our battleships (or whatever), I presume that would mean that the government, aka the taxpayer, would have to pay someone to maintain this unprofitable capability. One more thing for Starmer's in-tray. See reference 3. The bad news being that despite reading this piece over breakfast, only this morning, it took me about 5 minutes to find it a few minutes ago, starting out with the belief that I had read it online in the Financial Times.

PS 3: I have just been told by a lady in the street that today is the day of St. Swithun, with the rule being that if it rains on his day, it will rain for forty days and forty nights. According to Wikipedia, a reasonably obscure Bishop of Winchester who subsequently became the subject of a serious cult. At the time she was telling me I could not think of any Swithuns of my acquaintance, but I now remember about the Forsyte brother, although according to Wikipedia, he is spelt Swithin. Perhaps it was once a common enough name. See references 4 and 5.

References

Reference 1: http://www.haseleymanor.com/2.htm.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunella_vulgaris.

Reference 3: Steelmakers fire up to swap centuries-old reliance on coal for electric arc furnaces: As Tata Steel and British Steel close their polluting blast furnaces, will Labour get behind the switch to more energy-efficient technology – and secure jobs  Jasper Jolly, Guardian - 2024.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swithun.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forsyte_Saga.