Trolleys 911, 912 and 913

The second circuit of the day started with noticing progress with the demolition of the building at the bottom of Station Approach. A bit hidden behind its scaffolding, but it now looks to be about half down, with the naked gable ends just visible above the scaffolding. Quite a while since the site was fenced and secured, probably a couple of months now.

Then a medium small trolley from the M&S food hall underneath Hudson House.

Which found a friend before I got it back to the food hall.

Then a Sainsbury's trolley outside what was the Majestic building. I had thought to take a short walk on this occasion, but could not resist this one, and so took in Sainsbury's at Kiln Lane after all.

Past the East Street hollyhock, still holding in there despite doing battle with the roof above.

Then some really good blackberries on a patch of roughish ground, just past the Middle Lane turning as you head down Kiln Lane, towards Sainsbury's. Just about enough to pick for the pot, had I got a pot with me, so I had to settle for eating a few. 

Don't recall seeing blackberries there before, but they must have been there.

Returned the trolley, back down Middle Lane and through the Screwfix underpass to admire the Russian vine taking over a conifer. I tried growing it once up a dead plum tree, but it never came to anything. It went when the plum tree eventually fell over, maybe five years after death. I forget what it died of, so the base of the trunk may well have been rotting away before decease.

More blackberries at the bottom.

Whitebeam, all present and correct. Ivy present in the interior but very much dead now.

The heavy recovery truck has reclaimed its spot outside the Ford Centre, complete with an unusual, if very small, piece of recovery. Not very heavy at all. Or was it part of the recovery operation, on the other side of the fence, as it were?

A M&S trolley in Lower Court Road. I thought that I had better take it home, as left there it might end up in the stream, damaged or otherwise mistreated. The third and last capture of the circuit.

And a bit nearer home, this fine bed of Carex pendula, although this snap does not really do it credit.

Trolley No.913 was still at home the Monday following, when I was far too busy to bother about trolleys. So busy that there was even talk of snoring.

Notwithstanding, I did find time to notice these curious seed pods on the small plants which grow in the rough part of the patio, plants which I think had pretty purple flowers not so long ago. Identification not straightforward, despite what I had thought were distinctive leaves and seed pods. 

Google Images starts with Oxalis generally but with a bit of prompting we get down to Oxalis corniculata, the creeping woodsorrel. Which has yellow flowers? Memory defect?

Must try and track down a snap of the flowers; I am sure I took some.

PS 1: BH tells me that it is an invasive weed with small yellow flowers, name of oxalis, which she got from FIL. Also that it is growing in one of her rose tubs where it should not. Clearly something to be checked in the morning. In the meantime, I failed to find any snaps - other than that at reference 4 where the leaves do look similar - and I did turn up reference 5 from Kew. So the identification is looking fairly firm - and memory is even starting to shift from purple to yellow flowers.

Present in Bentham and Hooker. The description there (p99) is too botanical to be of present help, but the figure (218) looks about right. Need to take another look at the plant. And to find out what deeply obcordate leaflets might be.

PS 2: obcordate. Not in the glossary in Zomlefer, but it is in that at Bentham and Hooker. All to do with the shape of the distal end of the leaf. So a roughly heart shaped leaf, with the petiole attached to the point of the heart. For which Google turns up this Oxalis debilis, the pink woodsorrel, on the RHS website. With groups of three obcordate leaves, very much like those in question presently.

Obcordate is present in OED, where the botanical meaning is to be found, dating from the 18th century, which I suppose is when botanising got going. The opposite of cordate, where the point of the heart is at the distal end. The original meaning of the Latin cordatus was wise, so perhaps the ancients thought that wisdom was a function of the heart, with cor being a heart, whence the French coeur. While heart is from our German side.

So an ink-horn word invented by said 18th century botanists? This trick with the prefix ob does not work with obtuse, with tuse not present in OED.

PS 3: Friday: right on cue, as it were, the creeping woodsorrel has sprung into flower again. Definitely yellow.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/trolley-910.html.

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

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis_corniculata.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/11/wisley-5.html.

Reference 5: https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:177893-2/images.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis_debilis. Talk of the European version being sterile, but that does not, I think, necessarily mean that the seed pods are absent, just that they don't work.

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