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Tag Archives: gorse

January on the Bryn

21 Saturday Jan 2023

Posted by theresagreen in Local Nature Reserves, Nature of Wales, North Wales, WALKING

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Bryn Euryn Nature Reserve, ferns that stay green in winter, flowering, gorse, hazel catkins, hill walks, January, rhos on sea, walks with views, winter, woodland

As last year was drawing to a close I began thinking about how to go forward with this blog and how I might keep it fresh, interesting and not too repetitive. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that visiting and reporting on what’s happening in the same places year on year still interests me as much as it ever did. Finding things have stayed pretty much the same over a period of time is reassuring, and no matter how often you visit a particular place, there is almost always something new to discover and learn about. Also, in the rapidly-changing times we are experiencing, it’s increasingly important that we notice the ifs, the wheres and the whens of our local everyday wildlife, how it is faring and to note any changes. With that in mind, I set off for my first walk of the year to see what I could find around my local patch on Bryn Euryn.

WOODLAND PATHS

The walk began with a bit of a shock – a sign declaring that the woodland I’ve come to know and enjoy over the past eight years and was about to walk through, is for sale! 

It’s not the whole of Bryn Euryn’s woodland that is on offer, but this privately-owned area, which covers a sizeable 10 acres or so, and fronts the Local Nature Reserve, is some of the oldest. There are some lovely big old trees here and it provides nesting and foraging habitat for a good number of species of birds. It’s also the only part of the woodland that has bluebells and wood anemones, both indicators of an old, maybe even ancient wood. In an ideal world, our local council, who own and manage the adjacent nature reserve would take it over, but I suspect the asking price might be too high for them. In this particular area, where there is great demand for property, my fear is that it could potentially be built on. 

WOODLAND PATHS

A good clump of polypody fern

Despite the lack of its green canopy, the woodland is always green to some extent, in every season. There are serious dark evergreen yews and plenty of holly that catches and reflects back beautifully any available light. Tree trunks are clad with the borrowed greenery of ivy, which rapidly races high up almost every available vertical surface, and more that scrambles to cover the ground beneath them. 

Several fern species stay green throughout the winter too. Male ferns are fairly frequent, and there’s one spot alongside the path I took today, which has a lovely fresh spread of polypody fern. It suffered badly in last year’s summer heat and drought, but has recovered fully and come back better than I’ve ever seen it. The backs of the fronds are covered with neat clumps of spores, or sori as they are properly known.

There are several species of polypody fern which superficially all look similar, so it’s difficult to be sure which one you’re looking at, unless you’re an expert, which I’m not. Based on a few key points I think this one could be western polypody, Polypody gallii, but I can’t say for sure.

polypody fern fronds
polypody fern sori

Some ivy berries are ripe, others are not.

unripe ivy berries
ripe ivy berries

At the top of this first rise of the path it meets with two others. At this junction there is a big spreading holly bush and next to it, another less usual evergreen, spurge laurel. This particular plant is getting to a good size now and is just beginning to open its pale lime-green flowers, which are pretty and smell lovely too, should you feel able to get down to their level!

Spurge laurel
spurge laurel beginning to flower

Through the bare branches of the trees, although still sunny here on our side of the valley, low cloud sat over the distant hills and a misty haze hung over the land below.

One of my favourite parts of this path passes between a stand of Scots pines, (known to me on my own mental map as the Pine Grove). Most of the tall, straight trunks of these characterful trees lean to some degree, at a variety of angles, while way overhead, their long limbs bend and twist in the strangest of ways, as though they’ve been frozen mid some strange, swaying waving wind-dance. Sadly, in recent years, several of their fellows have been lost, some brought down in storms and one or two felled as they were in danger of falling.

WOODLAND TRAIL

The path carries on upwards, soon joining up with the Woodland Trail that circuits, and in parts, forms the boundary of the Nature Reserve. About to step onto the trail I stopped as first I heard, then spotted, a small party of blue and long-tailed tits that were foraging in the scrubby vegetation behind the wooden bench. This part of the Trail is one of the best places to see and hear a good variety of the bird species that are resident or migrate here, and several reliably stake territories and nest close by. One of my favourite trees grows here too – a big, rather battered old sessile oak that has lost a few branches, but battles on. Silvery grey in the bright sunlight against a dark blue sky, its limbs lifted skywards, it must surely be enjoying soaking up the warmth? I wonder if the great tits will nest in the cavity of its thick bottom branch again this year?

At this point I almost always hesitate and debate with myself which way to go. Reminding myself that part of my original plan for this walk was to see what, if  anything, there was in flower, my best chance of that was to go the most-trodden route and turn left. There’s a small amount of gorse along here that was just beginning to open up a few golden petals, which I’m always happy to see (and smell!), but thus far not a single other stray wildflower, nor even a catkin.

The lack of leaves, flowers, insects and other such distractions leaves space for noticing other things. The sculptural shapes of the trees, the textures of bark and lichen on twigs and branches. The sounds and glimpses of birds; a robin singing or perching, head cocked watching for movement in the leaf-litter below then pouncing down on it. A brief sight of a tree-creeper spiralling up a tree trunk. Tits calling to one another as they scrutinise trees for hidden prey, the gronk of a raven passing overhead. Woodpigeons flying on creaking wings then crashing in to land on the lookout for ripe ivy berries. Then, nearer to where there are houses below, argumentative magpies screeching and crows cawing harshly. 

On bright sunny days the leafless trees let through the light and show slices of the views beyond them. The shadows of their trunks and branches create intricate criss-crossed patterns on the ground. The track surface, eroded by the elements and by the traffic of walkers is bumpy, and in places you have to keep your eyes down to avoid tripping up, so although I meant to, I didn’t notice if the line of hazels had catkins; although, to be fair, they would have been above my head height anyway. 

The bank between the main trail and the ‘shortcut’ to the field is damp, sometimes even wet, and muddy in all but the driest of weather. Perhaps because of its dampness, it’s a good spot for wildflowers; it’s the only spot I know of in the woods where sweet violets grow. The flowers are white and very often get spattered with mud, but the patch is spreading year on year and odd plants are cropping up nearby too. In a good spring there can be a nice lot of lesser celandines, and later in the year a couple of plants of hedge woundwort. There were new violet leaves amongst the leaf-litter today and on the very wettest part a patch of bright green liverwort.  

new leaves of sweet violet
liverwort

Taking the shortcut up to the field, I hoped to see or hear a mistle thrush, but no such luck. Near the top of the track I noticed a patch of leaves of Alexanders – it’s range within the site is spreading year on year, perhaps because of seeds being eaten and spread by birds, or perhaps more likely by seeds picked up by, then falling from the soles of walkers’ shoes.

Fresh green leaves of Alexanders

ADDER’S FIELD

The views from this side of the field are always good, but perhaps better now while the trees are bare of leaves. Even after years of living close to coasts, I am always amazed by the depth and intensity of the blues of winter skies and the sea on sunny days.

cherry plum tree – flowers early in the year

A short way from the bottom end of the field grows a cherry plum tree. Once again, as far as I know, this is the only one on the site of the reserve, and I would love to know how it came to be here. Cherry plums are the first of the trees to produce blossom, which comes out during February or early March before the leaves appear. I like to start checking this one early, so I don’t miss it in its glory. It’s a bit early yet, but the flower buds are already beginning to swell, so it won’t be too long. 

The field edges are bordered with an interesting mix of plants – mostly prickly ones, including gorse, brambles and a lovely stretch of burnet rose. Later in the year this will be one of the best spots in which to see butterflies and a range of other insects. 

I thought I might find one or two unseasonally early- blooming wildflowers here, but I think it’s been too cold lately for even the hardiest of them.

Adder’s Field, Bryn Euryn

There are fresh leaves though; salad burnet pushing through a layer of leaves and rockrose cushioned against bright green moss.

leaves of salad burnet
leaves of rockrose with bright green moss

I loved the contrast of the fluffy seed heads of a sunlit wild clematis – aka the aptly-named old man’s beard or traveller’s joy, with the thorny dog-rose, which still has a few over-ripe hips clinging to it.

Flitting around the oaks at the top of the field, a small party of blue and long-tailed tits, maybe the same ones I saw earlier, maybe not.  

long-tailed tit

As I said earlier, the majority of the deciduous trees have lost all of their leaves, but every year there are one or two small oaks that hang on to theirs throughout the winter.

Trails meet at the top end of the field and as I wanted to continue to go up, I turned right to join the Summit Trail. Here too gorse is beginning to flower and the spiky bushes are studded with golden buds.

On the opposite side of the track bronzed bracken and the dried stems and seedheads of hemp agrimony still stand.

SUMMIT TRAIL

The track rises quite steeply through shady woodland for some way, then leads out into the light and open space at the top of a limestone cliff revealing this amazing view, which surely no-one could ever tire of. Here you can see the A55 Expressway snaking along the valley towards the mountains, with a glimpse of the river Conwy in front of them. The village of Mochdre is to the left, and the the not-so-lovely, but necessary recycling centre, which with some irony is located adjacent to the crematorium.

The grass and scrubby vegetation that provided great habitat for butterflies, bees and other insects back in the summer has been cut down, but should soon begin to grow up again. 

lichen-covered blackthorn
traveller’s joy seedhead

On an exposed limestone rockface I found lichens and cushiony moss and growing from cracks, the pretty fern called wall rue Asplenium ruta muraria.

on limestone: lichens, moss & wall rue

At the summit there were people practising flying a drone accompanied by their big dog, which bounded over and stood barking at me. People that know me well will know my thoughts on this (!) I’m not afraid of dogs, but it did make me nervous- you never can tell why they’re actually barking at you – and it took a few minutes before they called it back and put it on a lead. I had wanted to get some photographs from here, but took this one of a very blue Colwyn Bay and quickly moved on.

The long grass and scrubby shrubs at the edge of the hillside going down from the summit has also been cut down. In the summer this is where, hopefully, pretty common spotted orchids will grow and it will become once again the domain of the glorious dark green fritillaries. New trees are growing here, oaks and silver birches, which will eventually extend the woodland, but for now a single Scots pine has the hillside and the views over Rhos on Sea all to itself. 

Scots pine

At the bottom of the hill, finally, hazel catkins! This particular tree is usually one of the most reliable I know for producing a consistently good amount of catkins, but as with other hazels on the site it seems to struggle to produce many nuts.

An acrobatic blue tit foraging in a nearby oak tree finished off my walk nicely.

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Wildflowers in Winter

28 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by theresagreen in Bryn Euryn Nature Reserve, Nature, Nature of Wales, nature of woodlands, nature photography, wildflowers, Wildflowers of Wales

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

daisy, gorse, hart's tongue fern, hazel catkins, lesser celandine, male fern, wildflowers blooming in January, winter heliotrope, winter wildflowers

Daisies look delicate, but they’re tough little plants and flower more-or-less continuously from December to January. I love them so am happy they can decorate grassy areas in peace before the lawn-mowers emerge from hibernation.

160128-TGFLR 1 (8)

Daisy-Bellis perennis

Celandines are one of the first heralds of Spring, but I was taken by surprise to find some this early in the year.

Celandines

Lesser Celandine-Ficaria verna

Herb Robert was also a surprise, its flowering season is more April-November, so this is probably a plant that has not died down and carried on growing.

Herb Robert

Herb Robert

Another survivor is this Nipplewort which is growing in a sheltered corner against a wall on the roadside.

Nipplewort

Nipplewort

There are some wildflowers that are truly winter flowering. The bright green leaves of Winter heliotrope are present here throughout the year and the lilac flowers, which have a fragrant, vanilla-like scent appear from November to March.

Leaves of Winter heliotrope

Leaves of Winter heliotrope

Winter heliotrope

Winter heliotrope – Petasites fragrans

January 26th was a mild sunny day, warm enough to coax out this little Red-tailed bumblebee, but it seemed to be struggling to take off from the flower, so maybe it wasn’t quite warm enough.

A red-tailed bumblebee on a heliotrope flower

A red-tailed bumblebee on a heliotrope flower

Three-cornered Garlic is named for the shape of its flower stems, which are triangular. It is also known as White bluebell and does resemble one, until you smell it. It’s flowering season is February- June but has been in flower here since last December.

Three-cornered Garlic

Three-cornered Garlic-Allium triquetrum

Flowers resemble those of the bluebell

Flowers resemble those of the bluebell

“When gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season“. In other words, gorse pretty much flowers all year round to some extent. Now, at the end of this mild January many bushes are well-covered with the lusciously coconut-scented blossom.

Gorse

Gorse

Hazel catkins have also been present on some trees since last month.

Hazel catkins

Hazel catkins

Sycamore buds are greening

Sycamore buds are greening

A few trees have retained their dried leaves for some reason, this is a small oak.

A small oak tree has kept its dried leaves

A small tree has kept its dried leaves

Some plants characteristically hang on to their berries well into the winter, one such is the unfortunately-named Stinking iris that has bright orange berries

Berries of Stinking Iris-Iris foetidissima

Berries of Stinking Iris-Iris foetidissima

and another is Black bryony, whose bright scarlet berries garland shrubs like strings of shiny beads.

Black bryony berries

Black bryony berries

A surprising number of ferns are still green

Polypody fern

Polypody fern

Spores or sori still in place on the back of the fern fronds

Spores or sori still in place on the back of the Polypody fern fronds

Both the Male fern and the Hart’s Tongue fern are semi-evergreen, but this group shows no sign of dying down at all.

Male fern and Harts tongue ferns

Male fern and Harts tongue ferns

Winter is a good time to appreciate mosses. Looking closely at this one it has fern-like leaves.

A cushion of moss tucked against rocks

A cushion of moss tucked against rocks

Close-up of moss

Close-up of moss

On a fallen Scots pine a colony of tiny bright yellow coloured fungi has established itself; it seems to be a bracket fungi, maybe a turkeytail?

Bright yellow bracket fungus-maybe a small turkeytail

Bright yellow bracket fungus-maybe a turkeytail

 

 

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Of Gorse, Furze or Whin

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by theresagreen in Nature of Wales, nature photography, Wildflowers of Wales

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

ant disperal of seeds, furze, gorse, Gorse Mill, myrmecochory, shelduck, St.Fagans National Museum, stonechat, traditional uses of gorse, ulex europaea, whin

By whichever name you know it, this prickly shrub smothered in sunshine-yellow blossom is an iconic plant of commonland and rough open spaces, and wherever it grows in quantity it is one of our great landscape plants.

Golden gorse in bloom against a background of blue sea

Golden gorse in bloom against a background of blue sea

“When gorse is in blossom kissing’s in season”  or  “when furze is out of bloom, kissing’s out of fashion” is a traditional saying that once would have been know, one way or the other, throughout Britain and Ireland. Either way, it is another way of saying that the plant can be found flowering to some extent in all months of the year. This is because, with the exception of Scotland, most gorse colonies are a mixture of common gorse – ulex europaea (in flower chiefly from January to June, though often sporadically throughout the year) and either western gorse (July to November) or, in the south and east of England, dwarf gorse (also July to November), so the the likelihood is that at least one species will be in flower.

April-Flowers, spines and the beginnings of seed pods

April-Flowers, spines and the beginnings of seed pods

Gorse is a most sensory plant – the flowers smell deliciously of creamy coconut and the seed pods’ pop and crackle in hot sunshine, but it’s so well protected by those potent spines it’s best admired from a respectful distance.

Common name: Gorse, furze or whin Scientific name: Ulex Europaea Welsh name:Eithinen Ffrengig: Family group: Fabaceae

Flowers of Common Gorse - Ulex Europaea

Flowers of Common Gorse – Ulex Europaea

Common gorse is the only species native to much of western Europe, where it grows in sunny sites, usually on dry, sandy soils. It is also the largest species, reaching 2–3 metres (7–10 ft) in height.

The 15-20mm long flowers, with their wonderful aroma of coconut, are borne on stems of spiny bluish-green spikes. The leaves have been modified over centuries into rigid and furrowed thorns which withstand the harsh conditions of winters at higher altitudes, making the entire bush one mass of prickles and spines. In North Wales these shrubs form hedgerows around our fields, they line our country roads and particularly from February to May, when the flowers are their most abundant, they are a spectacular sight.

Pollination 

Whether gorse flowers supply nectar is a subject of debate, although the opinion of careful observers is that they do at certain times. However, it is for pollen that the plant is mainly of value to Beekeepers.This is produced in abundance and is bright yellow or orange in colour, assuming the darker or duller shade in the bees’ pollen baskets, but bees commonly forsake gorse once other flowers become available.

The spines protect the plant from being eaten

The spines protect the plant from being eaten

The visual intensity of a gorse-dominated heath or common can be dramatic. The pioneering naturalist Carl Linnaeus saw gorse in bloom on London’s Putney Heath whilst on a visit to England. He was reported to have fallen to his knees and wept for joy when he beheld the sight of the heath adorned with its fine yellow flowers. He had tried unsuccessfully to grow gorse in his greenhouse in Uppsala in Sweden, but the winters proved too cold.

Gorse fruits forming

Gorse fruits forming

The popping, or crackling sound of the gorse plants’ seed pods, as they split to scatter their seeds, is a familiar sound on hot summer days.

Gorse seed-pods

Gorse seed-pods cracking open on a hot summer’s day

Seed dispersal: Most gorse seeds fall directly beneath the parent plant, although some are dispersed through the action of the dehiscent pods, which can eject seeds up to 16 feet (5 m) from the parent plant.Gorse seed dispersal over intermediate distances may be attributable to insects, animals, birds and possibly wind gusts. Most fascinatingly though, is the plant’s interaction with ants.

Ant dispersal of gorse seeds

Myrmecochory (sometimes “Myrmechory“); from Greek myrmeco-: “ant’s” + -chory: “dispersal”) is seed dispersal by ants, an ecologically significant ant-plant interaction with worldwide distribution.

Dwarf gorse growing amongst heather on the Great Orme

Dwarf gorse -Ulex Minor, growing amongst heather on the Great Orme

Gorse is known to be a myrmechochorous plant, meaning that ants assist seed dispersal. The following is an extract from research by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology:

Dwarf gorse Ulex minor seeds have a small food body, called an elaiosome, which attracts ants of certain species. These ants pick up the seed and take it back to the nest, where the elaiosome is removed and eaten and the seed is then discarded. As well as dispersing the seed, this behaviour may place the seed in improved conditions for germination and seedling establishment. Our work on this system has involved observing and measuring dispersal in the field and studying the chemical ecology of the ant-seed interaction. The latter has shown for the first time that the elaiosome produces a chemical which attracts ants from a distance. http://www.ceh.ac.uk/index.html

ECOLOGY

Patches of gorse are important in both heath and coastal areas, although it may be desirable to control the extent of spread where it excludes other species.

14/1/12 Stonechat - Saxicola torquata perched on gorse-Little Orme

14/1/12 Stonechat – Saxicola torquata  (f) perched on gorse-Little Orme

Gorse is a valuable plant for wildlife, providing dense thorny cover ideal for protecting birds’ nesting and feeding sites, and providing shelter for birds and other animals moving through the countryside.  In Britain, France and Ireland, it is particularly noted for supporting Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata), Stonechat (Saxicola rubicola), Linnet () and Yellowhammer () and the common name of the Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra) attests to its close association with gorse. The flowers are eaten by some species of moths. 

Gorse provides important habitat for other animals and plants too, including uncommon ones such as dodder, a ‘hemi-parasite’ that grows on gorse foliage. Reptiles such as common lizard, sand lizard, smooth snake, and adder, all favour gorse-dominated environments.

Shelduck are known as furze,or gorse duck in Welsh

In Wales, once Shelduck have paired in the spring they move away from water to the hills, where they search out a large rabbit hole for a nest.

Often these lie beneath old gorse bushes – hence the shelduck’s Welsh name, Hwyaden yr Eithin: the furze or gorse duck.

“Wild Gorse: history, conservation, and management

“It is clear that gorse and its relatives were widely used and often deliberately cultivated until very recently. Now however, the furze fields and the gorse commons lie neglected and abandoned a forgotten artefact of our cultural history. As the plants degenerate through age and a lack of management, natural capacity for regeneration declines.” Ian D. Rotherham, Sheffield Hallam University. 

TRADITIONAL USES OF GORSE

Gorse has a long history of use in the areas of the country where it grows most prolifically and in many areas it was deliberately cultivated as a crop for animal food and as fuel.

Gorse-Bryn Euryn

Gorse-Bryn Euryn

Many places up and down the country refer to the presence of gorse. On Exmoor, where the plant is known locally as furze, it gave rise to Furzebury Brake and Furzehill Common. Most hill farms have their furze break, i.e. gorse-covered hill. In Wales, where place names in Welsh are made up of elements, any place name containing ‘eithin’, the Welsh word for gorse will indicate the plant’s significance there. 

 The importance of gorse for heating ovens for baking is a tradition widely recorded across Britain. The gorse burns rapidly and hot, quickly raising the temperature of the oven to a suitably high temperature. Importantly the gorse produces very little ash, and this is raked out as the bread is placed into the oven. For bread in early times, it was the custom to cut off the base and the four side-crusts to remove the ash that became embedded in the bread.

On commonland there were quite strict rules about when and how much gorse could be cut for fuel: ‘In Cumnor, Oxfordshire, under the 1820 Enclosure Award, parishioners had the right to go to Cumnor Hurst to cut gorse and broom (for burning, often in bread ovens due to the fierce heat) but they were allowed only as much as they could carry on their backs.’

A closer look at those spines

A closer look at those spines

GORSE MILLS

Gorse is highly nutritious; hence its armament of sharp prickles to ward off herbivores. The leaves are generally only eaten in situ in the spring when young and tender. However, the plant was grown to be cut and crushed for winter fodder for horses and cattle. It was used particularly in areas with extensive heath and common, but was also deliberately seeded into areas as a crop to be harvested. In Wales, special mills were constructed to grind down the cut gorse into a moss-like consistency.

‘In Wales many farmers remember gorse mills, and how important a food gorse was, especially for horses. Fields were devoted to growing gorse as a crop, and at least one smallholder in Anglesey made his living cutting gorse for other farmers, at five shillings an acre.” Flora Brittanica, Richard Mabey

There is a reconstructed Gorse Mill at St. Fagans National History Museum, near Cardiff.  I surely passed it by on the several occasions I have visited this genuinely fascinating place, usually in the rain, both with my own children and whilst accompanying parties of small schoolchildren. I can’t say that I remember it, but that was a good few years ago.  

Exterior view of the Gorse Mill  at St Fagans National History Museum

Exterior view of the Gorse Mill at St Fagans National History Museum

A small, stone-built mill (built mid-1840s) that was used to prepare gorse for feeding to horses. From the 18th century to the end of the Second World War, most Welsh farmers used horses to carry out the work of the farm. Because of this it was important to feed horses well, and gorse was an important part of their diet. It was specially grown on a large scale but had to be bruised or crushed to make it fit to eat.

The gorse crushing machine, with heavy metal spikes fixed to the axle, was located on the ground floor and was driven directly off the waterwheel. By about 1850, however, most such mills had been replaced by lighter and cheaper hand-operated or oil-powered machines.

DOMESTIC USES

Folk interviewed by Richard Mabey for his Flora Britannica  recalled the following uses for gorse:

‘Gorse & heather were bound together to make besom brooms, which were then tied with the same jute string used for binding straw bales.’ (Whitby)

“ Some local gardeners place chopped gorse or “fuzz” over germinating or emerging peas to deter mice and pigeons” (Plymouth, also Ashridge).

The ashes of burned Gorse are rich in alkali, and they were formerly sometimes used for washing, either in the form of a solution or lye, or mixed with clay and made into balls, as a substitute for soap.

Another association with washing is that many people used to like to grow a few Gorse bushes near their homesteads, so they could lay their washing on the thorny branches without fear of it blowing away.

Gorse flowers were also used to make wine & a yellow dye.

DYES 

Gorse Dye Recipe from “A Diary of a West Cork Dyer” by Kate Jepson 

16oz Gorse petals, 8 oz wool, 2oz alum, ½ cream of tartar

Soak the petals for two hours. While petals are soaking mordant the wool the same way as for the onionskin dyebath, and allow to cool. Bring petals to simmering point over one hour, and simmer for one hour, drain off liquor and add mordanted wool, bring to simmering and simmer for one hour without letting the dyepan boil. Rinse wool well in water until it runs clear, wash and hang to dry in an airy place. (yellows)

Gorse in popular culture

PERFUME

If you love the scent of gorse as much as I do, you may be interested to know that the monks of Caldy Island (an isle just off the coast near Tenby in South Pembrokeshire), who are reknowned worldwide for producing the very best lavender perfume, also produce a perfume from gorse flowers called ‘Island Gorse’. (To me it doesn’t smell exactly like the flowers do in the wild, somehow it’s not quite coconutty enough (sorry, it must be the aromatherapist in me) but I love it and wear it anyway.)

LITERATURE

There are numerous references to Gorse in modern literature from the misadventures of Winnie the Pooh to Lord of the Rings, but most evocatively in Thomas Hardy’s novel The Return of the Native. When Clym is partially blinded through excessive reading, he becomes a furze-cutter on Egdon Heath, much to the dismay of his wife, Eustacia. The timeless, gorse-covered heath is described in each season of the novel’s year-and-a-day timeline and becomes symbolic of the greater nature of mankind.

George Meredith (1828–1909) caught the essence of the plant in the great gorse stanza in ‘Juggling Jerry’, where he described an old man relishing familiar scenes and scents:

Yonder came smell of the gorse, so nutty,

  Gold-like and warm; it’s the prime of May.

Better than mortar, brick and putty,

  Is God’s house on a blowing day.

Lean me more up on the mound; now I feel it;

  All the old heath-smells! Ain’t it strange?

There’s the world laughing, as if to conceal it,

  But he’s by us, juggling the change.

  From more recent times, I love this report:

Rescued – after two days in gorse bush

• Martin Wainwright, The Guardian -Wednesday 10 August 2005 00.05 BST

An RAF helicopter was scrambled early yesterday to rescue a man who had been stuck in a gorse bush for two days. Winchman Colin Yorke was lowered through thorns into a small opening in the bush on a Yorkshire sea cliff, to attach a cable to the man, who was suffering from hypothermia. He had failed to catch anyone’s attention until shortly before dawn yesterday, after tumbling into the bush on Sunday morning. North Yorkshire police said he managed to alert a woman out on an early walk by repeatedly clicking his cigarette lighter.
A North Yorkshire police spokesman said they received a call at 3.50am on Tuesday.
“The lady who called said he had been there for several hours, but could not give a reason as to why he could not get out,” the spokesman said.
Sergeant Yorke said that the curious operation was “certainly one of our stranger rescues”. His helicopter was dispatched from RAF Leconfield near Beverley, in east Yorkshire, after coastguards and fire officers decided that winching was the safest way out.
“The patch of gorse he was in was 10 feet deep,” said Sgt Yorke, 38, who has been in the RAF for 21 years. “We’ve no idea how he got there. He was right in the middle of the gorse. When we arrived we could just see this hand poking out above the top of the bush. It was like he had been dropped there by a spaceship.”
The man has not been named but is 32 and was described as “a well-known local character” from Hunmanby, near Primrose Valley on the edge of Filey, where he got stuck. Sgt Yorke said: “He had no idea how he got there but he had apparently been out on Saturday night consuming various substances.”
The man was taken to Scarborough hospital and treated for hypothermia and dehydration after telling the helicopter crew that he had no feeling from the waist down. Sgt Yorke said: “He was out if it, really.”
Coastguards and police are looking for a mountain bike which the man recalls riding, and which may have catapulted him in the dark into the middle of the bush.

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