The Garden as a Teaching Tool

How Important?

      'Kindergarten' comes from the German meaning 'garden of children' and, of course, refers to the first organised schooling our kids are exposed to. That 'garden' should have been used by the educator Friedrich Frobel, the bloke who came up with the name, is most fitting, This is  because a garden can be the most useful learning tool we have. Fred was using it in the context of treating children like plants, giving them the right growing conditions to develop into healthy fruiting specimens. However we can also look at it in an equally creative sense: the garden has the potential to yield some of the most important guides to understanding our world.

      Ask anyone what the most important equation in science is and you'll get Einstein's theory of relativity, Newton's Laws of motion and various others pulled out of the bag. Personally, I'd go for photosynthesis: 'where does the wood for the table start out, kiddies?' That's right - a tree. And how does the tree grow there? By the process of photosynthesis. That plastic chair. The plastic comes as a by-product of coal tar and where does coal come from? whoops, we're back to trees. And lunch - obvious where the vegetables came from isn't it? but what about the meat? No, the cow didn't photosythesise, but guess what it ate to become big.

      Take a deep breath. Now think about where the oxygen we need to stay alive comes from. Yep, right again, it's the waste product of the plant factory where photosynthesis takes place. And hey, look at that cloud in the sky. The plants needed water to carry out photosynthesis but they took in too much and pumped it out as vapour (a big oak can move 150gallons a day) which became  clouds that will eventually give us rain.

      Now look at that insect. It's a greenfly and a clever man called Stephan Buczacki worked out that, because they breed so fast, one landing on your roses in early June could give rise to two thousand billion by the end of August. This means that we could be over our heads in greenfly (imagine drowning in them), but it never happens. The reason it doesn't is that bluetits, wasps, hoverflies and many other species save us by having greenfly for dinner. And this leads us to discover that all of nature is a web of life - even despised animals like slugs are beavering away eating dead plants and returning the bits back into the ground so that other things can grow.The important lesson in this is that, the more you look at each living thing, you see that it plays a part in making planet Earth work, we are a small part of this and should do our best to fit in: break too many strands of the web and it falls apart.

      Ok. So, back into the stuffy schoolroom, kids. But don't forget what's outside the window.

Honey bee playing its part

   

Water problems and sexton beetles

Common sense and undertakers
      A lot of gardening problems can be solved using common sense. A bit of careful thought is often more rewarding than waiting for the Gardener's Question Time team coming up with the answers: I've got this ornamental grass Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola', growing in an urn at the end of the garden. During the recent hot spell I noticed that there was something different about it and a closer examination showed that the leaves had shrivelled, leaving almost a skeleton. Seasoned gardeners will immediately recognise the signs of water deprivation but newcomers may be tempted to think that some dread disease has taken hold and dispatch it to the compost heap.

Hakonechloa before watering

A few hours after watering

      When many plants are stressed due to water shortage, the initial reaction is to decrease the size of the leaf pores by shrivelling, lessening the transpiration of water into the atmosphere. This is done in the hope that it will either rain soon or the guy in the silly hat will come along with a watering can. In this case the latter occurred and you can see the result in the pictures.

      Although the Hakenochloa can grow in some pretty dry areas of woodland and mountain in Japan, it has the potential for its roots to explore for water over a much larger area and depth than a pot allows it. This is a limit many plants suffer in the artificial environment of a container and knowing it can be the difference between good and bad results: for example, growing Hydrangeas in pots can be rewarding but success is dependent on recognising that they are water junkies and need daily replenishment. A compost rich in organic material helps, acting as a sponge to retain water, but the fact that leaves and flowers form an almost impenetrable barrier to rain getting through means that they need as much help from you as possible. And don't forget plant nutrients, these are soon exhausted by big roots in a small pot, so a bit of  fertilizer every now and then will be well received. One with high potash content, like tomato or rose food is best for encouraging more flowering.

Hydrangea macrophylla - a water junkie

      So, the difference between a good gardener and the one who freely professes to 'kill everything I plant', is often just a matter of how much thought is applied. Maybe we can't all become Titchmarshes but we can avoid a lot of death in the garden. And this brings me to another aspect of dying: the afterlife.

      I was walking with a mate near Malham, in Yorkshire, when I spotted a dead mouse on the path. This may not seem particularly exciting but there was something strange about it. When I bent to look closer, I could see that it was rather flattened and in the same category as Monty Python's parrot but then........"It moved", I bellowed, "the bloody thing moved".

Sexton beetles

      Sure enough, the body was making some sickening undulations as if trying to rise from the dead. I'm not frightened of mice, but deceased ones coming back for another go take a bit of getting used to. However I needn't have worried because the causes of the resurrection suddenly emerged from under the body - beetles, big orange and black ones. These were sexton beetles and they are attracted by the smell of corpses. It seems they sometimes work in a group, digging under the body until it sinks into the hole they have made. After exuding antibacterial and antifungal secretions over it to prevent the smell attracting rivals, they then cover it with soil and the females lay eggs either into the body flesh or just under it. The larvae which then emerge eat their way to adulthood, feasting on what their parents have left of the meat. 

      This is the perfect topic for an after-dinner speech if you want to find out what everyone's had.

     

   

Common Fig (Ficus carica)

Housebreaking

Fig in a pot

      Drainpipes were a speciality of mine. I could tell from a quick look whether a pipe would hold my weight or simply come away from the wall, taking me with it. Or at least I liked to think I could. An incident which indicated a degree of fallibility in my judgement occurred  way back in the seventies when a crowd of us were locked out of a house in Blackheath in south London:

      I was staying for a few days with friends who lived with their parents and we'd just got back to the house after a visit to the pub when Georgia and Jim, the friends, discovered that neither had got their keys with them. Mum and dad were out for the night, which was rather the point, because we'd met a number of other friends in the pub and were intent on having a bit of a party. Everyone was ready to give in and go back to the pub when I noticed that one of the drainpipes passed very close to a first-floor lavatory window and the small, horizontally opening top window was open a crack.

      "I could get through that", I said, squinting upwards with the confidence imbued by a couple or so pints of bitter.

      "Nah. Not possible", said Georgia in her Cockney accent "carm own, let's gow back t' the Nag's 'Ed" (eat your heart out, Dick Van Dyke).

      I grabbed hold of the drainpipe and tested it with a professional air.

      "Safe as houses", I commented, although it looked as if it'd  been fitted around the time of the Roman invasion, and I started to climb while everyone crowded round to watch.

      I'd got around fifteen feet up when the pipe gave a lurch and the upper fastenings slipped out by about an inch. Only a couple of rusty screws were somehow still holding it (and me) to the wall.

      "Ooh", came the cries of a couple of adoring girls in the audience (with the optimism of hormone filled youth trying to impress the opposite sex, my translation was 'adoring' when in fact there was probably a stronger element of 'wish the bugger'd fall off'' - an ethos similar to that among crowds who watch formula one with the almost subconscious yearning to see a crash).

      "Oh, shit", I heard Jim say, and was quite touched that he was scared for me until he continued, "Dad'll kill me when 'e sees that drainpipe"

      Desperately I lunged for the window-sill and held tight with one hand, taking some of the weight off the drainpipe screws, then I inched gingerly higher until, taking a deep breath, I was able to transfer my hand to the bottom lip of the open window. Holding onto this, I stepped from the drainpipe to stand on the sill. Then I put my hand through and was able to open the window fully before starting the process of going through it.

      "Ee'll not get 'is 'ead through, said one of the wags. Although this was no doubt meant as an insulting comment, I'd read somewhere that if you can get your head through an orifice, it is possible to follow with the rest of your body. However, reading a theory and being twenty foot up on a window sill about to test it, are slightly different.  The thought struck me that if my head didn't fit I may spend the rest of my life standing on this narrow strip of wood - there was no way I was trusting my future to a descent via that drainpipe.

      The window was about a foot high, so I got my head through sideways easily enough, but my shoulders were a different matter and it took a lot of wriggling before I was far enough through to get my hands on the inner sill. The next step was to walk my hands down onto the toilet seat, which was directly below the window. I managed to get my left hand on, then was carefully getting the other one in position when the seat came off. I then found that surfing lavatory seats is not one of my strong points: I shot down with my chin bouncing off the ceramic bowl and ended up in a semi conscious heap on the floor, still clutching the seat. From below they simply saw the bottom half of my body suddenly disappear through the window, as if the house were a giant vacuum cleaner that had just sucked me in. All this was accompanied by a high pitched, strangulated yell as that bit of metal which sticks up on a window frame made a fair try at castrating me.

      "Er, watch out for the seat, it's a bit loose", I heard Jim shout. I was quite interested to know the difference between 'a bit' and 'totally' - there's obviously a bigger language divide between north and south than I'd been aware of.

      My meteoric arrival had caused the door to slam shut and I now staggered to my feet with a view to opening it, going downstairs and letting everyone in at the front door - the hero of the hour and the focus of my girl fans.

      During the first stage of this victory jaunt the handle came off in my hand, a fraction of a second after another of Jim's hails reached me:

      "Er, watch out for the door handle, it's a bit...."

      "Loose", I screamed back at him, as I looked at it and fondly visualised how far a door handle could be inserted into Jim, "I'm now locked in", I added in a more reasonable voice. For some reason, this amused the wags down below and there was a guffaw of laughter.

      "I'll call the fire brigade", came Jim's ever-helpful voice, "they'll bring a ladder".

      "And then there'll be me and a fireman trapped in the bog. Who's going to rescue him?" I bellowed, wishing he'd just shut up and let me think.

       My only hope lay in the chance that the square rod which goes through the lock was still visible. If I could manoeuvre it back to my side of the door I may be able to carefully slot the handle back on, turn it, and make my escape. Luckily, when I bent, I could see it was still there, halfway through the door. It took me about ten minutes gingerly clawing at it with my pen-knife while two of the drunks in the garden helpfully accompanied my efforts with  that song about two incarcerated old ladies.

      When I finally made my escape and opened the front door with a flourish, the adoring girls had gone. They hadn't given a fig about my heroism - they'd just wanted blood and my failure to join them on the ground, complete with drainpipe, was a bit of a disappointment.

      And talking about figs (subtle join, eh?), for years now, I've been growing one in a tub and it regularly produces six or seven edible fruits. The fact that the roots are contained by the tub is an asset, because figs are known to yield best in such confinement: in greenhouses they have been grown historically in beds with sunken flagstones or suchlike sunk to create the same effect. Given free root run there is a tendency to get plenty of nitrogen which goes towards promoting leaf growth. This is a characteristic of many plants: make them feel slightly under threat and the reaction is to produce offspring to take over in the case of parental death.

Successful fig cutting

      A disadvantage suffered by a plant in a container is that the roots have far less protection in very cold weather than they do if penetrating deep underground. For this reason, I thought I'd lost the plant in the extreme winter a couple of years ago. All the top growth was dead. I tried to pull it out in order to use the container for something else, but it was completely jammed in and I temporarily gave up. This was lucky because a few weeks later some green shoot appeared and it is now back to its old self, having had a near death experience. The lesson in this, of course, is to wrap outdoor containers in bubble wrap or hessian to give a bit of winter protection. Also allow it a bit of time, even though it looks dead.

      The fig, Ficus carica (closely related to the rubber tree), originates in Western Asia and the Mediterranean, so you wouldn't expect to see it growing wild in Britain. However, it turns out there are a lot of them growing along the banks of the River Don in Sheffield. Apparently they date back to the time when Sheffield led the world in producing steel. This involved taking water from the river and using it in the cooling process. When the water was returned to the river, it was warm enough to cause the Don to run at a constant 20deg.C. - the temperature required for fig seeds to germinate. As further proof of this as a cause, the trees stopped germinating after the industry collapsed, although those already growing continued to thrive.

Cross-section showing the strange inner flowers

      Figs are, botanically speaking, not actually fruits - they are swollen stems with the minute flowers inside and some forms need pollinating by a specially adapted wasp: this crawls in through the small orifice at the tip of the fruit and begins a complicated life-cycle which is beneficial to both itself and the fig. However the cultivated fig we commonly grow doesn't need pollination (it is parthenocarpic), so there's no danger of eating wasps in a fig butty. They can be easily propagated by taking cuttings in summer. I've even got them to root very successfully in water in the warmth of the house.

Next year's embryonic fruit in leaf axils near tip. Remove larger ones below.

      Knowing when the fig is ready for harvesting is easy: wait til it goes a dark colour, softens, and hangs down rather than being held horizontally. Cracking is another indication of ripeness. In a warm climate it isn't unreal to expect up to four crops in a year, however in Britain one is a more realistic aim. The buds lower down the shoots become too large and tender to last the winter, so these should be removed in autumn. This causes stimulation of the new fruits which are developing like little marbles at the tips of the shoots.

Ripe Fig

      I spotted an interesting fig recipe in a blog by The Novice Gardener tap here. She does some really good stuff on growing and using - well worth a visit.

Dischidia pectinoides (kangaroo pocket, ant plant)

Dancing Daffodils

Dischidia pectinoides with front cut off 'urn' to show roots growing from wall

      A few blogs ago, I was looking at amateur dramatics and some of the pitfalls. This reminded me of a production I was personally involved in. I'm in a choir and we were asked whether anyone was interested in singing in a presentation of Desperate to be Doris which was to be played at the Lowry Theatre in Salford. It was a musical and (luckily) a comedy. I had seen it a year or so previously and loved it, so put my name forward.

      An early musical scene in the play had the choir standing in tiers up to the back of the stage singing Que Sera, Sera. In theory, fluffy clouds billowed gently above and a rainbow moved serenely across the sky as the choir, swaying in unison, dreamily intoned a vision of the future, In reality, this ideal was somewhat challenged by the mind-blowing technology involved: it consisted of clouds on sticks being waved around by choir members in a way which brought to mind the hurricane season in Miami. The piece de resistance though, was a banner depicting a rainbow which slowly and dramatically unfurled as the sticks holding it were passed from singer to singer on the back row. Unfortunately the sticks seemed to be released in a haphazard way so that people became momentarily eclipsed by the rainbow and comments like ‘gerroff me foot, Kev’ and ‘hey, that was my head’ became audible above the lilting harmonies. The unison swaying was disrupted and, quite artistically really, suggested a tsunami subtending the hurricane.

      Something the organisers had overlooked was the fact that the bloke passing the sticks at the beginning of the row was about six foot eight, while the pot of gold receiving it at the other end was pushing five foot four. The result was a rainbow which sloped horizontally across the back of the stage and probably gave the audience the impression of watching the performance from a boat caught up in the hurricane I mentioned. A long discussion took place about how to solve this problem, during which various ways of marking the sticks were suggested, so that each person's height was taken into consideration and some sort of equilibrium attained. These ideas were eventually discarded when someone noticed that they were already marked anyway.

      In another scene, the hero was singing about having a secret love and how he told the daffodils about it. This was visually illustrated by choir members dressed as daffodils mincing in line onto the stage and prancing around him. The audience probably didn't realise it, but the good looking one who trailed along at the back was the only bloke. I got the part on the basis that my career in horticulture was an unassailable qualification. My botanical knowledge led me to be sceptical about the whole dancing daffodil thing though, thinking that plants with more obvious movement, like Venus fly traps, would be more appropriate.  

      And so we turn to Jeff, the choral director, alias the skateboarding nun. His task was to skateboard across the stage dressed as a nun, not because this was part of the story but because, er. well, just because. When he first demonstrated his expertise to the assembled cast, he appeared at speed from the wings, crossed half the stage, then pitched headlong, landing in a position reminiscent to that of the Altrincham goalkeeper when the ball is nestling in the net. I personally saw the fact that Altrincham were relegated that season as an ominous portent. From a horizontal position he leered at the cast with that ‘heh, heh -meant to do that’ expression’ of his which, translated, means: ‘Shit! What happened?’

      ‘I thought you said you could skate’, said an indignant  stage manager.

     He didn’t reply but the ‘heh, heh expression which now occupied his face could this time be translated as ‘I thought a skate was a fish’ or, more likely, ‘I lied through me teeth’.

      By the time of the first show, Jeff had partially mastered the technique by practising in the corridor outside the changing rooms. Unfortunately it seemed the skateboard was the brains of the outfit and Jeff had to go along with what it decided. On the night, he shot across the stage at a speed which meant that he remained unseen by anyone who happened to be blinking or sneezing at the time. This performance brought comparisons with Superman, who can move so fast as to be invisible. In fact, audience comments picked up on the dressing room relay included ‘thought I saw a blur, but may have imagined it’. A more mundane observation, made by someone with quick eyesight was a disparaging: ‘not a patch on Julie Andrews’.

      And so the show rolled on towards an inevitable sad conclusion on the Saturday night, when what was a disparate group of people become a crowd of friends, parted company: the magical world of theatre people faded into the past. We reverted from being daffodils,cowboys, indians and aeronautical nuns back to the workplace or, in my case, to my garden, where I  potter and plant more daffodils.

      So now you're sitting there, both of you, waiting for me to go on about daffodils. Sorry - it's the wrong time of year. Instead, I'm going to look at ants and an unusual plant called Dischidia pectinoides. Calm down. Try to contain the excitement.

      Dischidia pectinoides is a myrmecophilous plant which hitches its way to the light by growing on the branches of other species. 'Myrmecophilous' refers to plants which live with ants to mutual advantage. In this case, the plant produces leaves swollen into urns which the ants choose to live in and have their young. The ants breathe out carbon dioxide, which all plants need in order to produce energy-giving sugar, and the Dischidia makes full use of this. 

      When an urn ages, the ants move their families to a newer one, using the old one as a midden for excreta, bits of soil and the corpses of their dead. The plant then produces roots from the inside of this old pod and they grow into this mixture which has become a compost. Obviously roots need watering, so the plant achieves this by having pores which, in most plants, breathe water outwards into the atmosphere, instead releasing it inwards into the pod. 

      If you were lucky enough to get hold of a Dischidia (and they're pretty thin on the ground), it can be grown in a hanging basket in good light or, as shown in the top picture, up a trellis. An average living room temperature is usually sufficient for good results, with the plant in an epiphytic orchid mix. When we grew one in the glasshouses at work, it seemed to manage reasonably well without the ants but it'd be interesting to compare growth between two plants, one with and one without.

      We probably think of ourselves as being the first species to grow plants in pots. After all, there are five thousand year old Egyptian wall paintings of  pot plants to illustrate this but, in Dischidia, nature got there first, making us look not quite so clever.

      The Dischidia we've been talking about originates in The Phillipines but ants share some interesting relationships much closer to home:

      A greenfly feeds by bunging a proboscis, which is like a starched elephant's trunk, into plant cells. It forces mucus down one nostril which creates a pressure in the cell, pushing plant sugars up the other. I suppose you could say it's blowing its nose and having a good nosh at the same time. However there isn't much protein in plant sugar and, like us, greenfly need it. This means that  they have to take in a great bulk of sugar before the required protein is obtained, and their bodies aren't big enough to retain the excess, which they excrete onto the leaf. This deposit is called honeydew and is what you can experience if you park your car under a tree and return to find it covered with stickiness. Often, a strange blackness appears on leaves and this is usually the result of sooty mould, a fungus which feeds on honeydew.  

Aphids feeding

      Ants come back into the story when you get a couple of them patrolling round a plant, fighting off the greenfly predators, so that they can occasionally nip up the stem and have a few honeydew butties. The ants  farm greenfly, milking them in exactly the same way that we treat cows. Another one where nature got there first.

Ants 'farming' greenfly

Arisaema tortuosum (whipcord lily) and Arum maculatum (cuckoo pint)

Strange Plants

Arisaema tortuosum (whipcord lily)

In an effort to try something different with my blog, and acting on the suggestion of my eldest son, Chris, I've preceded the gardening stuff with one of my short stories:     

What Goes Round Comes Round

      Adam looked at the derelict landscape with mixed feelings:

      There is something exciting about ground being reclaimed by nature: huge concrete plinths – once the floors of factories and warehouses of the old dockland– stand in silent testimony to the ephemeral existence of man’s endeavours; skeins of rose bay willow herb and Oxford ragwort follow spreading cracks and joints which young willows, birches and the ubiquitous Buddleia force further apart. The rattle and hum of machinery has given way to birdsong and the thrumming of insects servicing the advancing green army. The stress of deadlines and the need to produce, produce, produce, has succumbed to a gentler rhythm. No doubt the pace of life in the microcosm is as hectic in its own way – a struggle for existence - but it does not disturb the mechanism of the planet. It defies modern man’s system of existing in spite of nature by existing with nature.

      He gave his imagination full rein:

      Close by, the canal echoes the change: gone is the floating skin of litter and dead fish – testimony to man’s scorn for the planet which nurtured him – to be replaced by water lilies. Occasional flag iris displaying large chestnut brown seed, promise further colonisation. Maybe these plants will work the same changes as those on the concrete plinths: forcing stonework apart; allowing water to first seep, then cascade out, leaving a dry lane and a scattering of fish skeletons and empty freshwater mussels between the ancient walls.

      Within a century, harshness will be replaced by lush greenery. Tall buildings will become pergolas, gradually eroding back into the land. Emulating the Inca temples, they have the same crumbling destiny. Future visitors to the planet will find an uneven verdant carpet suggesting an interesting geological past. Maybe they’ll bring archaeologists who’ll dig and discover the remains of a great civilisation, beginning the theorising on how it was wiped out. Their version of the dinosaurs.

     He smiled inwardly and tomorrow reverted to today. The concrete plinths were still there, supporting their influx of wildlife, but the nearby canal had regained its flotsam. A fisherman had more chance of catching a shopping trolley than a carp in there. The ground occupied by the plinths was to become the new tram terminal. Already they’d started erecting palisade fencing. Nature’s recovery would be stopped. But only put on hold. Eventually man would overpopulate himself into extinction and the green tide would flood back in. Cycles. Everything runs in cycles.

     Lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed the darkening sky. Now he looked up at a rolling black cloud. It was edged a strange fiery orange, as the sun fought a retreating battle. Better be getting back. As he stood to go, the first large drops spattered around him, quickly mottling the dry concrete. The background hum of insects had died away and he absently wondered where they went during rain. One large raindrop hitting a hover fly would be the equivalent of at least one bucketful hitting a person. Coming from a height, you could probably include the bucket in the resulting impact.

      There was a rumble of thunder in the distance. A vivid flash of lightning caused him to break into a run – he stood out on this flat terrain as a homing beacon for the next one - one, two, three, four, five, then a louder rumble. Divided by five meant it was a mile away, if the theory worked.

      The weather had been becoming more and more extreme. “Global warming” was the now concerted cry from the scientists, but their predictions didn’t ring true: the long, hot summers of drought had become long, cold summers of increasing rainfall and strange electrical disturbances.

      He looked for shelter. There was nothing immediate, only the plinths stretching away to the canal in one direction and the main road in the other. On either side were stretches of newly erected palisade fence.

      A movement caught his eye.  Red.  A fleeting glimpse of someone wearing a red coat, disappearing behind foliage denser than the willows and birches. Japanese knot weed, he thought absently, as his eyes strained to detect further movement. There was none, but he unthinkingly broke into a run across the eroding surface towards where the figure had disappeared. Not that he particularly wanted to see anyone but simply because he remembered the bus shelter on the main road, somewhere beyond where he’d seen the person.

     The rain was becoming a deluge and he was already soaked, jeans and t-shirt providing little protection. Running past the dense clump of Japanese knot weed he saw what had previously been shielded: a large cellar-type door propped open with a wooden beam. It was the entrance to what had probably been some sort of storage facility when walls and a roof had surrounded the plinth, and stone steps led down into darkness. In spite of the rain, he was intrigued, and ran closer, stopping to peer down into the darkness. Another flash of lightning was followed immediately by a crash of thunder which shook the ground.

     He didn’t like the idea of going down the steps, but the lightning had been close, and he liked the idea of being fried even less. Only a few steps down and he’d be sheltered from the downpour and lightning.

      The steps were steep and he grasped a rusting handrail to steady his descent.  Eight steps down, and he stopped, eyes straining into the gloom. A concrete-walled passage led from the bottom of the stairs that on the right were lined with conduit piping. It was bathed in a strange orange glow which echoed that of the edge of the thunder cloud. The glow seemed to ripple, moving like something alive, and he shrank from the phenomena, turning to escape the place; best take his chances with the lightning. Before he could go back however, a deafening crash of thunder pealed directly overhead. This time the earth shook with an answering rumble, mother whale calling its stranded infant, and the outside light was cut off as the supporting beam dislodged, causing the door to crash down.

      The rumbling continued and his ears rang with the cacophony.  He sat down on the step, shocked by the surrounding primal violence. Closing his eyes, he told himself to relax. There was no problem. At least he was dry down here and there was no danger from the lightning.

      But the orange glow - what the hell was that? It wasn’t coming from any form of bulb but seemed to simply emanate from the walls, causing a shimmering effect which gave the feeling of being under coloured water. It seemed to be getting brighter (although maybe his eyes were adjusting to the gloom), outlining the retreat of the passage into the distance to where it disappeared round a bend.  He didn’t know how long the factory had been derelict, but the advancement of plant growth on the plinth indicated a couple of years. In that case, it seemed unlikely that any form of lighting be left on in this basement. He wondered what had gone on in the building when it was in use, and hoped to God it was nothing to do with radioactivity.

      Nervous now, he backed up the steps, stooping towards the top then pushing upwards against the door with his shoulders. Nothing. It was jammed shut. Sweating and cursing, he tried again, but the wood seemed immovable. Probably the earth movement caused by the thunder had twisted the frame. He sat down, hunched under the door, and looked back along the passage, beginning to feel real fear. His position wasn’t good. Stuck in a cellar in a place rarely visited and his cell phone was on charge at home. The people in his house- share were both out at work and, in any case, didn’t have any idea where he was. They’d simply think he was out botanising again. Well, he was, but not in one of his usual venues. He’d come to this area because the tram route went past, skirting the main road, and the resurgence of growth, seen from the window, had looked interesting. It seemed a perfect illustration of what he’d learnt in college about the way plant communities evolve, perhaps having potential to enhance his thesis.

      Think logically.

      Maybe there was more than one entrance. Given the size of the place, that seemed likely. Another plus was that the strange glow replaced the pitch blackness you would normally expect, making it possible to see, albeit to a limited extent.  He clambered down the rest of the steps into the passage and was pleased to stand upright again. The air had a slight sharp smell which he couldn’t put his finger on.

     The red coat. He remembered the figure which had disappeared somewhere in this vicinity. Maybe he wasn’t the only one stuck in this place, unless that person had also been heading towards the bus shelter. However, it seemed here was only one way to find out, so he set out along the tunnel, moving forward tentatively in the limited light. He gradually became aware of a humming sound emanating from somewhere ahead. It rhythmically rose and fell  and he noticed that the waves of orange light undulated in sympathy.

      Considering the length of time it had been out of use, the passage was remarkably clean. The only signs of neglect were the spider webs adorning the concrete ceiling corners and draped over the piping on the walls. He grinned momentarily at the thought of his sister with her pathological fear of anything with eight legs – something much exploited by himself and his younger brother. Kids could be cruel.

      He walked about twenty yards then stopped. A door, invisible from the steps, was let into the wall on the left hand side. It was heavy, made of iron, and a turn of the handle proved it to be locked. He put his ear to it but heard nothing. There was no way he could force it without some sort of tools, so he carried on, hoping to find another. He reached the point of the tunnel where it right-angled to the left, exposing an equally long section.  A few yards along, another door became visible. This time it was slightly open, and light flooded through the gap.  Moving quietly, he pushed it and peered in. The room, neon lit,  appeared to be some sort of control centre.

      “Excuse me, but what the hell are you doing down here?” asked the blond girl. Wearing a red anorak, she was looking upwards at him from the front of sloping banks of seating fronted by individual computer screens -  an area reminiscent of a space launch control centre. At the far side of the room and facing the seats, a bank of controls filled the whole wall. Green and red coloured lights were flashing and source of the low-level hum seemed to be coming from somewhere behind.

      Relieved to find someone in that place, he explained, in an apologetic way, before asking her the same thing.

      “Environment agency”, she replied, hand reaching automatically to touch the identity card hanging from her neck, “checking complaints that this place is polluting the canal. Didn’t you notice the fish?”.

      She walked across and stood next to him in the doorway, looking down the passage towards the corner. She was a few inches shorter than his six foot and the open anorak displayed the fact that she was wearing jeans and an Environment Agency green top.

      A thought struck him.

      “How come the lights are working?” he asked, looking at the fluorescent ceiling bulbs in the lab, “and this control panel. What’s it all about?”

      “Haven’t the foggiest”, she said, vaguely. “The place used to be an M.O.D. lab – they researched stuff during the cold war. Rumour has it that they were playing with the concept of controlling time. Very H.G. Wells. I’m not sure what use that’d be in a battle situation – unless you could keep going back to the beginning and changing your approach until you won. Anyway, obviously it didn’t work, or we’d have heard about it.” She pursed her lips, looking thoughtful. “Everything here seems to be circuitry and electronics, so I can’t think any pollution is coming from it. I’ll check from the office to see what this stuff is that’s still running”.

      “And this orange glow?”, he said, knowing she had no answer.

      “I think we’d better use it to find our way back to the door. I’ve had enough of this place. Someone else can check it out”.

      “Eve”, he said, smiling and reading her identity tag, “I like your way of thinking”, and they walked along the passage in the direction of the door. The glow seemed to be undergoing some sort of change. At one point, it suddenly lessened to such a degree that they had to feel their way along. To avoid bumping into each other, she slipped her hand in his and they shuffled along in the dark until they bumped into the base of the steps.

      “Now what?” she asked.

      The answer came from above. A deafening peal of what they supposed to be thunder. The surroundings shook and the hum from the control centre, which until now had been an almost subconscious presence, rose to a high pitched wine. The ceiling shimmered, steadied, then evaporated, allowing bright sunlight to stream in. They  involuntarily crouched as a roof cave-in seemed imminent, tensed for the first impact of falling concrete. Somehow they were still holding hands and now, as the sounds died away, she squeezed his.

      “Look”, she said, breathlessly.

      Adam looked.

      The passage was gone and his first impression was that the roof had simply blown off. However, there was no debris, no plinths, no canal and they were surrounded by greenery. Tall trees edged the clearing they were standing in and grass reached their knees. Butterflies and myriad other insects flitted busily, the hum of wings replacing that of traffic. The sky was clear and blue, devoid of  aeroplane traceries  and the air smelled different – somehow cleaner.  As  they looked, the branch of a nearby tree seemed to move, coming to life with a ripple of energy which transformed itself into a giant snake. It stopped, melding back into the greenery and their attention shifted to the end of the branch where an enticing red fruit hung.

     Eve eyed it thoughtfully.

***************************

And while I'm being different seems a good time to look at one of my garden plants which fits the same category. It's called Arisaema tortuosum (whipcord cobra lily) and I can't remember where I got it from. I suppose it won't fit most people's idea of 'aesthetically pleasing' (in fact my wife sees it as a blot on the landscape) but, for me, it makes up for this by being interesting. It seems it can reach six feet high but, in my garden, only achieves about four foot. It dies back completely a few weeks after flowering only to reappear the following June, forcing its way through a tight groundcover of Adjuga.

Originating in the Himalayas, the plant is closely related to our own lords and ladies (Arum maculatum), being in the Araceae family. It needs insects for  pollination and, again like lords and ladies, attracts them with a dreadful pong - another trait which my wife finds endearing.

Arum maculatum (lords and ladies, cuckoo pint)

Apparently the moth fly is the main pollinator of lords and ladies (also called cuckoo pint). The male and female flowers are held separately on the stem below the white, sail- like, spathe and protected in a compartment by a thin wall and a ring of downward facing hairs. The poker-like projection in the spathe is called a spadix and this heats up to release a scent of urine. This attracts the moth fly, a delightful little chap who lives on dung and finds urine our equivalent of champagne. Unfortunately for him, the spadix is coated with an oily substance which causes his feet to slip and he falls down past the hairs into the hidden compartment. Because of the way the hairs are positioned, he can't get out and the technical term for this situation is 'knackered'.

 At this point the female part of the flower, situated in the lower part of the compartment, are ripe for pollination and pollen adhering to the body of the fly is transferred in his desperate attempts to escape. Eventually enough pollen is received from the many moth flies which have become trapped, and the female flower shuts up shop. When this happens, the male flower, which has been closed and inactive, opens and releases clouds of pollen so that the poor old moth flies, having just got rid of all the dusty pollen on their bodies, suddenly resemble workers in a McDougal factory. The downward facing hairs then quickly wither and the flies escape into the great blue beyond.

Cut version showing the downward facing hairs, male and female flowers

Qualification for being a moth fly is a need to be as daft as a brush because, having escaped, he flies along and is suddenly attracted by a rapturous smell of urine. Wow! Down he zooms, only to get caught in another lords and ladies flower, where the same process is repeated.

And this is how this particular plant has evolved in order to be pollinated by another. Genetic diversity is recognised as being important by humans, and we create laws against marrying too closely into the family. however, plants can't create laws, so they evolve in many different ways to ensure cross breeding and maintain hybrid vigour.

The mouse plant (Arisarum proboscideum), native to Spain and Italy, is another close relative of the above. This hides in a moist, shady spot in my garden and the flowers can be of interest to children because the flowers have drawn out ends which  look like mouse tails.

Arisarum proboscideum ( mouse plant)

The flower and 'tail'

How Bulbs Work

The Big Time - Not

Narcissus 'February Gold' - a bulb

As a  group, our ability was no match for our ambition. Playing in the numerous folk clubs - in the late sixties every pub had one - was alright but didn't pay well. Substitute 'well' with 'at all' and you get the idea. We'd invested in some expensive amplifiers and mikes on hire purchase and a bit of income to subsidise this would be very useful. We couldn't afford speakers as well, so we'd made some ourselves. There were two of them, painted black, six foot high and looking a bit like coffins. In fact they were so heavy I sometimes wondered if  bodies had mysteriously materialised in them.

My wife had seen an advert for 'artistes' to attend auditions for working men's clubs in Oldham. We should have known better, having already had an unfortunate experience playing for a pub wedding party in that celubrious neck of the woods. This had ended up as a free-for-all from which we barely escaped with our guitars intact. But money is money, so we turned up at the advertised club, complete with coffins. The audition room, up a flight of steep stairs, was packed with Woodbine - smoking club secretaries and seemed a likely source for the pea-soup fogs we used to have. 'Club Secretary' was (and probably still is) a title representing power. Most of them would be lowly paid workers subjugated by bullying bosses during the day. But at night they came into their own. Their word, supplemented by frequent reference to the sexual act,  was final and you'd better know it.

Rather nervously, watched by about eighty power freaks, we assembled our beloved equipment at the back of the stage, then stood at the side to wait our turn. A number of acts trouped to and from the dressing room at the back, going in as Joe Bloggs and emerging in glittering finery that put our black gear to shame. When I say 'dressing room', the anticipated star wasn't on the door: it was simply a dumping area for empty crates of beer, old electrical equipment and cleaning gear. A wooden chair and row of clothes hooks were the only concession to 'changing', although I suppose the dirty cracked mirror may have crept into this category.

At nine oclock the compere, a bloke of about forty, completely bald and looking very like one of the wrestlers popular on the TV at that time, walked onto the stage clutching a pint of beer and introduced the first act. This was a singer  who belted his way through 'My Way' and only got away with it because he was the size of a brick shed and looked twice as mean. 'His Way' received a few half-hearted claps and no derision. And so followed a number of acts, mostly singers backed by the resident organist and drummer who played so loudly the audience were saved undue suffering from the larynxes of the would-be Elvises, because they were drowned out. The organist and drummer were a fixture in these places, priding themselves in being able to back anyone. The unfortunate aspect of this was that they were usually half way through a song before getting the hang of it and 'key', to the organist, was probably just something to open the door with.

Crocus - a corm

A couple of comedians then laid the lie of the popular concept that 'modern stand-ups rely on bad language and smut - not like the old days'. Seemingly, these blokes were trend setters and their flow of filth and racism went down well with the assembled intellectuals.  A woman singer was down to perform before us and she didn't get through many bars of 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' before shouts of 'drop 'em blossom' and 'gerroff' caused her to break down in tears. Seemingly unaware, the organist and drummer continued with 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square', which they must have decided was close enough because Nat King Cole sang both songs. At this the compere clambered on stage, glared at the audience threateningly, and admonished them to 'give the poor cow a chance'. Understandably, this gave us no end of confidence.

After the woman left the stage, no doubt rethinking her career on the boards, we were on, having politely refused the offer of  'backing' by the drummer and organist. I walked nervously to the back of the stage in an ominous silence while the audience reserved judgement on the two young blokes and a girl who were about to entertain them. I switched the amps on and, heartstoppingly, nothing happened. No red light showed they were working. Sweating, I messed with the wires and my mate Tony used his extensive knowledge of electronics by pulling out the plugs and putting them back again. This went on for a couple of minutes and I was considering how we could do a runner carrying the coffins, when the wrestler came on and announced that 'due to technical problems' we'd have the break early. Then he told us to get it fixed. He didn't actually say 'or else' but that was taken as read.

While they had a couple of rounds of bingo, which seemed to be the most popular aspect of those evenings, we played with the wiring until, at last, the little red lights unaccountably winked on. Then we switched off and waited, nervously. We were re-introduced after the fervour of excitement engendered by the bingo died down, and climbed back on the stage in another ominous silence. I switched the amps on, watched the red lights fail to become red and, in growing panic, again flicked the switches. Nothing. We were going to get lynched and  Big Daddy was heading back towards the stage when a bloke standing to the side said 'ere, you can use my amp'.

Wild garlic - a bulb which is invasive

This man was a singer and he'd brought his own backing track which was played through an amp large enough to deafen a cup final crowd at Wembley. It was situated at the side of the stage, so we gratefully plugged in and the wrestler hung back on his forearm smash while we struck up with 'The Gypsy Rover'.

Unfortunately, the guitar leads were only long enough to reach our own amps situated just behind us. The one we were using was considerably further away, which meant that we had to huddle in one corner of a stage the size of the London Palladium  and the leads were stretched tight. I had one just under my nose and my left leg was over another so that I was standing on one foot as if frozen in mid-step. The other two weren't much better off but strangely the audience remained peaceful and we eventually finished our set and trouped off unmolested.

Amazingly, we got four bookings from this. Apparently they thought we were a comedy act.

And this whole story hangs around the little red lights which failed to perform, bringing bulbs to mind. A plant in a package: everything is there, only needing water to set off the expansion of leaves, roots and flowers. This is readily shown by growing a daffodil in a bulb glass containing only water.

The bulb, representing the resting phase of a plant, is a bit like a balloon. It deflates as the energy is drawn from it to produce the flower, and so needs blowing up again if it is to perform next year. The blowing up is achieved by sugars, produced  in the leaves, being pumped down into it, and this is why we leave the foliage on for six weeks or so after the flower is finished. The leaves need sunlight to produce the sugars and if we follow the daft practise of tying the leaves back on themselves because they 'look neater', we are halving the light- catching potential and hindering this regrowth.

Corms are a bit different, in that, instead of the structure being re-inflated, a new one is formed on top of the old. Thinking logically, this should mean that eventually your crocus corms will appear on top of the lawn or bed. However, they have adapted to avoid this by developing contractile roots. These are unlike ordinary roots in that they grow to a point and then shorten, pulling the new corm down until it occupies the same space as the previous one.

Bluebells look great but can also be invasive

Flowers are formed because, although most bulbs spawn new ones underground, there is still a need for genetic diversity - that factor which enables some offspring to evolve to be different and possibly able to cope more effectively with changing conditions. So seeds are formed in the same way as in other types of plant.

In order to encourage regrowth it helps to know that, together with water, the roots also take in nutrients from the soil. These are part of the 're-inflating' process and we can assist by giving the plants a feed rich in potash. The daffodil in the bulb glass is unlikely to be able to rebuild for next year because of the lack of necessary nutrient in tapwater.

We tend to relate bulbs to spring, but there are species available for throughout the summer (Galtonia, lily, iris, gladiolus, cardiocrinum, etc.) and for different situations: Naturalised, many species can be left to their own devices, and some are suitable for rockeries and containers, even hanging baskets. So look beyond King Alfred daffodils to the myriad selection lying beyond.

It is a little known fact that daffodils are extremely useful tools in the highly fraught matter of sex education. My own five year old  son was sitting munching his cornflakes thoughtfully when he came out with the perfect lead in:

"What are the yellow bits for in the middle of that flower, daddy", he asked, indicating the anthers of a daffodil in a vase, with his dripping spoon.

Well", I said, seeing the opportunity to open the subject which playground rumour had indicated fathers  broached on ones thirteenth birthday. Perhaps my father had heard the same mythical references to this birthday and  experienced the  anticipatory dread that I had, because somehow he never got round to it. "That yellow bit is the male part of the flower. It's called the 'anther' and produces powdery stuff named 'pollen'. What happens is that the pollen is moved by wind or rain splashes onto that forked bit which is the female part of the flower, or 'stigma'. Then it travels down the pollen tube in the middle of the stigma, until it reaches the eggs which  are situated at the base, here", I indicated the position of the ovary. "The pollen is the last piece of the jig-saw puzzle that is the egg, finishing it so that it becomes a seed. Its a bit like what was happening with the frogs in the garden". We had watched a couple of frogs mating in the pond, where I explained that the male was clinging to the back of the female in order to fertilize the eggs as they were laid.
I sat back, pleased with myself but dubious as to how much had actually gone in. A few minutes later I decided to find out.

"Would you like to explain to me what goes on in the daffodil flower, son", I asked.

"Yes", he said, easily. "Yellow stuff called pollen is given off by that bit", here he indicated the anthers. It moves down the centre of that middle part". Here he actually managed to recall the name of the stigma, with a bit of prompting. "Then it stops when it gets to the egg".

"That's fantastic son", I enthused, glowing with pride. "What happens then?"

"Well", he said, in a confidential way, "you get millions of tadpoles, daddy".

Plant Sexuality

A Dog's Life

Hazel catkins in spring

Nobody seemed to know where the dog came from, he just appeared in the central aisle of the church, intent on having a good time.

Three of us had formed a group to play folk music and we'd do it for anyone masochistic enough to ask us. In this case, the priest of the local catholic church had asked us perform in a service, doing stuff like Kum ba ya and other songs which loosely fitted a religious remit. In order to lead the congregation in singing, we'd been positioned on one of the steps of the altar. We'd finished the first song and the priest was doing his preaching bit when the dog arrived. He was a mongrel with a black spot over one eye, one ear which stood up and a constantly wagging tail. At first not many people noticed as he proceeded along the aisle, cocking his leg up on every third line of pews. I was mesmorised: I couldn't understand how such a small dog could have such a large bladder.

Anyway, the priest, who was a stand-in for the bloke who'd invited us - he'd got 'flu or something- suddenly noticed the interloper and stopped talking. He looked witheringly at the dog, who responded by wagging his tail even more furiously while giving another demonstration of the infinite capacity of his bladder:

"Get that dog out, will you", the priest intoned through gritted teeth, addressing a bloke on the end of the front row who seemed to be an usher (and here I'll refrain from coming out with the old one about an usher being someone who tells people to shut up - no way will I sink that low). The man who, until this point, hadn't seen the dog, looked round, spotted him and went to pick him up. This, it seemed to the dog, was someone who fancied a game, so he went into a 'come and get me, then' position, resting on his front elbows with his bottom in the air until   the bloke was almost up to him, then rushed off along an empty pew, emerging at the far end. Here he waited again, adopting the same pose, obviously  thinking that church was great fun. By this time, the rest of the congregation had cottoned on to what was going on and the usher was joined by a number of other people. All we could see from our vantage point was buttocks bouncing above the barrier of the pews as fruitless lunges were made to capture him.

Hazel  (monoecious) clearly showing male and female flower

The usual priest would probably have dealt with this situation by laughing and perhaps incorporating a joke in his sermon but the stand-in took himself seriously.This one had reached a state where he was daft enough to try canine excommunication or something. He was fuming, building up a head of steam, and this led him to make the big mistake: he joined in, and the priestly buttocks joined the throng. The first couple of rows of pews now resembled a headless Punch and Judy show.

If God was watching, he'd be rolling his eyes.

Eventually, the dog got fed up, saw us on the altar steps and scampered over. Then, to my horror, he sat at my feet and looked up at me in panting adoration. All eyes turned on me. This, in the mind of the congregation and the by now incoherent-with-wrath priest implied that it was my dog. I grabbed him and, with a sickly smile, carried him to the side door, put him outside and shut the door firmly. When I made my way back to the group the priest glowered at me, obviously regretting the decision of his resident colleague in getting us involved. I don't think my three- chord guitar work helped, either. However he had little option than to continue his sermon.

Unfortunately, everyone had overlooked the ingenuity of the little dog, because, within minutes he reappeared, having found the main door at the far end to be open. This time however, the priest ignored him, ploughing on with a sermon which  became more and more hell and damnation in direct proportion to the workings of Fido's bladder.

And this became a problem to me: I had always been useless at school. The one thing I excelled in was laughing. The more I shouldn't, the more I had to. In junior school we had a teacher called Miss Roberts. Everyone was scared stiff of her, including, I suspect, the other teachers. Anyway, on one particular occasion, she caught me laughing and obviously decided to show me up:

"John Steedman", she said in a threatening voice, "come out to the front".

I sloped to the front of the class, thinking this was the day I was going to die.

"Face the class", she told me and I turned slowly to look at them.

"Now laugh", she said. She'd probably read  in Froid or Jung  or somewhere, that if you scare the excreta out of someone they are unlikely to laugh. Unfortunately my reading hadn't progressed that far and, as I faced my classmates, their blank faces brought back the irrepressible urge and, following a battle to control myself, I started to shake with suppressed laughter. Very shortly the other kids started to giggle and, in no time the whole class was in stitches. I looked round in terror at Miss Roberts and realised there was no need to worry. The old battleaxe was laughing.

And now it started to happen again. It wouldn't have if I hadn't been looking out at a sea of serious faces, or had been free to laugh. It was the fact that to do so would be unthinkable. I stared determinedly at the carpeted floor, willing myself to think of carpet fluff but it didn't work. My shoulders were shaking and I thought my head would explode. Tears were running down my cheeks.

I'm not saying that the congregation collapsed in laughter, but a lot of them seemed to find the woodwork of the pews as interesting as my carpet fluff and a number of explosive snorts turned out to be some sort of catarrhal  problem needing the application of a handkerchief. The priest was no Miss Roberts, and seethed his way to the end of the service.

The sad ending to this story is that the little dog converted to C. of E., we were never asked back, and there was a rumour that the priest had given up his calling in favour of driving buses.

The reason I bring all this up is that it happened at this time of year: there were flowers on one of the church window sills and someone had arranged them with hazel twigs laden with catkins.

Skimmia japonica (dioecious) berries

The sex life of plants is a subject in its own right. Some plants, like Skimmia, holly, spotted laurel, Pernettya and many others are dioecious. The word literally means 'two houses', because the male and female flowers occur on different plants. This is of importance to the gardener because if we go to the garden centre and choose, say, a holly so that we can enjoy the berries at Christmas, we'd better make sure it's a female. It stands to reason that, if we get a bloke it's not going to have babies and, even if we do get a female, there needs to be a male somewhere in the vicinity in order for pollination to occur.

The hazel (Corylus avellana) is a native plant which is termed 'monoecious' and it follows from what has already been said that this means 'one house'. In this case, the male and female flowers occur on the same plant but as different structures. The photo shows the male catkin, which releases pollen and the separate female flower existing as a number of red tassels emanating from a tiny bump. When pollen from the male reaches it, the bump develops into a hazel nut. It's interesting to note that the male and female flowers on one plant often mature at different times. This is because one plant benefits from being fertilised  by another  because too much inbreeding can cause genetic defects. The same applies to human beings: breeding within the family leads to all sorts of problems (although if you watch 'Deliverance', you get the message that you'll be able to play a mean banjo). Alder, the tree we associate with river banks, is another example of a monoecious plant: it has tassels but its female flower develops into small seed-bearing cones.

And then there are the hermaphrodite plants, those like buttercup, lily and rose which posess both male and female sexual appendages in the same flower.

The more you look at the sex life of plants, the more diverse it becomes. There don't seem to be many fixed rules: the individuals have all evolved the system which is perfect for them. Methods of spreading seeds are equally adventurous and deserve a look at in a coming blog.

Lilium regale (Regal lily) - hermaphrodite flower

                                                                                     

Rose - hermaphrodite flower

Cambium - The Living Part of a Tree or Shrub

Diagnosing Death

Because a plant looks dead doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Woody plants - trees and shrubs - can often display all the symptoms but not actually be in the same realm as the Monty Python parrot: the living, growing, part of a tree trunk is immediately under the bark and is called the cambium. It is green, which is a diagnostic feature to look for if in any doubt. Late spring and early summer are the times when most healthy plants are mistakenly consigned to the compost heap. Because it is late coming into leaf it is easy to think that the winter has put paid to it and the only way is out. I don't fall for this one any more. Simply by scraping a thumbnail of bark back will show whether the cambium is still living and green, or brown and dead. If it is green, then a bit more patience is called for, giving it time to belatedly get out of bed.

I was surprised to learn that hamster death symptoms are similarly not straightforward. My son was in a house- share when one of the sharers - a girl - came banging on his door in floods of tears. It seemed her hamster had died and he, known to be compassionate where young women are concerned, was designated as undertaker. He duly wrapped the deceased carefully in kitchen foil, descended to the yard, and consigned it to the wheely-bin. While this sad ceremony was taking place, the bereaved flatmate was tearfully informing her boyfriend of the death over the phone. It turned out that the boyfriend was a bit of a wildlife expert: "it isn't necessarily dead," he informed her, "they hibernate. Warm him up a bit and he'll probably wake up." This learned information was immediately imparted to him when he returned from the interment and he was promptly dispatched back to the yard to perform an exhumation. The animal was then placed gently under the grill on a very low setting. Unfortunately, Jesus he was not, and he remained in the same state as the aforesaid parrot.

Hollow oak at Lingfield, Surrey

Anyway, cambium consists of the tree's arteries: water, nutrients and sugars are pumped up and down through them and each year they die and new ones are formed under the bark as replacements. This means that the centre of the trunk is dead material, it also explains how the rings seen in a cut trunk have been made: at the beginning of the growing season wide arteries are formed to accommodate the rush of water, then as the summer progresses, growing drier (theoretically), smaller ones replace them, creating the different textures which appear as rings. Counting them will give the age of the plant. The appearance of the rings can also give an idea of the amount of rainfall in a particular year: one tree, a bristlecone pine living in The White Mountains of California, displayed 1,100 microscopic rings in 5 inches, mirroring the dryness of the area where it lived.

Hollow, live tree in Dunham Park

Knowing about the cambium is useful not only in determining whether a plant is alive. French walnut growers would, after a bad harvest, beat the tree with willow wands. This would cause neighbours to think about calling for the men in white coats but, amazingly, the following year's crop would be abundant. The reason for this was that beating damaged parts of the cambium, limiting the flow of growth-promoting sugars to the roots. This meant that sugar, continually produced in the leaves, had now to be re-routed somewhere and the only option was  to the upper parts of the tree. Here it was used up in promoting more flowers and fruit. We now have a more sophisticated way of doing this by bark ringing. This is the removal of a strip of bark, about an inch wide, from perhaps three quarters of the trunk's diameter. Beware though, if you ever try this, completely circling the tree will lead to it being in the same state as the hamster.