In search of the Wild Daffodil

Did you know there was such a thing as a native wild daffodil in Britain? Not garden varieties planted in wild places but a genuinely wild daffodil. Most people don’t, which is a shame because the wild daffodil was once as much a part of our countryside flower display as the primrose, cow parsley or the ever stunning bluebell. Also known as the lent lily, as it blooms and dies in the lent period, and Peter’s leek the daffodil has suffered huge and shocking declines in the last century so now most counties can consider themselves lucky to have a small patch still clinging on, often in areas of old woodland, where disturbance has been minimal.

Smaller than the large garden varieties the wild daffodil has a relatively large trumpet for its diminutive size. The outer petals of the flower are paler, a more pastel yellow, whilst the inner cone is a deeper lemony yellow. And finally their leaves are a greyish green. Altogether I find them a more delicate gentle-looking flower than the loud and proud commercially bred daffodils.

The native daffodil’s range stretches from the Iberian peninsula all the way across Europe to Great Britain. There are many different varieties and colours, from pale species with short orange trumpets to large and brightly coloured specimens. As they hybridise readily there is no agreed number of daffodil species, estimates ranging from 30 to 200.

These early flowering plants have a long history of being gathered from the wild or commercially grown. As well as being used for decorative garlands they were also used for their medicinal properties. A poisonous plant which can cause vomiting and ultimately cardiac arrest if consumed in large quantities, it has been used in traditional medicines to cure anything from baldness to cancer. It is quoted as a well-known cure in texts as far back as the Bible. Today we still use daffodil extracts to fight diseases such as dementia.

Cultivation of daffodils has been recorded since the sixteenth century, and collecting bulbs from the wild for this process is one of the reasons some species have rapidly declined. Several daffodil species are believed now to be extinct whilst others are critically endangered. Our own native daffodil has had its share of this. Habitat loss has been a great contributor to its decline though many people puzzle as to why its numbers have dropped quite so dramatically since the 1930s.

My wild daffodil hunt came about largely because I live on the border to Wales. I’ve always been aware wild daffodil populations exist in Wales and have therefore had it in my mind for a long time to go off to find some. In my ignorance I imagined them a little like edelweiss, clinging delicately to scraggy cliffs at the tops of mountains. Actually daffodils can grow in a range of habitats, from meadows to woodlands, with a preference for damp acidic soils.

Already my spring had been filling up with trips and visits and, as I realised the distance I would need to travel to find my daffodils in Wales I doubted this would be the year. However what I didn’t realise, and I soon discovered, was that wild daffodils can still be found scattered about the English countryside. We even have walks dedicated to daffodils, such as the daffodil mile, and woods specially protected for the wild daffodils they harbour, and counties such as Gloucestershire, where their local emblem is the daffodil. Given that I had a weekend plan in my childhood county, Northamptonshire, I decided to check if any daffodils had survived there. And I was in luck. A woodland well-known to me, Evedon stubbs, which I had spent much of my childhood playing in, happened to have a few small patches of native daffodils. Amazingly I never knew.

Run by the Woodland trust, Evedon stubbs is a wonderful little site full of ancient coppice trees, oaks, ashes and wild flowers. In a few weeks time the floor will be carpeted in bluebells, and already when myself, my friend Becca and her mud-phobic pooch Bailey visited, the leaves of the coming bluebells covered the forest.

I have a confession to make. Having entered the woodland and chosen a direction slightly at random (I had checked the rough location of the daffodils in the wood’s online management plan) we found the first patch of daffodils almost immediately. So it wasn’t much of a hunt.

I had worried I wouldn’t be able to recognise if they were natives or garden escapees, but these were obviously what we had been looking for. Small, delicate and where daffodil-mania had all started, wild daffodils are worth finding. We continued on our way enjoying the other spring blooms the woodland had to offer, such as the pale wood anemones and the sunny lesser celandine. More daffodils presented themselves as we wandered, always in small patches, easy to walk past if you weren’t on the look out for them. I guess perhaps that was how Wordsworth came upon his ‘host of golden daffodils’.

But all was not well in the woods. As we bowed ourselves to get a closer look at our daffodils, one particular specimen stuck its head out above the rest. This daffodil was not a native, and unfortunately it could spell the end for the Evedon stubbs daffodils.

Now this may surprise you but I have a loathing for roadside daffodils. By this I mean garden varieties planted into wild habitats. In fact I dislike any garden plant from being planted into a wild habitat. This may seem overly grinch-like but I promise you there is a good reason. Our roadside verges are the meadows of the 21st century. If managed correctly (no fertilisers, no pesticides, cut only after the plants living in them have set seed, and the cuttings then taken away) they can harbour a wealth of wild and native flowers which we have largely lost in other areas of our countryside. But continually mow these areas to the ground or plant species such as daffodils in them and all you get is an extension of a manicured garden. The benefits to nature are lost, the native species out-competed or entirely mown away. Even worse is the planting of daffodils in woodlands and meadows, where they can become a rampant invasive. And if planted near to populations of native daffodils they can cross-pollinate, creating non-native hybrids. This could be the final straw for our native daffodils.

A greek legend tells of a young boy, so beautiful and vain that a goddess had him fall in love with his own reflection. Bending over a pool he spent days admiring himself until finally he fell in and drowned. The goddess, taking pity on him, turned the young man into a daffodil or narcissus. So I guess even daffodils know themselves how very beautiful they are.

The fate of the wild british daffodil is still uncertain, as with all our wildflowers urbanisation, intensive farming and invasive species are taking a toil. But we can easily do our bit by respecting the boundary between our gardens and the wild. Keep garden plants in the garden and garden waste (another common spreader of garden species into the wild) in your compost heap. Campaign to have verges managed as meadows and not lawns, and importantly support conservation work in managing our remaining wild places and creating new ones. And of course have a look and see where your local wild daffodils are blooming and take yourselves, your children and your friends on your own daffodil hunt. Only then can we appreciate why it’s important to save our wild daffodils, so that future generations can enjoy them just as we’ve been able to.

Crystal Maze

Crystal maze. To children of the nineties no more explanation is needed. Those two words are enough to send a thrill of excitement down their spines. For those for whom these words mean nothing I will dutifully explain.

Crystal maze was a game show based around the premise of completing quirky but challenging tasks to a strict time in order to win crystals. These crystals added up to time at the end of the game inside a giant crystal dome filled with fans and golden bits of paper. Grabbing a certain amount of golden paper equalled a prize. I no longer remember if this prize was cash, a washing machine or a holiday in France but to be honest that never seemed to matter anyway. What mattered was that you were on Crystal Maze and it was awesome. Oddly enough for a children’s show the contestants were adults, working as part of a team. At the time this never seemed odd to me but now I find it amazing that no one questioned it.

Today Crystal Maze has been off the air for many years (since 1995 the ever knowledgable Wikipedia informs me) and I had begun to think that no one but me really remembered it. That was until the announcement. I don’t remember it coming from the news, from TV or even the all-knowing internet, in fact I think the announcement was so awesome it travelled by word of mouth quicker than any press could print it. A crowdfunder had been started to build a brand new Crystal Maze! Not for TV but for anyone, a people’s Crystal Maze for all (willing to paid) to enjoy! Firstly; I have never been so excited about a crowdfunding project in my life. Secondly; I had the same idea years ago! If I’d acted on it I’d now be the maze master (and rich!) – this must be how the beatles ex-drummer feels (who apparently is very happy so not sure that works).

So now the question is what would you give to take part in one of your favourite childhood TV shows? A go on House of Fun anyone? Help sprinkle the glitter on Art Attack? Go travelling with the Wild Thornberrys? (OK technically not possible to become a cartoon but still you would if you could). So of course I signed up myself, my boyfriend, my siblings, their partners and my best friend to be a fearsome team of 8 in the Crystal Maze!

The maze works on the premise of four zones; Aztec, Future, Medieval and Industrial (side note: I couldn’t remember the fourth zone so I typed in ‘four zones of…’ into google and immediately Crystal Maze came up. Apparently no other four zones are as important). In each zone there are four games based on skill, intellect, physical prowess and a fourth mystery game. As leader of our team (every team selects a captain and a vice-captain to give orders) I got to select who entered each room before knowing what the task was, only having the hint of it being a physical game or otherwise. Once the door was opened the contestant stepped inside and was given 2 or 3 minutes to complete their task. Their team mates were allowed to watch from windows, shouting helpful and unhelpful instructions to make the task easier and often harder for them. If the task was completed on time the contestant left the room clutching that most precious of objects; a crystal! If they ran out of time or failed in the task the contestant was taken to ‘jail’ where a second task awaited them. If they failed at this too, the team was forced to buy them out with a crystal. Simple really.

We arrived at the entrance to Crystal Maze both nervous and excited. Excited to play, nervous about being the one who cost the team a crystal. The enterance to the maze was disappointingly like a reception desk at the dentist’s office (don’t ask me what I was expecting) but we were quickly ushered through to complete health and safety forms and dump our bags in lockers. Then we took up station around our team table where red bomber jackets were hanging temptingly for us to try on. These mimicked the contestants outfits in the game show but were only for posing in, not for wearing during play. To be fair they would have been way too hot.

Around us three other teams gathered. These teams would be completing the maze at the same time as us, but in a different order. We wouldn’t meet them again till the end. To book out a whole team I had had to book six months in advance and mid-week, which tells you how much everyone wants to relive their childhood.

Now the real Crystal Maze started. Together we were brought into a small room with a tiny TV to watch a few minutes of highlights from the old Crystal Maze. I think I could happily watch the reruns even all these years later. Then our own maze master appeared. Dressed in 90s clothing, with a pez dispenser in his dungarees pocket and his cap on backwards, Gordon Bennett (as he named himself) guided us with great character and comedy through our experience. On our first journey he took us to the Industrial zone.

To my delight each zone felt something akin to those shown on the TV series. The Industrial zone was dark, with a rusty metallic effect. The Aztec zone was bright, with golden fake-sandstone statues of ancient gods, plastic vines and ferns hanging above and a good thick floor of sand to making walking extra tricky. The future zone was decked out in spartan iPod chic, mysterious wires and lights abounding. And the medieval level had its stocks, chains and olde worlde touches. Even moving between zones was in the style of the old game, mostly done at a running pace, passing through tunnels and into time machines. As a soon to be 30-year-old woman it’s surprising how enjoyable running, jumping and playing pretend can be.

I won’t spoil the fun for those still to visit the maze by giving a full description of the games, however I will say they mimic the original game show perfectly. Each room held something new and exciting to get your head around, always a challenge to the person pushed into the room. From balancing acts to retrieve crystals just out of reach, to finding a hidden combination for a locked draw, to trying not to set off lasers with your skirt, it was all immensely enjoyable. A few of us ended up in the stocks (cough – might have been me) and a few crystals remained trapped in their rooms, but it didn’t really matter. The final thing was to enter the crystal dome.

It is surprisingly hard to catch bits of golden paper as they whizz through the air around you. I found myself looking something like a cat trying to catch a red dot. Our team lost, despite having plenty of crystals. Obviously we’re all bad cat impersonators. At the end we got to pose in our red jackets like a proper line of nerds. Yet it was an absolutely awesome experience.

In the end I maintain we never grow up. We just get better at pretending to be grown ups. Paying our bills, washing our socks, teaching our children to cross the road. Yet give us free reign of a ball pit or a trampoline or sometimes even just a really big box and we’re away. And with Brexit, Trump and climate change lurking on the adult side of life who can blame us. Afterall everyone needs a little fun!

 

 

Visiting the Cotswolds

Long before I ever knew where the Cotswolds were I had a clear image of them in my head. An image of rolling hills with attractive villages nestled in their folds, of sheep browsing fields lined with neatly clipped hedgerows, and of small stands of woodlands filled with twittering birds and carpeted with delicate blooms. It seemed to me like a romanticised Victorian oil painting, impossible in this day and age. Yet I’ve always been curious if the reality matched the fantasy.

The Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers roughly 800 sq miles and sits across five counties (Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire). Often described as the England tourists dream of it has had a dramatic history of boom and bust and its current characteristics can be largely attributed to two major factors; sheep and rocks.

Around 210 million to 140 million years ago we all would have flocked to the Cotswolds for our holidays, though they would have been of a very different kind. The crystal clear waters, perfect for a dip, would have been as shallow and warm as the Bahamas today. In this sea grains of sand and fragments of shell were gently swayed and rolled, accumulating layers of calcium carbonate on their smooth exteriors. Millions and millions of these little ooliths accumulated and were eventually buried and compressed, forming the bedrock of the Cotswolds today. Named oolite limestone (oolite meaning ‘egg-rock’ as the texture somewhat resembles as jar of fish roe) this rock is what makes the Cotswolds so special, for wildlife, geology and heritage.

Limestone grasslands are incredibly important for all kind of rarities, from orchids to butterflies. The combination of the underlying rock and a constant grazing regime (more on that later) has meant there’s plenty of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the Cotswolds AONB, specially protected for this feature. Limestone rivers, streams and springs also exist across the landscape, safeguarding their own suite of specialist wildlife. Even the rolling hills owe their shape to the rocks underneath.

Now to sheep. For a long time it was believed the name ‘Cotswolds’ meant ‘sheep enclosure’. Today it’s believed to have derived from ‘Cod’s’ a name of either a living person or a celtic goddess and ‘wolds’ meaning high open area. Given the history of the area it seems a shame the first meaning didn’t hold true.

Cotswolds’ wool once powered a cottage industry so vast that this area was our main source of wool for trading with Europe. The Cotswold lion, a lovely curly looking puff-ball of a sheep, produced a much larger fleece than previous breeds and through this the landscape became wealthy. The church profited greatly from the income and today the area is dotted with ‘wool churches’ built from the industry’s wealth. Great houses, beautiful cottages and whole villages were erected from the profits. The local limestone was the building material of choice and today that golden honey-coloured hue is so part of the Cotswolds’ landscape it is immediately recognisable in photos and paintings.

Then came the bust. Wool fell out of favour and the Cotswolds became poor once again. So heavily reliant was the area on this one source of income that development virtually ground to a halt. And strangely enough even this was essential for the character of the Cotswolds today. In many ways it is a place frozen in time. A snap shot of one particular era of its history. And that’s why we like it. Because it feels like stepping into the past.

So for my visit I felt there were a few essential Cotswolds things to tick off my list including the local architecture, the geology and wildlife.

Our first stop was to a Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust nature reserve, at Chedworth wood. Here a disused railway line allowed you to walk on an elevated ridge through the mixed woodland where large ancient beech trees could be seen and interesting plants and fungi found.

Chris attempting to climb one of the giant beeches.

One of my favorite fungi is the scarlet elf cup, and these lay scattered about the old railway embankments like dropped sweets.

At one end of the reserve a large train tunnel had been bricked up, creating an enormous bat cave in which many hundreds of bats are thought to now roost. This is an excellent example of how old industrial landscapes can be made to benefit wildlife.

But by far my favorite feature of the reserve was the limestone spring. I first fell in love with limestone springs when working in Germany on a freshwater spring conservation project. Though often small and under-appreciated, springs can be incredibly important for wildlife. Not only are they a source of water, but they can also support a range of invertebrate life which can survive nowhere else, such as stranded Ice Age species which need the colder temperatures of the spring water.

Limestone springs are particularly interesting for the rock formations they create. The water which seeps from these springs has often spent a great deal of time underground, percolating through or running over the limestone bedrock. On its journey it naturally dissolves some of the rock and carries these small particles away with it to the surface. Then, as it runs over whatever it meets the limestone begins to drop out and accumulate to form smooth undulating limestone formations, like waterfalls frozen in time. It’s an almost identical process to that which forms the impressive stalagmites and stalactites in cave systems.

Our spring had clearly once been used to provide a source of freshwater, perhaps for the passing trains, and a trough had been built up around it to collect the water. What was fascinating though was that the water, washing over the edge, had now almost completely encased this man-made object in layers of limestone. One day I suspect the original trough will be completely enveloped.

Our next trip was to the Slaughters. Despite their names Lower and Upper Slaughter are generally considered to be some of the prettiest villages in the Cotswolds. With a river cutting through the center of both, tiny stone bridges allowing wanderers to pass over, and rows of beautiful limestone cottages either side, they certainly live up to their reputation.

Next we visited the Broadway tower. Listed as one of the top attractions in the Cotswolds the tower was originally built as a folly and now sits as a proud and interesting landmark above Broadway village. An attractive walk can be taken from the village up to the tower and back down again, taking in Cotswolds countryside, beautiful farmsteads and newly rebuilt dry-stone walls.

The tower itself is impressive close up but the view from its perch is really the high point (pun intended).

The town has plenty to see, with the undulating stone roofs of some of the buildings bringing to mind stories from the Brothers Grimm and with enough cafes to make even the fittest walker obese. Independent shops still have their day here, with anything from artisan chocolates to loose-leaf tea available to buy.

Finally, at the end of our trip, we found ourselves back at the start of the story, visiting another Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust nature reserve. This reserve was in fact an old quarry, now turned to limestone grassland, supporting an array of wildflowers and even the rare duke of Burgundy butterfly. Here the importance of the limestone and the sheep which grazed the landscape above it are once again center focus. On the day we visited it was too early for wildflowers and to cold for butterflies so we picked our way between the hummocks of the meadow ants and across the sleeping grassland, enjoying a wander through this interesting site.

The truth is that the Cotswolds were exactly what I expected. The painting in my head didn’t lie. A beautiful and historic patch of countryside it is certainly worth a visit. However, I find what interests me most is what will happen next. In many ways it is a landscape paused in time. Today tourists are flocking to it for precisely that reason, whilst rich London bankers are setting up their second homes in its rustic farmsteads, their new Porsche parked in the stables. The wildlife here too relies heavily on management which is no longer mainstream and profitable, but which keeps the landscape diverse and colourful. So how long will this careful balance of old and new last? Will the Cotswolds always remain a blast from our past or is something new and unfamiliar beckoning for this iconic place?