Although we had some cold weather last night, it has been unseasonably warm this October. The trees are looking very scruffy - no autumn colour to speak of this year, just tattered browning - but the herbs that grow in the fields and hedgerows are having an unusually late and sustained flourish.
What is usually a slight greening in September has been almost two months of uninterrupted growth, and as a consequence, the hedgebanks look more like spring than autumn. Lovely fresh growths of purple vetch, cow parsley, dandelions, stitchwort, shining cranesbill, common daisies, yarrow, meadowsweet and lots of others.
More autumnal are the numerous fungi: most spectacularly, a giant puffball I have been watching for several days, which has ballooned to over 30cms across now. But there are also lots of wax-caps, horse mushrooms, ceps, shaggy ink-caps and others around.
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27/10/06 @ 15:22