writing our way whole: 18 at home with fox-and-cubs

In Australia and North America this glorious plant is regarded as a serious problem, smothering other plants and tainting the hay.

Ada E. Georgia in her ‘A Manual Of Weeds: With Descriptions Of All The Most Pernicious And Troublesome Plants In The United States And Canada’ (1914) sternly instructed that:

Plants in roadsides and waste places should be looked [out] and destroyed. If possible, the sentiment of an entire neighborhood should be aroused against Orange Hawkweed, for, with a plant of this quality, the careful farmer is largely at the mercy of any slovenly cultivator who chooses to be regardless of communal welfare.

A blog-post of Ceridwen of West Wales was my starting point, and has another photo

The plant has another odd name: Grim the Collier. Uniquely, the outside of each orange head bears a pelt of black hairs, like the sooty stubble of a coal miner or dealer. ‘Grim the Collier of Croyden; or, The Devil and his Dame‘ was a play published in 1662 that drew upon a despised character in folklore and popular culture: the grimy coal merchant who cheated good folk with substandard or short-weight fuel supplies.

In ‘New Flora of the British Isles’ Clive Stace describes the capitula (daisy-like heads) of this plant (Pilosella aurantiaca) as having “ligules orange-brown to brick red“. That is certainly how I saw the blooms, when they appeared in my life in three situations:

• in the very tidy garden of our neighbour Mike (intolerant of weeds) at Ulgham (Northumberland, in early 1990s), next to the pond where I watched the darting fishes;
• at an evening course that I was giving at Cottenham Village College in 2001 (thanks to Pip Amos who brought in a specimen for me to identify, and who called my wildlife-gardening classes “our little club”);
• around the verges of the rural council estate where I live now, in Brora, northeast Scotland – which had a privately-owned active coal mine until 1975, with part-time colliers.

For our first activity, you know what to do. If you are new here, and unsure, why not first find an earlier Brain Dump (then labelled as “warmup”) with fuller guidance. There is also more guidance here.

Now, consider reading through what you have written today., in the spirit of curiosity and self-kindfulness.

All of it. Out loud if you like. And just for your own fox-ears at the moment (although below I invite you to share it with me by email).

Or with the ears of whatever animal (or tree, or plant, or … ) with whom you might identify today.

Which is?