A short walk on The Long Fork

June 21, 2022, 6:19 am , by Richard Lutz

RICHARD LUTZ wanders through lanes of early summer

I must have taken this path a thousand times. It’s always the same. It always differs. It’s called The Long Fork.

It has been a late cool spring and now, during a patch of heat, everything is popping up. In these woods, called the Culzean Woods south of Glasgow, the hedges and pathways are waking up. This lane may look all green but look down and around. It’s full of emerging colour.

Here’s a new arrival. And one with the simplest of names.

It’s somewhat dismissively called a Common Spotted Orchid. You’d think the plant namers could have come up with something a titch more exotic for this fragile violet flower. Maybe they opted for the above mundane name rather than what it’s also known as: Fuch’s orchid.

And here ‘s a little yellow perennial with a great name: Bird’s-foot trefoil. A bit grand for an ever present woodland plant. It’s also called ground honeysuckle too if you don’t want to go all posh.

Beware, though of this little flower, it does come with a kick. It contains traces of cyanide. So munch away with care. One wag said trefoil is so easy to grow and so resilient that it’s perfect for any brown fingered gardener.

Yellow gets a good show. There’s Scottish broom:

And wild radish that grows shoulder high:

Along the lanes are clumps of ragged robin..messy, untidy, blousy:

And a carpet of red campion:

But standing out is this, the flower of the Chilean fire tree:

It usually is pollinated by South American hummingbirds. But that’s unlikely here where it sits near Culzean Castle, an 18thc bastion that overlooks the sea. The tree has a short fiery show where it’s tucked in a grove called Happy Valley. Then it fades and summer begins.