[334] Tabanus sudeticus, Dark Giant Horse-fly and other Horse-Flies
Introduction
Tabanus sudeticus, the Dark Giant Horse-fly (or Horsefly) is one of about thirty species of Horse-flies found in the UK. Tabanus bromius and Haematopota pluvialis are two other common species.
Worldwide there are about 5 000 species in the family Tabanidae, of which about 1 300 are in the genus Tabanus.
Species in the family may be called Horse-flies, Gad-flies or Clegs, and sometimes when more appropriate locally Deer-flies, Buffalo-flies, Moose-flies or Elephant-flies.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Animals
Phylum – Arthropods
Class – Insecta
Order – Diptera (Flies)
Suborder – Brachycera
Infraorder – Tabanomorpha
Superfamily – Tabanoidea
Family – Tabanidae (Horse-flies)
Subfamily – Tabaninae (Horse-flies)
Tribe – Tabanini, Haematopotini
Genus – Tabanus, Haematopota
Scientific Names – See text
Name
Cleg, clegg or gleg is a dialectical word from Scotland and the North of English for horse-flies, coming from old Norse. Gad, also from Old Norse, means a spike (cognate with goad) so a gad-fly is a spike-fly.
Tabanus is the Classical Latin word for these flies. Sudeticus comes from the Sudeten geographical area (now at the intersection of Germany, Poland and Czechia.) Haematopota means blood-drinker.
Horse-flies
Male Horse-flies have weak mouthparts and just feed on nectar from flowers.
The female flies have mouthparts formed into a sharp stabbing organ with two pairs of cutting blades, and a spongelike part to lap up the blood. She feeds on the blood of cattle, horses and other animals. Her saliva contains an anticoagulant to prevent the blood clotting.
Females can feed on nectar but they need to feed on blood before laying her eggs. It can take her six days to digest a blood meal.
They have large compound eyes. In female flies the eyes are separated but in males the two eyes almost touch.
I won’t go into other significant features or differences between species.
Larvae are tubular in form and generally aquatic or semi-aquatic. They are carnivorous, eating worms, other insects and arthropods, and can be cannibalistic. They move to drier locations to pupate.
Tabanus sudeticus
This the heaviest fly in Europe, is found over most of western Europe.
Tabanus bromius
Sometimes called the Band-eyed Brown Horse-fly, this is one of the smaller species of Tabanus. It is widespread in Europe and also found in North Africa and the Middle East.
Haematopota pluvialis
Sometimes called the Common Horse-fly or Notch-horned Cleg Fly, this fly is found in most of Europe and much of Asia except the south-east.
I think this fly landing on me five years ago was one of the things that led me more into the macro photography of insects.
Other Notes
Although horses and cattle are the main targets, female horse-flies will also bite humans for their blood.
See also
I don’t normally attempt to spot and identify flies because it is too difficult. There are hundreds of families and it isn’t always easy even to identify to family level. Species level identification often involves microscopic examination of genital structures.
Syrphus ribesii is one of about 6 000 species in the 200 genera that make up the family Syrphidae called Hoverflies (or Flower Flies.) Most of them don’t have common names. Syrphus and Eristalis are two of the main genera.
About 250 species of hoverfly are commonly seen in the UK. I have recorded over thirty species, mostly seen in my back garden. Most species are primarily black and yellow striped with transparent wings and they are best identified as hoverflies by their wing vein structure.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Animals
Phylum – Arthropods
Class – Insects
Order – Diptera (Flies)
Suborder – Brachycera
Infraorder – Muscomorpha
Clade – Aschiza
Superfamily – Syrphoidea
Family – Syrphidae
The family is divided into subfamilies, tribes and subtribes.
Syrphus and Eristalis (about 100 species) are two fairly common genera. Many other genera have names derived from syrphus.
Names
Hoverflies really do hover very well and they do it often.
The Ancient Greek surphos was a gnat or winged ant. (You remember that U and Y are often interchangeable in Greek words.)
Eristalis has been used as the name of a genus since 1804, with no apparent etymology. It was so unknown that for two hundred years its grammatical gender was uncertain. In 1901 it was asserted as masculine but many countries still treated it as feminine. In 1993 it was officially confirmed as masculine. But around 2005 the word was found as an existing feminine Latin word referring to an unknown precious stone – so it is now officially feminine. The grammatical gender sometimes affects the ending of the species epithet. (The spelling of a genus or species can’t be changed just because it is incorrect but species epithets are changed to get the Latin gender right.) See Taxonomy and Names.
Hoverflies
You can read a little about flies in general at [053] Bee Fly. Hoverflies are often seen hovering perfectly. Adults almost all feed on nectar and pollen from flowers. Larvae, often called maggots, can feed on decaying vegetation and animals, other insects or plants.
The species vary in size but many are colourful, often mimicking other insects. A large proportion of them have yellow stripes making them look somewhat like bees or wasps.
The general way to identify a fly as a hoverfly is by two structures in the veins of their transparent wings.
Veins merge to a false edge, a vein running parallel to the edge of the wings.
A spurious vein runs parallel to the fourth longitudinal wing vein.
The family Syrphidae is divided into three subfamilies and several tribes. The main tribes are Syrphini (in the subfamily Syrphinae) and Eristalini (within Eristalinae.)
Individual Species
Sometimes identification to species is fairly easy from a good photograph and sometimes it’s impossible. If you want to tell the species apart, expect to have to examine every part of the body including every segment of every leg for colour, and count the spikes and hairs on every segment of every leg.
Some genera need microscopic surgical examination, usually on the genitalia, to determine species. Sometimes females are easy and males need close examination – or vice versa. (Male flies generally have much larger compound eyes that meet in the middle.)
All of my pictures are identified, or at least confirmed, by checks in the Facebook group on British Hoverflies. In most cases I will show you the pictures and tell you the species without saying any more. By an amazing coincidence I seem to have all the very common species!
[A] Syrphus Species
There are dozens of species of Syrphus, all looking very similar. Syrphus ribesii, Syrphus torvus and Syrphus vitripennis are common in the UK, of which S ribesii is most often seen. Females are easier to identify than males without microscopic examination.
[B] Eristalis Species
There are about a hundred species of Eristalis, often called Drone Flies because of their superficial resemblance to [029] Honey Bees. The common British species are Eristralis arbustorum, Eristalis pertinax and Eristalis tenax, shown below.
Their larvae, called rat-tailed maggots, are aquatic.
[C] Others
Cheilosia illustrata
Chrysogaster solstitalis
Epistrophe elegans
Episyrphus balteatus, Marmalade Fly
Eupeodes corollae
Eupeodes nitens is also seen in the UK.
Helophilus pendulus, Sun Fly
The name Helo-philus pendulus, from Greek and Latin roots actually means dangling marsh-lover, but it is often called the Sun Fly because of confusion between helo- and helio-. Unsurprisingly, it is sometimes mis-spelled.
This fly is much more common than Helophilus trivittatus and Helophilus hybridus, which are also seen in the UK.
Melanostoma scalare
Meliscaeva auricollis
Myathropa florea
Parasyrphus punctulatus
Rhyngia campestris
This is very distinctive. All species of Rhingia have a distinctive long snout that enables them to feed from, types of flowers inaccessible to other flies.
Rhyngia rostrata is also seen.
Sphaerophoria scripta, the Long Hoverfly
The first picture above is a male. The other two are female.
Xanthogramma pedissequum
Other Notes
You will see hoverflies everywhere and you may be able to learn to identify some species.
See also
The largest hoverflies you are likely to see in the UK are [205] Leucozona and [361] Volucella, which is still to come.
Symphytum officinale, Comfrey, is a common wildflower with distinctive large leaves and flowers that come in different colours.
All the species of Symphytum are called Comfrey so this one is Common Comfrey or True Comfrey. It has had many common names in the past such as knitbone or boneset, from its medicinal uses.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Plants
Division – Vascular Plants
Class – Angiosperms (Flowering Plants)
Order – Boraginales
Family – Boraginaceae
Genus – Symphytum
Scientific Name – Symphytum officinale
Name
Comfrey comes via Middle English from the Latin confirma, making firmer, from its traditional use in a herbal tea to heal bones. Symphytum, from the Ancient Greek symphyton, the name of the plant, comes from symphytos, grown together.
(Officinale is the neuter form of officinalis, medicinal, to agree with the neuter Symphytum.)
Description
Symphytum officinale is a low-growing perennial plant with large, broad hairy leaves with wrinkled surfaces. Its stems are hairy and it has bell-shaped flowers that can be white, cream, blue or purple
Habitat and use
Comfrey is native to Europe and has naturalized in other countries such as their USA where it is an unwanted weed.
It grows in damp, grassy places such as riverbanks.
It has traditionally been cultivated in the UK and elsewhere as a vegetable and a herbal medicine. Traditionally poultices made from its leaves and roots were used to treat sprains, bruises and fractures. Also. the roots, mashed and packed round a broken limb, would dry to a hardened ‘plaster cast.’
As a herbal tea or alcoholic infusion it has been used to treat the pain of arthritis and other ailments.
There is no evidence to support its effectiveness and it contains some toxic compounds that have led to its banning as a drug.
Symphytum officinale, other species of Symphytum and some hybrids are available as ornamental plants.
See also
You will recognize the family Boraginaceae, which we have met several times. Some of them have hairy leaves or stems like Comfrey and they tend to have blue flowers.
Just for a change, you can look them up for yourself.
Symphyotrichum novi-belgii and Symphyotrichum novae-angliae are the two most common species of the group known as Michaelmas Daisies, widely cultivated in the UK as ornamental garden plants and seen outside gardens as escaped naturalized plants.They have the formal names New York Aster and New England Aster.
The genus Symphyotricum and ten other genera used to be included in the genus Aster. Many of their species still use the scientific designation Aster especially in horticultural contexts. As garden plants they are generally just called Michaelmas Daisies (or Michaelmas-daisies.)
They may be known, especially in horticultural circumstances as Aster novi-belgii and Aster novae-angliae and they have many cultivars
Name
The word Aster, from the Latin for star, has been used for a very large genus from which Symphyotrichum has been split. It is used for the very large family Asteraceae.
Symphyo-trichum is Latinized from Ancient Greek roots, symphysis-trich, growing together and hair. (Named from part of the structure of some florets, not shared by most species in the genus. Once a scientific name is defined, it never gets changed just because it is wrong!)
The name Michaelmas Daisy comes from the idea that they bloom around 29 September, St. Michael’s Day. As I write this in early October, I can walk down a footpath which is lined with these plants in bloom for hundreds of yards. (Sorry, I am too old to say ‘hundreds of metres.’)
The species epithets novi-belgii and novae-angliae are Latinized forms of New Belgium and New England as places in the USA. They are, of course in genitive form. The Dutch colony New Netherland later became the State of New York (and the city of New York was originally New Amsterdam.)
Description
I start by noting that all species of Symphyotrichum are difficult to describe because parts of the plant structure, such as leaves, change through the year and between individual plants.
They all have inflorescences typical of Asters with many long ray florets from white to pink, blue or purple. Disk florets start from yellow to white and turn reddish or brown when mature.
The wild Symphyotrichum novi-belgii has almost white ray flowers while those of Symphyotrichum novae-angliae are light blue. But I will not attempt to differentiate the two species by flower colour because cultivated varieties have several different shades of flowers. (It is not helped by cameras that adjust white balance. In places I see large clumps of white Michaelmas Daisies next to blue Michaelmas daisies but the photographs of both species come out looking virtually identical.)
They have erect stems of from one to two metres height with many inflorescences near the top, often bunched together. They must spread easily because wherever I see one, I see them continue in a clump for some distance along the path.
Habitat and use
Both species grow naturally over eastern Canada and north-eastern USA and tend to like wet areas.
In the UK they have been introduced as garden plants and have escaped to become naturalized in the wild. There are dozens of cultivars. Many of then are still called Aster.
See also
I think by now you will be familiar with a few other garden plants that have escaped and spread easily.
Symphoricarpos albus, Snowberry, and Symphoricarpos orbiculatus, Coralberry, are two very similar garden plants usually grown as hedges for their attractive fruits. The Snowberry produces berries coloured snow-white, while those of the Coralberry are a coral pink colour.
Other species of Symphoricarpos are called Snowberry, as are species from two other completely unrelated genera.
Ancient Greek symphorein-karpos means ‘bearing together fruit’ from the closely packed fruits.
The Latin albus means white. Orbiculatus is a diminutive form derived from orbis, meaning round or circular.
The common names are self-evident.
Description
There are about fifteen species of Symphoricarpos, all coming from North and Central America (except for Symphoricarpos sinensis, found in western China.)
Symphoricarpos alba is a small deciduous shrub that has naturalized in Britain. It can spread as a dense thicket and makes a good hedge plant.
It has red stems, lots of insignificant green leaves and very small pink flowers but it is only really noticed for its fruits. They are pure white berries with a diameter of about a centimetre, formed in bunches, and they may persist through the winter.
The plants can spread by seeds, dispersed by birds eating the fruits, but mainly they spread by the rhizomes of their roots. All parts of the plant, including its fruit, are poisonous to humans.
Symphoricarpos orbiculatus produces greenish-white flowers tinged with purple and its fruits vary from pink to purple. Otherwise, it resembles the Snowberry.
Habitat and use
Symphoricarpos alba is native to Canada and north-western USA.
It has been used traditional by native Americans as medicine and soap and to make arrow shafts.
Symphoricarpos orbiculatus has a more Eastern natural distribution and extend to Mexico.
In Britain both species are widely used in parks and gardens as an ornamental hedge. Cultivars are available including Symphoricarpos hybrids.
Other Notes
They are not berries. They are drupes. I won’t go into the botanical semantics, which we have met previously.
See also
The closest relative of Symphoricarpos come from the genus [213] Honeysuckle.
Our last dragonfly Sympetrum striolatum, the Common Darter, is one of the most common dragonflies of Europe.
In parts of Scotland and Ireland one of its subspecies maybe called the Highland Darter
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Animals
Phylum – Arthropods
Class – Insects
Order – Odonata (Dragonflies and Damselflies)
Infraorder – Anisoptera (Dragonflies)
Family – Libellulidae
Genus – Sympetrum
Scientific Name – Sympetrum striolatum
Name
Sympetrum comes from Greek syn-petra, meaning ‘with stone,’ perhaps from its habit of perching on stones.
Striolatum means grooved, striated or striped.
Description
The species of Sympetrum are very similar and difficult to identify.
Males of Sympetrum striolatum become dark orange-red but are yellow when they first emerge.
Females are yellow but darken to chocolate brown.
The legs of bth male and female have cream or yellow stripes on dark blue. This is a good identification feature.
They are not territorial and generally wait on the same perch for prey to pass by.
Habitat and use
The Common Darter is found over Eurasia and is common and widespread throughout the UK.
It is found in most still or slow-moving water habitats.
Other Notes
That’s the last of our Dragonflies and Damselflies. The best places to spot them are near still water such as lakes and canals. Most of my pictures come from a defunct canal in a local Nature Reserve.
If you want to spot them, pick a sunny day in late spring or summer. For newly emerging insects I think the time of day is important – I go around noon.
Sus scrofa, the Wild Boar, is no longer widespread in the United Kingdom but there are continuing populations in several isolated areas such as the Forest of Dean.
It is the same species as the domestic pig, which is common and widespread world-wide. As always there is not full agreement. Pigs are sometimes considered as a subspecies, Sus scrofa domesticus, or sometimes as a separate species, Sus domestica.
Wild Boar are also called Wild Pigs, Wild Swine, Russian Boar or Razorbacks. In many locations apparently wild animals may be derived from feral populations of escaped domesticated pigs, or may be partially crossbred hybrids of the domesticated and wild types.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Animals
Phylum – Chordates
Class – Mammal
Order – Artiodactyla (Even-toed Ungulates)
Suborder – Suina (Pigs and Peccaries)
Family – Suidae (Pigs including warthogs)
Subfamily – Suinae
Tribe – Suini
Genus – Sus
Scientific Name – Sus scrofa (Wild Boar)
Sus scrofa domesticus or Sus domesticus (Domesticated Pig).
The Scientific Name has the form of two nouns, one masculine and one feminine.
Name
It is worth noting first that there are specific terms, more often used in farming.
A boar is a mature male animal.
A hog is a mature domesticated animal.
A sow is a mature female.
A piglet is a young animal.
Swine (singular or plural) is an obsolete name for this animal.
Pork is the word used for its meat.
In earlier times they were called swine, a very old word, cognate with the Latin sus. There was another Old English word ‘pig’ for the young animal. somehow swine have become pigs, and pigs had to become piglets.
The male animal has always been a boar, which has become the name for what we now call Wild Boar (regardless of sex.) The Middle English sow may also be cognate with swine. Hog originally meant a castrated male only. Pork comes via French from the Latin porcus, a domesticated swine.
Sus (cognate with swine) is the Latin for pig, scrofa is the Latin for a sow, a female pig.
Suidae
Since I wrote about [054] Cattle, [077] Deer and [245] Sheep, the revised taxonomy provided by Wikipedia now suggests that I should include Hippopotamus and Whales in Artiodactyla, Even-toed Ungulates! It’s all part of the world of taxonomy that tries to define links by the prehistoric development of species. I have seen the hippo described as physically most like pigs but more closely related to whales.
Whatever we say about whales, the Pig family, Suidae, remains a sister group to the other ungulates we have seen. Cattle, deer and sheep are more closely related to each other than to pigs. But there are similarities. They are four-legged mammals that walk on an even number of toes in each foot. Pigs actually have four toes but usually use just the middle two, which are larger.
Animals in the Pig family generally have shorter, stubbier legs; they have different teeth; and they have simple stomachs. They are omnivorous rather than relying on grass to eat. So, they are not ruminants like cattle and sheep.
Wild Boar
I will leave domesticated pigs until later but for anyone who has ever seen a pig, Wild Boar are bulky animals, much like pigs. They are dark grey in colour with a coarse bristly coat. Males are significantly larger than females. Young animals are at first light brown and stripy, then a darker plain brown.
Groups of females with their young live together while male animals are solitary.
They are omnivorous and have large heads that they use to dig around for edible roots, tubers and bulbs. In the Forest of Dean area, you can often find verges, lawns and other grassy areas that look as if they have been ploughed over! They also eat nuts and berries; leaves bark and twigs; worms, insects and invertebrates; eggs, amphibians, reptiles and carrion.
In Britain Wild Boar were virtually extinct by the Eleventh Century but there were some captive animals imported from the continent. Since about 1970 significant wild populations have been established from escaped animals and they are now both hunted and farmed for their meat. Wild Boar meat is marketed as an upmarket alternative to pork.
There are now populations in Kent/ East Sussex; West Dorset; the Forest of Dean; Dartmoor; and Dumfries and Galloway.
Numbers are uncertain because they are generally wary of people. In the Forest of Dean, they are to some extent a visitor attraction and there have been instances of locations where people feed them and they become relatively tame. I have seen them a few times at a distance, including females accompanied by about a dozen piglets.
The only one I have seen at close quarters approached me as I drove slowly up to it and let me take pictures when I stopped and got out of the car.
You can see in the last picture its four toes. The middle ones are much larger.
Domesticated Pigs
You can expect much of what I said about Cattle and Sheep to apply to Pigs, with the big difference that they do not eat grass.
Apart from the island of New Guinea, all domesticated pigs are derived from Sus scrofa. This may be from early as 13 000 BC in the Middle East, with later domestication in China. They were introduced to Europe from China and cross-bred with the existing European Wild Boar.
They have been spread worldwide and there are estimated to be about 1 000 000 000 pigs alive at any time.
Like the Wild Boar, they are omnivorous and will eat almost anything. Traditionally they were kept in pig-sties and fed grain, fruit and vegetables that were not suitable for human consumption. Now, as for sheep and cattle, farming methods are much more intensive.
Habitat and use
The wild species was native to much of Eurasia including the British Isles, and parts of North Africa
Pigs are farmed primarily for their meat but the bones, hide and bristles are also used. The meat is called pork but various cured forms may be sold as bacon, ham or gammon. Piglets, when eaten, are called suckling pigs.
Breeds
There are several hundred recognized breeds throughout the World. They come in various colours and sizes and tend to have hair rather than bristles. Many are pink and appear hairless. They are, of course, kept as prize specimens for agricultural shows. Some smaller breeds are kept as pets.
Other Notes
You may be able to see pigs anywhere. You can find Wild Boar in the Forest of Dean if you are lucky. Their eyesight is not good and if you see one before it sees you, you may be able to slowly approach it – but it will disappear as soon as it smells you.
Sturnus vulgaris, the Starling, is a common and widespread bird, almost always seen in flocks. In winter it can form much larger flocks that can number up to a million birds.
There are only two species in the genus Sturnus but many species in the wider family Sturnidae are also called Starlings. (Most Asian species are called Mynas – or Mynahs.) Sturnus vulgaris is the Eurasian Starling or Common Starling.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Animals
Phylum – Chordates
Class – Aves (Birds)
Order – Passeriformes
Suborder – Passeri
Infraorder – Passerida
Superfamily – Muscicapoidea (Flycatchers, Thrushes and Starlings)
Family – Sturnidae (Starlings and Mynahs)
Genus – Sturnus
Scientific Name – Sturnus vulgaris
Name
Starling comes as a diminutive stær-ling of the earlier Germanic name of the bird. As early as the Eleventh Century, starling was used for juvenile birds while the general word for birds of all ages was stare. You can notice a similar trend with chicken and the word Pig (coming tomorrow.)
Sturnus, the Latin name of the bird, may be cognate with starling and possibly also with sparrow.
Its plumage is iridescent black, with purple or green gloss, covered in white spots. Male birds have long, loose throat feathers used in display.
The bill is narrow and conical, dark brown or black in winter. In summer it is mostly yellow. The spots are less obvious in summer plumage.
Juvenile birds are at first all brown. As they change to mature plumage, they may retain some brown, particularly on their backs.
Habitat
Sturnus vulgaris is native to temperate Europe and Western Asia and has been introduced to South Africa, North America, Australia and New Zealand. It is a summer visitor in the northern part of its range and a winter visitor to the south. Between these areas it is resident all year including all of the UK where it is very common and widespread,
They will sometimes come to birdfeeders, although this doesn’t happen so often because they are so gregarious.
Other Notes
Starlings are very gregarious birds. Apart from breeding pairs with their young, you are unlikely to see them in small groups. You may see flocks of a few hundred in fields, in flight or resting in trees.
In winter they form larger groups. Here are some of about 30 000 I once spotted at a pig farm.
They tend to find one or two spots where they can roost and at the right time and place, normally around sunset, you can see murmurations of up to 250 000 starlings circling before they roost. They come from many miles away.
If you want to find groups of starlings to photograph, try the car parks at Motorway service areas. That’s where most of my pictures come from.
See also
With only a few more bird species to come, [347] Blackbird and [348] Thrushes are the only ones approximately like Starlings, but not so gregarious.
Streptopelia decaocto, the Collared Dove, is a smaller dove than our familiar [089] Pigeon and [090] Woodpigeon. Since the Nineteenth Century its range has gradually spread westwards, reaching the UK about 1950 and it is now widespread throughout Britain.
The next two sentences won’t come as a shock to you. It’s not the only species of Streptopelia called a Collared Dove. Formally it’s the Eurasian Collared Dove but we will just call it a Collared Dove.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Animals
Phylum – Chordates
Class – Aves (Birds)
Clade – Columbimorphae
Order – Columbiformes (Only One Family)
Family – Columbidae (Pigeons and Doves)
Genus – Streptopelia
Scientific Name – Streptopelia decaocto
Name
Ancient Greek roots streptos-peleia mean collar-dove.
Decaocto comes from an Ancient Greek myth that a maid was unhappy that she was paid just 18 coins a year. She begged the gods to let the world know how mean her mistress was and Zeus created a dove that called out deca-octo, which means 18. Its actual call is not much like deca-octo. It’s a three-note call, ‘cuck-KOO-koo’, sometimes mistaken for the call of a Cuckoo.
Description
The Collared Dove is a slender bird unlike the chubby Woodpigeon. Overall, it is mostly a light pinkish buff colour. It has half a collar round its neck, black with a narrow white edge above. The bill and eyes also look black and there are some dark grey parts to its tail feathers.
Juvenile birds are slightly browner without the collar.
They feed on cereals, seeds, shoots and insects and may be found near grain stores for livestock or visiting bird feeders.
Habitat
In the Eighteenth Century the range of this bird consisted of warm temperate and subtropical areas from Turkey to Southern China. It has spread gradually and is now found across all of Europe including all of the British Isles.
Since about 1970 from a few escaped birds in the Bahamas, it has moved to Florida and is spreading across the USA.
Almost all birds nest and breed fairly close to human habitation,
Other Notes
I see these birds much more often on rooftops or street lights rather than at ground level.
See also
Streptopelia turtur, the Turtle Dove, as mentioned in ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, has a larger area of black-and white stripes on its neck where the Collared Dove has a collar. Its wings have a chequered pattern of black on a peachy colour. Its name comes from its call ‘turtur.’ Its summer distribution used to cover England and mainland Europe and it winters in a strip of equatorial Africa. Since the late Twentieth Century its numbers have dwindled rapidly all across Europe and it is now very rare in the UK. I have not seen or heard one for at least fifteen years.
Sterna hirundo, the Commom Tern, is a fairly common summer visitor to Britain, generally breeding on islands in inland lakes but travelling to more tropical climates over winter.
It is very difficult to tell apart from its close relative,Sterna paradisaea, the Arctic Tern.
Sterna hirundo is the most common tern seen in Britain but, unlike many other similar cases we have seen, it is never called just a Tern.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Animals
Phylum – Chordates
Class – Aves (Birds)
Order – Charadriformes
Suborder – Lari (Gulls, Terns, Skuas and Auks)
Family – Laridae (Gulls, Terns and Skimmers)
Subfamily – Sterninae (Noddies and Terns)
Tribe – Sternini (Terns)
Genus – Sterna
Scientific Name – Sterna hirundo
Name
Tern comes from Scandinavian roots from þerna, which somehow meant either a tern or a maidservant.
Sterna comes via Old English stearn from the same roots. As you may remember, Hirundo is the genus name of [175] the Swallow. As a species epithet it is a noun in apposition, so it has no chance of retaining its capital letter that it would have as a genus name. (The birds are superficially similar. Both have forked tails but the Common Tern is a lot larger.)
Description
There are about forty species of terns. They are mostly white or grey birds with long pointed bills that they use to catch fish. They have worldwide distribution and make long-distance migrations. Their closest relatives are gulls.
In breeding plumage, the Common Tern is white underneath with a very pale grey back. The top of its head and back of the neck are black and its pointed bill is red with a black tip. Its very short legs are red.
In non-breeding plumage (which is never seen in the UK) its forehead turns white and the bill and legs become all black
They come to Britain to breed at inland lakes. They nest on flat surfaces near water such as islands in lakes and take easily to rafts put on to lakes to attract them at wildlife reserves.
They spend much of their time circling the lake and hunting for fish. They sometimes hover perfectly, which can make them relatively easy to photograph in flight. They will plunge dive to catch fish.
Birdwatchers will sometimes identify a bird, especially in flight, as a ‘Commic Tern,’ because the Common Tern is so hard to distinguish from its relative Sterna paradisaea, the Arctic Tern. The Arctic Tern is much rarer in the south of the UK as it keeps to more Arctic and Antarctic regions (with a long migration between the two!). Its most obvious distinguishing features are a darker red bill with no black tip and even shorter legs.
Habitat
The Common Tern visits northern Eurasia and the northeast parts of North America. It is widespread over the UK. For the rest of the year our visitors return to the coasts of eastern and southern Africa, while others go to other southerly coastal locations.
Other Notes
Terns have very localised distributions. I see them in the Cotswolds, in wetland areas such as Slimbridge WWT, Frampton Lakes and the Cotswold Water Park. In these areas, the Common Tern is the most common and the Arctic Tern is much rarer.
See also
Overall, in the UK we have about the same sorts of numbers of Common Terns, Arctic Terns and Sandwich Terns, with much lower numbers of Roseate Terns, Sterna dougallii, mostly in northern, eastern and southern coastal locations.
Sandwich Tern
This bird, until recently known as Sterna sandvicensis, is now Thalasseus sandvicensis. [Thalassa is the Ancient Greek word for the sea. As a species epithet, sandvicensis usually refers to Hawaii, formerly known as the Sandwich Islands, as we have seen with [056] the Nene, Branta sandvicensis. But the Sandwich Tern gets its name from Sandwich in Kent.]
Its bill is long, pointed and black with a small yellow tip, and the black cap has a crest to the rear. It nests on tightly packed colonies in a few locations in the Northern Hemisphere including rafts on lakes in Brownsea Island near the South Coast.
Black Terns
These birds, Chlidonias niger, are mostly darker greys and are seen only as occasional passage migrants.
Class – Myxogastria (One of three groups of Slime Moulds)
Order – Stemonotidales
Family – Stemonitidaceae
Genus – Stemonotis
Scientific Name – Stemonotis splendens
See text below.
Name
Stemonitis comes from the Greek stemon, thread, from the shape.
Slime Moulds
We have to go a long way up the taxonomic tree of life to find this species. It’s not a Plant, not even in the widest sense (Archaeplastid) that includes [079] Red Algae. It’s not included in Heterokonts that include [151] Brown Algae. It’s not in the Opisthokont group that includes all Animals and Fungi. But it is a Eukaryote, and that just means that it’s slightly more sophisticated than Bacteria and Archaea, both of which are single celled organisms without a nucleus.
When we get to that area of taxonomy, the idea of a Kingdom is not so useful. One system divides Bacteria into nine kingdoms, Archaea into seven kingdoms, and the Eukaryotes into ten kingdoms (including the three well-known ones – Animals, Plants and Fungi.) In this system Slime Moulds are one of the kingdoms within Eukaryotes.
There are several other systems but it is sometimes convenient to simplify things. So, we can divide all organisms into Eukaryotes, Bacteria and Archaea. Then we divide Eukaryotes into Animals, Fungi, Plants and Protists – this makes Protists a paraphyletic Kingdom.
(There is a lot of Taxonomy here and more than the usual amounts of Anglicization. I haven’t used the Latin forms Eukatyota, Protista etc.)
The Phylum Amoebozoa contains about 2 500 species, including some (but not all) single-celled species and Slime Moulds. There are about a thousand species of slime mould. They are species that sometimes live as single-celled organisms and sometimes congregate and move as a single organism. They feed on microorganisms found in dead plant material and so can be found in soils and on dying deciduous trees. Slime moulds are a polyphyletic group that includes Myxogastria, the only macroscopic slime moulds, sometimes visible without a microscope.
They go through stages of being single-celled and sometimes aggregate to visible size.
Description
The genus Stemonitis has about twenty species that need microscopic examination to identify precisely.
Its macroscopic form consists of long, thing, dark purplish brown tubes.
Cameras do things with balancing white levels and these pictures may look more purple. I saw this as chocolate brown.
Habitat and use
Stemonitis is almost worldwide, generally found on decayed wood. The tree on which I found it had been dead for some years.
Other Notes
You may never come across a slime mould. I have vague memories of seeing them once or twice in my life, appearing overnight and disappearing when touched.
I photographed this when I saw it because I did not expect it to last long. It was gone the next day and I haven’t seen it since.
See also
As you can guess from the text, there is nothing vaguely like a slime mould that you are likely to meet.
Spiraea japonica is a shrub originating in the area of China, Korea and Japan, now widely cultivated as an ornamental garden plant. It usually goes by the common name Japanese Spiraea, often spelled as Spirea.
Meadowsweet is a superficially similar plant from the genus Filipendula that used to be included within Spiraea. Some of the other species within Spiraea have common names including Spiraea or Meadowseet and Spiraea japonica is sometimes known as Japanese Meadowsweet.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Plants
Division – Vascular Plants
Class – Angiosperms (Flowering Plants}
Order – Rosales
Family – Rosaceae
Subfamily – Amygdaloideae
Tribe – Spiraeeae
Genus – Spiraea
Scientific Name – Spiraea japonica
Many cultivars and hybrids are available.
Name
Spiraea, sometimes spelled as Spirea or Spiræa, comes from Latinized Greek speira meaning coiled or twisted, cognate with spiral, from the shape of the fruits.
Description
Japanese Spiraea is an ornamental deciduous plant. It is a relatively low but dense perennial shrub. It has pink to red stems and attractive light green simple leaves.
The tiny pink flowers form large bunched inflorescences that cover the plant in summer. Cultivated varieties come with flowers of different colours.
Habitat and use
This species comes from China, Korea and Japan and prefers wetland environments such as riversides and boggy areas.
Many cultivars of Spiraea are available as garden plants. They include Spiraea japonica and other species and hybrids and some forms can be used as low-growing hedges.
See also
Filipendula ulmaria, Meadowsweet, with several other common names, has been moved out of the genus Spiraea. It is a wildflower native to Britain with similar inflorescences of white flowers. [Fili-pendula means thread-hanging, from its root tubers and ulmaria means Elm-like from the resemblance of its leaves to the Elm in the genus Ulmus.]
Some other close relatives include [220] Apple, [320] Whitebeam and [321] Mountain Ash.
Spatula clypeata, the Shoveler, until recently known as Anas clypeata, is a winter visiting duck with a shovel-like bill which it uses somewhat like [272] the Spoonbill.
There are four geographically separate closely related species of Spatula that are called Shovelers. Spatula clypeata is the Northern Shoveler but in the UK, it is only ever called a Shoveler.
(Confusingly, some species of Spatula are called Teal, in common with several other species of ducks still in the genus Anas.)
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Animals
Phylum – Chordates
Class – Aves (Birds)
Order – Anseriformes (Waterfowl)
Family – Anatidae (Ducks, Geese and Swans)
Subfamily – Anatinae (Dabbling Ducks)
Tribe – Anatini (All extant Dabbling Ducks)
Genus – Spatula
Scientific Name – Spatula clypeata
Until 2009 it was Anas clypeata.
Name
We looked at ducks and the genus Anas in [023] Mallard.
The Latin clypeata or clipeata means armed with a shield. Spatula or spathula is a diminutive of spatha, meaning something broad and flat. (Shovel has the instrumental ending so it means something used to shove.)
Description
Like the well-known Mallard, the male Shoveler in breeding plumage has an iridescent dark green head. The rest of his body is mostly chestnut brown with white neck and breast.
The female bird is mottled brown like many other ducks and in winter the male looks similar.
Male and female are both easily recognized by the large flat bill that gives them their name.
Habitat
The breeding (summer) range of this bird covers much of the temperate Northern Hemisphere and they generally winter in more tropical areas. For the UK, generally in the south, and various parts of Europe they are winter visitors.
Other Notes
You won’t see Shovelers on public ornamental lakes but you can get some close views at places like Slimbridge WWT. You can see them for part of their visit still in breeding plumage.
See also
Spatula querquedula, the Garganey, is a much rarer visitor to the UK. I think I have seen two in many years of birdwatching. From a distance with binoculars the white stripe on its head may help identification.
There are many species within the genus Sorbus, subgenus Sorbus, with names that include ‘Rowan,’ ‘Mountain-Ash,’ or ‘Service Tree.’ The species Sorbus aucuparia is generally just called Rowan or Mountain-Ash (or Mountain Ash.) It is a familiar roadside tree with leaves like small versions of Ash tree leaves and it produces familiar bright red ‘berries.’
Many related species are also grown as ornamental trees in parks and gardens and roadsides.
They are not related to true [150] Ash trees or to Eucalyptus regnans, also sometimes called Mountain Ash
Taxonomy
Kingdom- Plants
Division – Vascular Plants
Class – Angiosperms (Flowering Plants)
Order – Rosales
Family – Rosaceae
Subfamily – Amygdaloideae
Tribe – Maleae
Subtribe – Malinae (Apples and others)
Genus – Sorbus
Subgenus – Sorbus
Scientific Name – Sorbus aucuparia and others
Name
‘Rowan’ comes, probably via Scottish, from Germanic roots cognate with ‘red.’
The name of these trees in Classical Latin was sorbus, of uncertain origins. This was borrowed in Old English as syrfe. Service-tree is derived from syrfe by the process where unfamiliar words are replaced by similar but unrelated words.
Aucuparia is derived from the Latin ‘avis-capere’ meaning bird-catch, from the use of its berries as bait to attract birds for shooting. (Remember that in real Latin there was no letter ‘U’ and ‘V’ was used where we now use ‘U’ or ‘V’.)
Description
It is difficult to find agreement on the precise definitions of species within the genus Sorbus. It has hundreds of species and its use as a cultivated fruit tree has led to many varieties and hybrids, including some hybrids between Rowans and [320] Whitebeams. Many of its species are sometimes considered to belong to other genera.
Sorbus domestica, the True Service-tree, is now very rare in the UK. Sorbus torminalis, the Wild Service-tree, does not have the Rowan leaf structure.
The Rowan (either Sorbus aucuparia or varieties of other species or hybrids) is a very close relative of the Whitebeam that we met yesterday, but its leaves are different in appearance. It is easily recognized by its leaf structure and berries that remain over winter.
They are seen often as an ornamental roadside tree, sometimes in rows along the pavement.
Its pinnate leaf structure is somewhat like the Ash tree but leaflets are notably smaller. The elongated leaflets are sharply serrated at their ends.
Small, open white flowers with prominent stamens come in tight inflorescences.
The fruits, like all members of the subtribe Malinae, are pomes, but most people would describe them as berries. While those of the Whitebeam may stay orange, those of the Rowan normally soon turn a bright red.
You can see the five-pointed stars, coming from the sepals of the flowers, that are distinctive with pomes.
Habitat and use
Sorbus aucuparia is found over most of Europe in five recognized subspecies.
Historically, the fruits of some Rowan trees have been eaten and trees have been cultivated for their fruit
Some Rowans may be seen wild in the countryside but most of them seen in parks and gardens and streets are cultivated varieties. They come from closely related species or hybrids or cultivars. Some varieties have fruits in other colours, including some two-tone fruits.
Other Notes
You can see why this is popular as a street tree. It has a compact form and doesn’t grow too large. The leaves, flowers and berries are all attractive and the berries persist through winter,
See also
Yesterday’s post about Whitebeam listed all the close relatives that we have covered.
The genus Sorbus is complex, with about one or two hundred species divided into several subgenera. The subgenus Aria, sometimes considered a separate genus, has about fifty species known as Whitebeams, of which about thirty species occur in Britain. We will take Sorbus aria, the Common Whitebeam, as typical and I will call it just the Whitebeam.
Unlike [321] the Rowans, which are other members of the genus Sorbus, Whitebeams have lobed, almost oval leaves reminiscent of some Oak trees.
We will consider the rest of genus Sorbus tomorrow.
Taxonomy
Kingdom- Plants
Division – Vascular Plants
Class – Angiosperms (Flowering Plants)
Order – Posales
Family – Rosaceae
Subfamily – Amygdaloideae
Tribe – Maleae
Subtribe – Malinae (Apples and others)
Genus – Sorbus
Subgenus – Aria
Scientific Names – Sorbus aria and many others
When considered as a separate genus, other species retain their species epithets but Sorbus aria becomes Aria nivea (because Aria aria is not permitted for a plant species name.)
Many varieties and cultivars are available including hybrids with other species in the subgenus Aria.
Name
Whitebeam comes from the colour of the leaves. The word ‘white’ (as in white coffee, white wine or white grapes,) can mean relatively light coloured rather than actually white. Beam is an Old English word meaning tree.
For Sorbus, see tomorrow. Aria is the old Latin name for the Whitebeam as used by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus (about 300 BC.) Nivea means snowy or snow-covered.
Description
One of the most notable things about a Whitebeam is that is doesn’t look like a Rowan, but we will come to Rowans tomorrow.
The Whitebeam is a typical deciduous tree with the shape of many other typical tree species.
It gets the designation ‘white’ from the newly sprouting leaves and the undersides of leaves that are lighter in colour than the top of the leaves – a trait shared by many other trees and plants such as White Poplar and sometimes [306] Blackberries. It is so good at facing the leaves to the sun that this is not obviously noticeable. I had to look through all of my pictures to find one or two leaves facing the wrong way.
Biologists have lots of technical terms to describe leaf shapes. I could call the leaves of a Whitebeam lobed, or perhaps they are better described as having curly serrated edges, but you can see the shapes from a few pictures above and below.
It is principally the shape of the leaves that distinguishes Whitebeams from Rowans and other members of the genus Sorbus.
The flowers are open, five-petalled and completely white including prominent white stamens. They grow in tight bunches that cover the tree in Spring.
The fruits are technically pomes (as for all in the Apple subtribe Malinae,) but they look like what most people would call berries, turning from green to orange-brown and then red.
Habitat and use
Sorbus aria has a patchy natural range covering most of central Europe and other parts of Europe – including Wales and southern England but not the extreme south-west. Several other Whitebeam species may be found mostly with very small geographical distributions. These include Sorbus anglica, the English Whitebeam, a very rare species found in a few spots in England and Ireland.
Whitebeams of various species are cultivated in parks and gardens.
The genus Solidago contains about a hundred species called Goldenrod, mostly originating from North America. It is widely cultivated as a number of species, hybrids and cultivars, especially as the cultivar Solidago ‘Goldenmosa,’ normally just called Goldenrod.
In and near urban environments it has escaped to be widely naturalized.
Naming conventions specify that the cultivar name is capitalized, enclosed in apostrophes, in English rather than Latin form, and not italicized.
Species from at least seven other unrelated genera are called Goldenrods.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Plants
Division – Vascular Plants
Class – Angiosperms (Flowering Plants)
Order – Asterales
Family – Asteraceae
Supertribe – Asterodae
Tribe – Astereae
Genus – Solidago
Scientific Name – Solidago ‘Goldenmosa’
This one is a cultivar.
Name
Solidago is modern Latin coming from a Mediaeval Latin form soldago, when it was supposed to heal wounds. Classical Latin soldare from solidare (cognate with solder) means to make whole or solid.
Cultivar names can be anything the originator wants. Apart from the obvious Golden, the meaning of ‘Goldenmosa’ is not obvious. It could have been called ‘Golden Mosa,’ which looks like a peculiar mixture of languages,
Description
There are, as you know, 25 000 species in the Aster family Asteraceae. Goldenrod does have aster-like flowers but they are very small.
It has many tall straight stems up to two metres in height with long, thin leaves attached directly to the stem. At the top of each stem there are several large thick inflorescences, each containing hundreds of tiny all-yellow aster-like flower heads, so the overall impression is a mass of yellow.
Habitat and use
Most species of Solidago originate from America but they have been introduced elsewhere. Many cultivated varieties are available but ‘Goldenmosa’ is by far the post popular in the UK. I see them often in places where they are now obviously wild.
Like many other plants, species of Solidago have been used traditionally for medicinal purposes. I have given up taking these uses too seriously as almost everything has been used as a cure for almost all ailments.
See also
Other species that are now widely seen in the wild after naturalizing from garden plants include [060] Buddleia and [013] Hollyhock.
Solanum lycopersicum, the Tomato; Solanum melongena, the Aubergine; and Solanum tuberosum, the Potato, are three very widely grown familiar food crops closely related to [317] Bittersweet Nightshade.
Aubergines, not usually cultivated in the UK, are known as Eggplants in the USA.
You won’t be surprised, after [057] Rape, and [105] Courgette, that domestication since prehistoric times has led to varieties significantly different from those we saw yesterday – but you can recognize the tomato fruit as a much larger version of the fruit of Bittersweet Nightshade. Before domestication, the species from which these three are derived produced small green or yellow fruits.
This post will contain a lot of information, mostly from Wikipedia, and not many pictures.
As for most domesticated crops, the name of the plant comes from the name of its cultivated fruits (or whichever parts are eaten.)
Tomato comes via Spanish from the native pre-Aztec name for the fruit, used originally for a related species.
Lyco-persicum, defining the species in 1753, comes from Greek roots wolf-peach. There is no obvious reason to associate it with either wolves or peaches – but in 1753 a tomato probably was more like a peach than it is now.
(You can see a little about wolves in [066] Dog and for peaches, see [280] Cherry, where you will, of course, see that persicum means Persian.)
Aubergine has a long history, coming via French and Catalan albergina from Arabic al-badinjan and Persian badenjan. the earlier Sanskrit vatigagama meant ‘plant that cures wind.’ Brinjal, used in parts of south-east Asia for the fruit, is cognate.
Melongena, the Mediaeval Latin name for the fruit comes via Italian and Ancient Greek melitzana from the same Arabic roots.
Eggplant comes from an early variety of aubergine that was white and shaped like eggs.
The word aubergine (and in America eggplant) can be used for the dark purple colour of the modern variety.
Potato also comes via Spanish from a South American native language. It was used originally for what we now call Sweet Potatoes (see below,) and for the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries the word was used indiscriminately for both species.
The Latin word tuberosum meant lumpy. The botanical term tuber now has a precise definition associated with potatoes.
Solanum
The important things to remember from yesterday are that Solanum is a complex genus with many subgenera and sections and plants of different appearances. Today I will just look at the three main crop species.
[A] Tomatoes
Solanum lycopercisum was renamed as Lycopersicon lycopersicum in 1754 when several species were removed from Solanum. Following genetic analysis these species have been moved back and now form the Section Lycopersicon in the subgenus Solanum. They are types of Wild Tomato but normally only Solanum lycopersicum, the Common Tomato, is cultivated.
[This is a simplification. The subdivisions of Solanum are complex, fluid and not agreed universally. Lycopersicon is a more Greek version of the Latinized Greek word lycopersicum – and it gets round the prohibition of using the same word twice for genus and species of plants.]
Originally tomatoes were native to tropical highland areas of western South America. Their fruits were green and the size of peas. From about 500 BC or earlier they were cultivated in the Aztec Empire of Central America and bred selectively to make the fruits larger, sweeter and red. Even in 1500 AD, the Aztecs had many varieties with fruits of different sizes and shapes, coloured green, yellow or red.
They were brought back to Europe by the Spanish, producing small, yellow fruits that were seen as new types of Aubergine. (See below.) It reached Britain in 1590 and gradually came into culinary use.
They are now very widely cultivated in many varieties, usually in greenhouse environments. In the Twentieth Century, they were bred to produce forms that ripen uniformly red. Yield, disease resistance and shelf life have also been considered as more important than sweetness or taste.
China is the source of about a third of the overall production of tomatoes, with India, the EU, Turkey and the USA as other major contributors. Almost all varieties are Solanum lycopersicum but a few come from other closely related species.
The cultivated tomato plant, normally grown as an annual, can grow to two or three metres but has a weak stem that needs support. It is naturally a sprawling or climbing plant.
In Britain it is probably the most common food plant grown in vegetable plots in back gardens and in allotments. It is very easy to grow from seed or seedlings. We may not have good enough weather to ripen the fruits on their plants but the green fruit will gradually ripen indoors after picking.
Its stems are hairy and the leaf structure differs from other Solanum species but the completely yellow flowers are similar in structure.
The red fruits are berries, typically a few centimetres in diameter but different cultivars vary in size (and sometimes colour.) They start green and gradually turn to a bright red colour.
They are a classic example of the semantic twists of botany as in culinary terms they are treated as vegetables rather than fruits.
[B] Aubergine
The Aubergine, Solanum melongena from the subgenus – Leptostemonun, section – Melongena, is a domesticated species arising probably from Solanum incanum, known as the Thorn Apple or Bitter Tomato.
There have been two independent domestications in ancient India and East Asia. It was grown in China and the Mediterranean area from the Sixth Century, so it acquired Arabic and African names rather than Greek or Roman. It did not appear in Britain until the Sixteenth Century.
You are unlikely to see this plant growing in Britain so I will just say a little about its fruits. They are spongy in nature and In Europe and North America they are usually purple in colour. Like the tomato the fruits are generally treated as vegetables and they are almost always cooked before eating.
In India and other Asian countries, a much wider variety of cultivars can be found. Size may be much larger or smaller, shape can vary, and colours include white, yellow, green and from reddish purple to purple-black – with some striped varieties.
It is normally grown in tropical or subtropical climates with almost all World production coming from China and India.
[C] Potato
The Potato, Solanum tuberosum, from the subgenus – Solanum, section – Petota, has been cultivated for at least 7 000 years and is believed to have come from several species of wild potato still found in parts of South America, from the same subgenus and section. It was cultivated across the Americas by the time the Spanish arrived. They brought them back to Europe. Modern cultivation in the USA comes from plants derived from Europe. They are now the fourth largest food crop – after [364] Maize, [345] Wheat and rice.
Solanum tuberosum is a medium sized plant with plain leaf-shaped leaves. Its flowers can be pale pink, purple or blue, with the prominent yellow centres seen in other species of Solanum.
Its fruits look like small, green cherry tomatoes. Like most of the plant the fruits contain mild toxins and are unsuitable for human consumption.
After flowering, the roots form lumps called tubers and these are the potatoes that we eat. The stems and leaves die as the tubers develop. They come in many cultivated varieties coloured from light yellow to brown, or in shades of red and purple.
Plants can be grown from seeds or from the tubers (or just part of a tuber.) Those grown from tubers are clonally similar to the parent but those grown from seeds can be a mixture of varieties.
There are about 5 000 varieties of potato including 3 000 found only in the Andes. There are also about two hundred species or subspecies of wild potato, most of which hybridize easily with S tuberosum. Apart from S tuberosum, which produces almost all of the cultivated production, there are seven other species of Solanum sometimes used.
Nearly a hundred varieties are available in the UK and the potato is very popular for home production or in allotments.
They can be cooked in many ways and are widely used in food dishes. They may be used as fodder for livestock or to produce vodka and other alcoholic drinks.
Sweet Potato
Ipomoea batatas, the Sweet Potato, is a fairly distant relative of the potato that also has tuberous roots used as root vegetables. Several species of the genus Dioscorea, called Yams, produce similar root vegetables but are even more distant relatives. (In some parts of America sweet potatoes are called yams.)
Other Notes
The cultivated varieties of Solanum include some bushy varieties of Solanum tuberosum and its hybrids.
See also
The Chilli (or Chili) Pepper is a member of the family Solanaceae but is not in the genus Solanum.
Solanum dulcamara, Bittersweet Nightshade, is a common and widespread wildflower with attractive blue and yellow flowers. It has several other common names including Bittersweet, Climbing Nightshade, Poisonflower, Poisonberry, Trailing Bittersweet, Trailing Nightshade and Woody Nightshade.
Some other species of Solanum are also called Nightshades as is the less common Deadly Nightshade, Atropa belladonna, a related species from the family Solanaceae.
I will consider the whole genus Solanum but will defer three important species until tomorrow. Most parts of all species, including unripe fruits, are poisonous to humans (but not necessarily to other animals.)
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Plants
Division – Vascular Plants
Class – Angiosperms (Flowering Plants)
Order – Solanales
Family – Solanaceae
Subfamily – Solanoideae
Tribe – Solaneae
Genus – Solanum
Subgenus – Solanum
Section – Dulcamara
Scientific Name – Solanum dulcamara
Name
Nightshade is derived from night-shade, but I don’t know why.
Solanum has been used as a Latin Name for a close relative (probably Solanum nigra) since the First Century AD, but its derivation is unknown. It may come from the Latin Sol – the Sun.
In Latin the dried branches of the plant were called dolcamara from dolce-amaro, ‘sweet-bitter,’ because of its medicinal uses.
Note that dolcamara has a feminine ending, while solanum is neuter. The feminine form of the adjective dolcamarus was used as a noun in apposition. See Names.
Description
Bittersweet Nightshade is a small, scrambling plant that can grow to a small bush but often climbs through and over other plants.
Its leaves are roughly arrow-shaped, often lobed at the base.
Flowers, coming in loose groups, are small, star shaped and purple (or dark blue) with prominent yellow central stamens and style.
The fruits are small, slightly ovoid berries looking like tiny tomatoes – green at first, turning red. They are poisonous to humans and livestock but not to some birds.
You may see buds, open flowers and fruits of all colours at the same time near to each other.
The very large genus Solanum includes a variety of forms – annuals and perennials, shrubs and small trees, and some climbing plants (called vines in America.)
Habitat and use
Solanum dulcamara is native to Europe and much of Asia and has spread and naturalized over most of the World. It grows in many environments, especially wetlands and under trees near rivers.
It has been used in native herbalism since the Ancient Greeks. I have given up listing what herbal remedies used to be used for because many of them seem to have been used (rightly or wrongly) for almost everything.
A few of the nearly two thousand species of Solanum are cultivated as garden plants. I will consider three important species of Solanum tomorrow.
Other Notes
This species is widespread in the UK but may not be spotted because of its low-growing nature and small flowers. But when you do notice it, its purple and yellow flowers make it an attractive wildflower.
See also
For those of you who don’t know already, I will leave the identification of three more species of Solanum until tomorrow.
Sitta europaea,the Nuthatch, and Certhia familiaris, the Treecreeper, are two species of woodland birds that spend most of their lives in trees. One climbs upwards and one climbs downwards.
All of the species of Sitta are called Nuthatches, and all the species of Certhia are called Treecreepers, so formally, Sitta Europaea is the Eurasian Nuthatch or Wood Nuthatch, and Certhia familiaris is the Eurasian or Common Treecreeper.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Animals
Phylum – Chordates
Class – Aves (Birds)
Order – Passeriformes
Superfamily – Certhioidea
Family – [A] Sittidae: [B] Certhiidae
Genus – [A] Sitta; [B] Certhia
Scientific Name – [A] Sitta europaea; [B] Certhia familiaris
Following DNA analysis, which comes up many times in these blogs, the superfamily Certhioidea only came into existence a few years ago. It contains just five families:
Sittidae – See below.
Certhiidae – See below.
Wrens, and two other small, fairly obscure small groups.
Names
The name Nuthatch, used since 1350 may be cognate with nut-hatch, or nut-hack, coming from their habit of wedging something like a nut in a crevice in a tree and hacking at it with their bills. They have also been called nuthackers, nutjobbers and nutpeckers in the past.
The Ancient Greek sitte was a bird of some sort, probably the nuthatch; kerthios was a small bird that might have been a treecreeper.
[A] Nuthatch
The Sittidae family only contains the genus Sitta. There are about 35 species, more or less geographically separated, with some uncertainty about superspecies and subspecies.
All are broadly similar in appearance with some variation in size and coloration.
They have developed the ability to crawl down the trunks of tree or to hang underneath branches. They can also climb upwards.
What follows is specific to our local species.
Sitta Europaea is found roughly over temperate Eurasia, including Britain but not Ireland. It has about twenty regional subspecies with minor differences of coloration, but there is disagreement about precise definitions. The subspecies Sitta europaea caesia, within the caesia subspecies group, covers most of western Europe including the UK. (The Latin caesia can mean a blue-grey colour.)
It is described as having blue-grey upperparts and underparts from orange-buff to brick red. It’s basically blue on top and peachy pink underneath. It has a long, thick, horizontal eye-stripe and white chin immediately underneath. The female is very similar to the male with paler underparts. It often holds it head up so that the top of its body is like a straight line from the tip of the tail to the tip of its long powerful bill. Underneath, the pink body is dome shaped.
Their preferred habitat is deciduous woodland and they nest in holes in trees – usually old woodpecker nests.
They mainly eat insects that they find in trees, especially caterpillars and beetles. They will visit rural birdfeeders, where they will collect seeds.
[B] Treecreeper
The family Certhiidae contains just two genera (generally each allocated to its own subfamily.) There are nine species of Certhia called Treecreepers, all looking very similar, and two Spotted Creepers in the genus Salpornis. This may come as a bit of a surprise but the species of Salpornis look very similar to Certhia, but spotted!
They generally climb up trees in a spiral path. You may spot them flying from a tree they have finished to the next tree.
Again, I will concentrate on our local version.
With some overlapping with other similar species, Certhia familiaris, the (Eurasian) Treecreeper, has a range stretching across Eurasia from the UK to Japan. It is almost always resident. It is found throughout Britain, where it is just called a Treecreeper. It is found in woodland and in Britain prefers deciduous woods to conifers.
Its back is a mottled brown that provides excellent camouflage. You are unlikely to find one unless you see it flying briefly between trees. You then have to follow it as it hops along branches and around trunks. They are very difficult to photograph because they never seem to stop moving.
This is taken as the bird climbed up a wall at Slimbridge. This is unusual behaviour. I have seen them several times on trees but this my best picture.
They extract insects and spiders from crevices in the bask as they climb up trees – always flying from the top of its path to the bottom of the next tree.
Other Notes
I tend to think of Nuthatches as much more common than Treecreepers, but perhaps that is because they are more visible. They are larger, more colourful, often recognized from their various calls, and not averse to visiting country bird feeders. Tree creepers camouflage well and are not distracted by birdfeeders.
See also
Certhioidea is a very small superfamily. Apart from Nuthatches, Treecreepers and two very small obscure groups, it just contains the family of Wrens.
Troglodytes troglodytes, the (Eurasian) Wren, is one of the two most common British birds. They are common and widespread and may be found in parks and gardens. They are small, brown and inconspicuous and tend to remain under cover or fly very close to the ground.
You may never have seen a Wren but you have definitely heard one. For one of our smallest birds, they have one of the loudest voices. You may hear them every day without knowing.
Their song is a pattern with several sections including a distinctive trill. Once you learn to recognize it you will hear it everywhere in Europe. The Wren also makes a clicking call that you may hear.
There are about 900 species of Silene, many of which can be found in Britain. The three most common species seen as wildflowers are Silene dioica, Red Campion; Silene latifolia, White Campion; and Silene vulgaris, Bladder Campion.
Silene dioica is also known as Red Catchfly. Somewhat confusingly, Silene latifolia is called Bladder Campion in the USA. Silene vulgaris is also called Maidenstears (or Maiden’s Tears.)
Other species in the genus Silene may be known as Catchfly or Campion.
Note also that Sideridis ruvularis is a moth known as a Campion, and Campion is a genus of Lacewings.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Plants
Division – Vascular Plants
Class – Angiosperms (Flowering Plants)
Order – Caryophyllales
Family – Caryophyllaceae
Genus – Silene
Scientific Names – See text
Name
Campion, from Middle English, is cognate with champion. Silene coronaria, Rose Campion was used historically in garlands to crown victors. Catchfly comes from their sticky stems.
The use of ‘red’ is interesting. If you see a Red Campion beside a Poppy, you would not call it red. It can be various shades of purple or pink.
Silene is a feminized form of Silenus, a figure in Greek mythology who accompanied Dionysus, the god of wine. He is a man of the forest and his name comes from Greek seio-lenos, shaking-wine, a reference to drunken behaviour.
For dioica, see [353] Nettle. (You will have to wait. These posts have not been written in order.) Lati-folia means broad-leaved and vulgaris means common. With so many species of Silene, it won’t surprise you that many of them are dioecious, many are broad-leaved and in many locations Bladder Campion is not the most common.
Description
I was surprised to find that over fifty species of Silene can be found in Britain. These three are fairly similar in appearance.
I am going to have to tell you about dioecious plants. Many plants have separate male and female flowers but for dioecious plants these are on separate plants. Each Red Campion plant is either male or female. Unusually for plants, with Red Campion the sex is determined in the same way as humans and many other animals. There is a pair of sex chromosomes, where females are XX and males are XY. They split and recombine so the male parent determines the sex of the offspring.
The flowers are very distinctive with five deeply notched petals (looking almost like ten petals,) open and flat but turning at their base into a deep urn-shaped calyx.
Male and female flowers are superficially similar. Those on the male plants have ten stamens and there are usually ten veins on calyx. Female flowers have five longer styles and usually twenty veins round the calyx.
I think the last picture is female and all the others are male.
The flowers of Silene latifolia, which is also dioecious, are similar to Red Campion but white.
Silene vulgaris has petals like White Campion but the calyx is inflated to an almost circular form, either white or light purple or pink.
Habitat
Red Campion us found through northern and central Europe and is very common through Britain.
White Campion is found over most of Europe, western Asia and northern Africa. It has also naturalized over most of the USA. In Britain it is widespread but much less common than Red Campion.
Bladder Campion is widespread across Europe and also North America. In many parts of Europe its shoots and leaves are eaten as green vegetables. In the UK it is less common than the other two species above, and is mostly found in the south.
Other Notes
Apparently Silene latifolia and Silene dioica hybridize easily and the resultant hybrid Silene x hampeana is fertile and very common. Apart from being a pinker shade of red, the hybrid is virtually identical to Silene dioica – so perhaps some of my pictures are the hybrid variety. To further add to the confusion, Red Campion sometimes has an albino variety described as whiter than White Campion!
The Species of Britain 