holiday on St Martin’s in the Scilly Isles at the end of May showed that the lack of rainfall had not been limited to the south east of the country. The Scillies are renowned for their beautiful, golden, sandy beaches and mild climate washed as they are by the Gulf Stream. There has been a shortage of rainfall although, so far, it does not seem to have affected the wild flowers. One of these is an alien species that goes by the name of the Hottentot Fig (Carpobrotus edulis) with carpo meaning fruit and brotus meaning edible from Greek and edulis from Latin also meaning edible. So, there is no 
doubt that the fruit is edible and the taste is said to be slightly acidic. The plant was named after the Hottentots who were an aboriginal race of people native to the south of South Africa. It is a member of the mesembranthemum family and in Cornwall it is known by the corruption of this word as Sally-my-handsome but there are a number of other names such as Highway ice plant or Pigface. The Hottentot Fig is a succulent with triangular shaped leaves and yellow or bright pink flowers. It is low growing often forming huge, eye catching mats of colour that carpet the cliff-sides particularly in the Cornwall. However, this plant is a problem because it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It has spread around the world to places such as New Zealand where it is classified as "an unwanted plant” and California and Australia where it has proved to be highly invasive. Here in the UK, in 2010, it was added to the banned plant schedule of the Wildlife & Countryside Act. Yet another banned plant that grows in the West Country and particularly the Scilly Isles is the three cornered garlic (Allium triquetrum) which has drooping, white flowers with green markings in April and May and when crushed underfoot gives off a very strong smell of garlic, hence its name Stinking onion. Talking of garlic there is a beautiful pink flowered species that grows along roadsides on the islands, once again this comes from the Mediterranean - it is known as the Rosy garlic and the pink flower heads develop bulbils of the same colour about 3mms in size.
The Scillies also provide an opportunity to see a very wide range of sea-birds including guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, oystercatchers, sandpipers, shags and the graceful gannets with their distinctive vertical dive in which they fold their wings before entering the water to catch fish. If you are really lucky, as we were, you could see storm petrels, nocturnal birds, at or just after dusk. On the outer islands such as Annet there are puffins and Manx shearwaters and in quiet bays it is possible to see grey seals either feeding or lounging on the rocks.
Back on home turf the pond in the cleared section of woodland on Outwood Common has been colonised by Common water crowfoot (Ranunculus aquatilis) which a member of the buttercup family and Brooklime (Veronica beccabunga) on the Millers Lane side. The former is also known as Bacon & Eggs which is a reference to the flowers which have white petals with a bright yellow centre whilst the latter has small bright blue flowers with a white eye. Also, blooming on the opposite side of the pond were yellow flag iris (Iris pseudocorus) aka Sheep Shears which alludes to the sword shape of the leaves.
The drought finally broke after a period of about ten weeks with just over 25mm of rain falling on 5 and 6 June.
Mike Johnson
