Ruderals in Manchester, England

 I flew into Manchester England for the start of a tour of Wales. It was September and I wondered whether any plants were still flowering. Awaiting the tour, I stayed at a hotel near the Manchester Airport, a very urban area. It was cloudy with intermittent rain. Nevertheless, I became restless and went out to look for plants (to "botanize"). 

willowherb, Epilobium

view of area behind Holiday Inn Manchester, England

Behind the Holiday Inn Mancheser, the land rose about three stories to a busy road. That very steep piece of land, maybe 20 yards wide if it had been flat, supported a diverse collection of plants. Only the lowest, flattest parts appeared to have any human interference, specifically mowing, and possibly some spraying with herbicides.

I called this post "ruderals." Ruderal means a plant growing in waste ground or among rubbish. It is not a common word in the United States. I learned it from my London-trained major professor in graduate school. But it doesn't carry the baggage of "weed," weeds being defined as plants interfering with some human activity. And it fits here; this was indeed a neglected space receiving little human attention. 

The area was very diverse, as you can see from all the different leaves in the photo below.

a look at the ground, with many different plants

There were certainly plants that were past flowering. The photo below was taken for the dark brown dock (Rumex) in the center, but you can see other plants in seed there as well 

plants past flowering

And there were other plants without flowers. Here are leaves of Rubus, known as brambles in England, called blackberries or raspberries (etc.) in North America (rose family, Rosaceae). The stems and leaves have prickles making them unpleasant to encounter, despite the edible fruits. I saw no fruits here and, growing across the ground not over the vegetation, they were easy to avoid. 

Bramble, Rubus

These leafy plants have no flowers on these, ever. They are Equisetum, horsetails, also called scouring rushes, plants from a lineage older that plants with flowers (Equisetum has a cool life-cycle, very different from flowering plants. Read more in link). 

Equisetum, horsetails 

I found lots of species still in flower. I rather expected that. England has a mild climate: September highs in Manchester were 62 ^o F, lows to 50 ^o F, average monthly rainfall 3.2", good growing conditions for many plants. 

There were the plantagos, common in trampled areas around the world but native to Europe:

broadleaf plaintain, Plantago major

I don't see any open flowers in the photo above, just developing fruit, but below, the fringe around the flowerstalks of narrowleaf plantain, Plantago lanceolata, are the open flowers. 

This is self-heal (Prunella vulgaris, mint family, Lamiaceae), its purple flowers seen from above. 

Also flowering was black medic, Medicago lupulina (pea family, Fabaceae, recent blog about it link)

Black medic, Medicago lupulina 

This plant of common ragwort, Jacobaea vulgaris (sunflower family, Asteraceae) had many flowers open. Common ragworts were in fact quite common, but most plants were much smaller than this or no longer flowering.

Common ragwort, Jacobaea vulgaris

When I started out, it was lightly raining, the vegetation was wet, and the air cool. You can see the water drops on this white clover (Trifolium repens, pea family, Fabaceae, native to Europe). I saw a few flowers on other white clover plants.

white clover, Trifolium repens

By the time I had climbed up and down across most of the area, the sun was starting to appear through the clouds. So, as I was leaving, flowers that close when it is cool, were opening, like the wild lettuce (Lactuca, sunflower family Asteraceae).

yellow flowers of wild lettuce (Lactuca) opening

One of the plants I especially liked discovering was creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens, buttercup family Ranunculaceae). It is an annoying weed in the United States, but a European plant with a very pretty flower.

creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens)

There were pink/purple flowerheads of field thistle (Cirsium arvense, called Canada thistle in the United States) with open flowers. Another pretty European native that is a major North American weed. (The yellow flowerheads in the photo below are wild lettuce, Lactuca).

field thistle also called Canada thistle,
Cirsium arvense

Here also was scentless false mayweed, Matricaria chamomila (sunflower family, Asteraceae), one of many plants that look a lot like daisies, with white ray florets and yellow disc florets. (floret = tiny flower) 

scentless false mayweed, Matricaria chamomila

I saw these tiny treasures. Here, the tiny blue flowers of a forget-me-not (Myosotis, perhaps Myosotis arvensis, field forget-me-not, borage family, Boraginaceae, England has several species) peek out from the vegetation. Some places in North America they are weedy, but this is their home.

forget-me-not (Myosotis)

And a stork's bill, Erodium, likely E. cicutarium (geranium family, Geraniaceae). The flowers are small but not tiny and the bright color makes them stand out. Note the brown "stork's bill" seed pod in the upper left. (Another European native you can find in waste areas across the world these days.)

stork's bill, Erodium

There were many more. I have photos of at least 28 species, 18 species in flower. 

In a very busy urban location, I found all kinds of interesting plants. It helped that some were cosmopollitan weeds, easy for me to recognize. We tend to disparage weedy species but many of them grow all around the world, having followed humans. This means that if you know some weeds, even in places where many plants are unknowns, there will be a few "friendly faces."  (In case you were wondering, there were dandelions--the ubiquitous Taraxacum officinale--growing here, but I did not see one in flower.)

A final photo. The two tall plants are wild lettuce, growing some 6' (2 meters) high. They had lots of developing fruit but also flowers that opened after I took the photo, later in the morning, when it was warmer.

big wild lettuce plants

Ruderals readily become weeds, or many weeds are ruderals, but this piece of vacant land was their proper place and it was great fun botanizing there.

Comments and corrections welcome.

References

Identifications are as good as the resources you have. I began with Apple's Mac's Photos' Visual Look Up and checked it against online collections of photos of that plant. That makes me pretty comfortable about the genus of the plant, but many places have several members of the same genus (lots of wild lettuce species, for example) and identifying to the species needs more information than I gathered. 

Readers' Digest Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of Britain. 1981. Readers Digest Publications. London. 

Kathy Keeler, A Wandering Botanist
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