Collecting Herbaceous Plants

Clump Forming, Perennial Wild Flowers

Today I am driving about, round lanes, close to Tavistock; looking for large clump forming, perennial, herbaceous roadside wild plants.

With motorised transport, there are obvious disadvantages, as opposed to using a bicycle or walking, since you can only stop in lay-buys and when you are zooming along; it is much harder to see whats growing in the hedges.  But at least with motorised transport; I can get to where I want to get to in the first place.  I have been without my motorbike for a while now. It's so good to have it back now.  The same, of course goes for my computer and camera phone;  I need my devices and my gadgets.  I have managed to do quite allot without these things, but I couldn't write about any of it on here.

Flea Bane Pulicaria-Dysenterica

This plant is a common sight in hedgerows, road verges and on the sides of ditches.  They spread with 2mm thick underground white rhizomes and form thick clumps, with the flowering stems reaching about a metre in height, in the late Summer.  The leaves are a bit furry.

I am trying a two pronged approach with this plant; collecting both seeds as well as rooted chunks.

They defiantly like it on the moors, because there is one clump that I know of up there, at 460 metres above sea level, on the lane up to the radio mast, which I refer to as 'Pipdaffs Lane'.  I possibly did plant them, but I couldn't say for sure, but the main thing is; it proves that they like it up there. 

Now what I need to do is increase the range, where they grow on Dartmoor and to increase the genetic diversity.  Speaking of which; there are quite a few subspecies of Flea bane.  They are also very closely related to the Inula family, which is another big group of yellow Daisy-like things.  They do well on Dartmoor to, and by all accounts they drive away fleas and mosquitoes.

Hemp Agrimony Eupatorium Cannabinum

A common roadside, edge of woodland plant, it's quite shade tolerant.  Flowers late Summer, about a metre tall, but can get bigger.  The seeds are wind borne and erupt from the heads shortly after flowering. 

It's got 'Hemp' in it's name, because it possesses some similar properties to Hemp, but you can't get stoned on it and it's certainly not a direct relative. 

I know that generally it would be considered to be a bit early to dig up plants. normally this would be so, but these are tough wild weeds.  All the buds for next year's growth; are formed and ready to go.  So reckon they'll grow!

In the dormant season; I try and devote as much of my time to planting trees as possible, so I want to get these wild plants done now.  Also, when these herbaceous plants die back; it is very difficult to tell were they are or what they are, because all you are left with at that time of the year is dead sticks. 
I would not have collected these plants earlier in the year, when they were still growing, but now that they are coming to the end of their flowering season, they are just ready to die back and will be ok.

I cut the stems back to about 12cm and brought the flower heads too, they will still erupt into seed, as with Dandelions and Thistles; even when separated from the parent plant and with no obvious source of water.

Meadow Sweet Filipendula Ulmaria

I have mentioned Meadow Sweet many times and collected a great deal of it this year, so I wont say much about it here.

Collected a bit more from a few new sites and observed that their seeds are almost ready for me to collect some.