Botany and Black in Nature – Denzil’s Nature Challenge

Walking around Navasola this morning as the heat rises from 21 degrees to 28 by 11.am I am struck more by the incredible greenness of so much around me. Thankfully this year there has been rain in the spring and a last late shower in June.

Navasola from the bent over pine at 28 degrees July 19 th 2023

For Denzil’s nature challenge I look for the black berries of viburnum tinus but these are still grey. The brambles may provide blackberries by early Autumn. I try and check the wild peony seeds but these are mainly still encased in their moist green seed pods.

I overlook the wild carrot because it is everywhere and gleaming white lace like flowers. I marvel at its ability to be the main flowering plant of the drought times and heat of July and August. And then I notice the tiny blackness in the middle. So for Denzil’s black nature challenge I give you Ms Daucus Carota the wild carrot.

Daucus carota with black or purple black centre July 19 th 2023

This black centre has made us ponder but I can not find a labelled botanical drawing. From the Kew website there is a lot of information. Daucus carota comes from the middle lands of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq. And is referred to in the gardens of Babylon. Brought over to Spain in the 12 th century and finally developed into the cultivated orange carrots we know in the Netherlands. And so it seems nowadays the world produces megatons of carrots.

This flower also supports the life cycle of the swallowtail butterfly who indeed has black markings. But have not seen one today.

swallowtail at Navasola

Daucus carota seen July 19 th 2023. Some are in full bloom like the one with the black centre. The early smaller flowers do not as yet have a dark centre. Others have transformed into the amazing nest that will stick to animals and be moved far and near!

But what about this colour concept of blackness? Kew references the centre as a purple flower. We think this one here looks quite black.

What else is black or shows some black at Navasola. There is the black carpenter bee but not seen today. It maybe too hot for them and for the bumble bees with their black stripes. So many birds here have black markings, eye strikes or caps. There should also be black kites around and rare black vultures near Aroche. But maybe the blackest are the male blackbirds and the ravens that fly overhead to a big roosting place near Cortegana castle.

Carpenter bee on viburnum flowers February

Carpenter bee on Rosemary, early April

This all leads me back to my novel The Call of the Wild Valley whose key female non human protagonists are the black kite, Milvana and Buff the buff tailed bumble bee.

Buff tailed bumblebee

Saving a bumblebee January 2016

Black cap by quince tree in Castaño Del Robledo

Blackbird by Ruth Koenigsberger *

I also have the links to Africa as all the messenger birds have homes there too. Nana G used to work in Africa and I think we should honour Africa as our first motherland. In some of my research the Congo basin in the heart of Africa contains incredible diversity of species. And even though homo sapiens is one species there is the richest genetic diversity there among all the different human groups. This and other evidence shows how we and maybe most species we know today emerged and migrated out of Africa.

High wire young ones getting ready to fly from the Algarve to somewhere in Africa.

Young house martins ready to leave Cabanas for Africa September 2015.

We have just about finished the serialisation of Part 0ne and it will stay on the google blogger website for a while. The whole novel is due to be published in November.

This has the last two episodes showing. But you can get back to the beginning or where you left off.

http://www.navaselvathecallofthewildvalley.com/?m=1

For the beginning of all the episodes

http://www.navaselvathecallofthewildvalley.com/2023/05/introduction-and-episode-1.html?m=1#comment-form

Do take a peek preview and Bridge House Publishing welcomes reviews so far and comments. I too would love to hear from you and do comment on my blog too. Or email.

Bridge House Publishing

https://www.bridgehousepublishing.co.uk/

* Ruth Koenigsberger, artist who has drawn some of the characters and places in Call of the Wild Valley, and I have shown her work in various blog posts.

Denzil’s Nature Challenge

https://denzilnature.com/

The extraordinary in the ordinary!

Having ignored taking any photos of all these common white flowers, one had to suddenly appear, larger than most, brightening up the view by our house and building site.

 

 

These wild white folk are abundant on the Finca late July and August. Some amazing red striped bugs also find some of them very attractive! Possibly the sap or are they laying eggs in the dried up flower head ?

 

Who are these common folk found all over Europe? And recently seen in the North of England. Well, we love their cultivated cousins and chop, chew and boil their orange roots. How did the wild one help us create the very edible one?

 

June and July wild flowers on path up to the Era at Navasola.

June and July flowers on path up to the Era. The walk up to the Era is another of my favourite places and can be seen from the windows on the south side of the house. The era is where any grain grown would have been threshed way back in the past. The bit of the sculpture shown was done by the previous owner and is now rather worse for wear but still a lizard! The flowers shown are really loved by the butterflies and I have been using the book shown to try and identify accurately. The path and now wildflower meadow on the era is full of common century and field scabious, possibly knautia integrefolia and not knautia arvensis. It is quite a study to try and look very carefully at the leaves and shapes of the flowers. It is amazing the variety within a small area.

Field Scabious

The era, the old threshing area with lots of stones underneath the wild flowers and now butterfly heaven!

Part of Margaret Claddo’s lizard sculpture at back of the era.

Butterfly and wild flower books to help in identification

Common Centaury