So we’re back in one piece from St David’s after two weeks of sun, biblical rain and gales. This souvenir photo is of a big moment when I finally found a plant I’ve been looking for, misidentifying and hunting for years. As you see, it’s on the side of a road – freshly surfaced with very sticky tar and gravel which got into my shoes and on my trousers – and regularly traversed at speed by eager tourists hunting for somewhere to park 20mm closer to the sea. Whilst I was on my knees and elbows trying to photograph the plant the farmer whose house I was outside drove out and asked if I was alright. Two carloads of eager puffin hunters paused and wound down their windows to see if I was alive – all in a day’s work for a plant hunter – but I was sustained by my excitement at finding a not particularly rare plant that over the past two weeks we’d walked miles looking for. I’d even been told that it was there by the local County Recorder but three holidays later I’d still never seen it.
Not being a mild natured and placid sort of person I’d taken the previous knockbacks to heart, gracelessly cross with myself but more determined than ever to nail it and on the very last day of the trip I was crossing the road next to the campsite to empty a heavy cassette of – you don’t need to know – when in the midst of the hedgerow chaos I spotted a single white flower clinging on within inches of the traffic, the tarmac and the predation of strimming. Here it is:
It’s a Dwarf Mallow – not a Common Mallow or a Tree Mallow or a Musk Mallow or any of the several closely related Mallows – including the Marsh Mallow (yes really!) that I’ve found in the past. But Malva neglecta. Who says field botany isn’t exciting! I reckon getting the pictures, closing the ID and cataloguing the plant was a lot more rewarding than hunting for seabirds that aren’t there and getting seasick for £25 a pop. I may be wrong but apart from the obvious dangers of getting run over and ruining a decent pair of trousers, that single chance encounter whilst holding an over-full cludger was one of those unforgettable moments. In fact I can remember the exact places where I found its cousins; the Musk Mallow in July 2016 on the canal side, the Tree mallows on the clifftops in Wales and Cornwall, the Common Mallows which gave me so much grief, on the coast path down to Whitesands beach, because they vary so much in height and general jizz according to their situation. So after miles and miles of walking, it turned out to be 100 yards from where we’d parked the campervan. I’m reminded of Robert Frost’s little couplet:
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me.
Anyway, here – spread over at least ten years are some family photos
