Burr Cucumber

Burr Cucumber (Sicyos angulata) is an invasive plant that loves summer sun and humidity, two things abundantly available on the Dordogne river banks. This plant from North America can be found in the West of Aquitaine since about fifty years and, following the rivers, it makes progress in the East. Slowly, in 2010 it had not yet arrived in Bergerac. But now there are also Burr Cucumbers in Coux et Bigaroque and maybe also further away.

It is a kind of monster, its creepers can reach more than 8 meters away. It covers the river banks and their vegetation, and it climbs...

... and climbs. In fact, it thrives like a cucumber or a pumpkin on the compost heap. As it should be for a member of the Cucurbitaceae family.

Until now there has not been a little morning frost this year, so Burr Cucumber goes on flowering.

It is not easy to find beauty in it, it is a messy plant, with its unkempt creepers and disheveled leaves that grow in any direction. But this is also a question of taste, is n't it?

The star-like fruits are festive, anyhow, like too-early christmas tree baubles.

In spite of its name the fruits do not look at all like cucumbers, nor are they edible. By contrast the leaves resemble much the leaves of a kitchen cucumber plant.

Common Michaelmas Daisy

Like dirty snow too early in the year. The banks of the Dordogne are covered in a mass of tiny white flowers. Common Michaelmas Daisy (Symphyotrichum x salignum) is an American and it looks like it is happy to be in France.

It colonizes the banks of rivers. It takes only a few years to cover a whole surface with dense and chaotic vegetation, by means of its rhizomes that go everywhere. An invasive species is supposed to make life difficult for indigenous species, thus Common Michaelmas Daisy is considered to be an invasive. Since 200 years it lives in France, but only recently it spreads really fast. Why? Maybe because the long and warm autumns of the last few years helped it grow and flower during a long time? Should you call it a pest? That would be exaggerated, or?

Large stalks stand up or lay down, here they are draped over a dead branch. They carry loose clusters of composite flowers.

 Ligulate flowers are whitish with often a tinge of pale lilac, and the tubular flowers, nearly invisible in the image, are yellow. The stem is more or less hairy.

In the background you see the trunks of some Ash-leaved Maples (Acer negundo), a very common tree in the river woodlands of the Dordogne. This one is also an invasive species of northamerican origins.