Water Finger-grass

This little tropical grass feels at home in Perigord, and more and more also in other places. Water Finger-grass (Paspalum distichum) grows in wet places where the water level changes often, as here in a dead river branch of the Dordogne.

It is considered as a pest because it can cover a large surface in a short period, thanks to its runners that, well, seem to run. It grows so fast other wetland plants can't compete with it. It does not survive cold weather, but last winters haven't been that cold. Ducks, (mallards and other wild duck species) eat it, anyhow.

It is easy to recognize when in flower, and its flowering season goes on from early summer  until November. Every stalk carries two ears, each with dark red pistils and stamina.

The sheaths of new leaves are flattened and sometimes reddish with long white hairs. There is no membraneaous appendice - a ligule - where the sheath ands and the leafs begins

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Yarrow

It has rained and the weather has been mild this October, so Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) flowers again. Yarrow is a common plant in grassy and sunny spots, in meadows and roadsides. Stalks of plants that are flowering now are not as long as those in summer, maybe because they have less time to grow high.

The flowers seem to grow in umbels, the little branches that carry flowers all arrive at the same height. With 'real' umbellifers, members of the Apiaceae family, those branches depart all from the same spot at the top of the stalks or branches. Here it is different. Yarrow belongs to another plant family, Asteraceae.

Typical for Asteraceae are composite flowers. That what looks like a flower is in fact a flowerhead made from several small tubular and/or ligulate flowers. In Yarrow, tens of flower heads form together a kind of umbel. Every flower head has three or five ligular flowers with each a round white petal, and in their midst some cream-colored tubular flowers. So there are hundreds of flowers if you count them all.

The leaves are visible nearly all year round. If the grass is mowed the blade does not hurt them  and later on the plant can produce new flowering stems. The leaves are finely divided, so it looks like there are hundreds of leaves also.



 

Field Elm

Autumn leaves begin to fall, and the Field Elm (Ulmus minor) is not late.

Its leaves are toothed and lopsided at their base, but this feature is not visible in the picture above.

For that matter, Field Elm is a tree (or bush) full of symmetry and evenness. The leaves are spaced at equal distances on branches...

... and, then, the little branches are also spaced at equal distances on bigger branches.

On those young trees in winter attire the branches look thick. No, it is not a disease of the bark, it is suberisation. This phenomenen can be found also on other tree species, as the Field Maple (Acer campestre). Crests of cork or thickened bark develop along the boughs. Why? We don't know exactly, may be it as a protection against cold or damage by predators. It seems the tree does not suffer from it.

Anyhow, it is not a symptom of Dutch elm disease, a fungal infection transmitted by a bark beetle, that has led to the dead of many Elm trees all over Europe. Dutch elm disease gives also bark symptoms, but you recognize it mainly because big branches begin to shed leaves  and die.

Sometimes you hear saying that Field Elms went practically extinct because of this disease. In fact, this is not true, you still can find many trees, and especially bushes. Mainly isolated trees have survived. Also the diseasy attacks only bigger branches and trunks, new growths are not affected. Also the number of Scolytus beetles (the vector) seems to have gone down in the last years.

In Perigord Field Elm is very common in hedgerows and wood edges, it is also one of the first ligneous plants that appears in abandoned formerly cultivated fields.

Flowering season is early, light green oval fruits appear in March-April, at the same time as  new leaves.