Arcadia Discussion Zone

rs2008 says:


But they weren't bright red for ages rs, only for the Autumn presumably!

Now what about the blue berries, I wonder?

Regards to all

Wombat.

Sorry, Wombat, I had a good look through my plant books earlier this morning, trying to identify the blue-berried conifer, and got nowhere. The berries made me think of Juniper, but the foliage is wrong. Can't so far find a match for the needle shape and shade with the berries and their colour. Abies or Pinus family, I would think, but not at all sure what that is. Have a couple more books at home to check, with very detailed foliage illustrations, so I'll have another try later.

http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgu ... N%26um%3D1

Juniper berry





I've never actually seen one. Hope this helps.

Too right it does. I was completely wrong. I think that is a Juniper after all, Wombat.

Great call, Rain.

Rain - Do you have a reference for the specific type of Juniper that photo is of? There are so many different ones, and I only really know the columnar type ones we get in the UK. Cheers.

No but it seems to be the one used for aromatherapy, probably because of it's low wild growth, semi prostrate.

Botanical: Juniperus communis
Family: Cupressaceae (cypress) - Coniferae (conifer)
Other common names: Common Juniper, Ginepro, Enebro, Ground Juniper, Hackmatack,Horse Savin

The first one kind of reminds me of a fuscia or hibiscus type flower bud. It may be a localised, wild variation. I can't tell with the photo.

Very fuchsia-like, I agree, right shaped flowers, keeps them well into autumn, too. Could well be .....

richard.webster, rain, rs.

Wonderful. That is a significant advance on where I was.

What great Forumites we have here; humorous, perspicacious, persistent and very helpful.

Now to get that Fusia taped.

Thank you.

Regards to all

Wombat.

rain said:

and, richard.webster sais:


Here's a better shot of another specimen in the same vicinity:


Still not the shot of an expert, but better than the others.

On what you have suggested above I think it could be Fuschia magellanica.

That will tentatively satisfy me, unless you have another thought. Thanks again.

Regards to all

Wombat.

Apologies if this is an incredibly daft question, given that you actually took the photos, but are those definitely flowers and not fruits? They look more fruit like. And given that it's dropped its leaves, would make more sense for the fruit to be there than flowers. Fruits would open up so many more possibilities, like some deciduous Berberis, for example.

Fushias have such a bewildering number of varieties - most of them red!

richard.webster wrote:


Well r.w I think you are correct. It was only when I returned home and started writing up the detail of the diary that I focused on these little gems. My assumption was flowers - but I am now convinced that your greater powers of observation have nailed them, and as Berberis, too. Probably Berberis vulgaris.



Berberis vulgaris (European barberry)/( Jaundice berry)/( Ambarbaris) is a shrub in the family Berberidaceae, native to central and southern Europe, northwest Africa and western Asia; it is also naturalised in northern Europe, including the British Isles and Scandinavia, and North America.
It is a deciduous shrub growing up to 4 m high. The leaves are small oval, 2-5 cm long and 1-2 cm broad, with a serrated margin; they are borne in clusters of 2-5 together, subtended by a three-branched spine 3-8 mm long. The flowers are yellow, 4-6 mm across, produced on 3-6 cm long panicles in late spring. The fruit is an oblong red berry 7-10 mm long and 3-5 mm broad, ripening in late summer or autumn; they are edible but very sour, and rich in Vitamin C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berberis_vulgaris

Any advance on Berberis vulgaris?

Thank you again

Regards to all

Wombat.

Looks good. The only thing I would worry about is your picture doesn't show a clustering effect of the fruit? I looked at the pictures elsewhere on the net and they seem to have th clusters like grapes. Maybe if there any french botanists, you could send the pic to for analysis.
If you examine your stem Wombat I can see a bi-colouration of both green and red which is also unusual.

Thanks rain.

It is a lovely little mystery. We are in your Medieval garden's labyrinth. If we can't solve this one, what chance do we have with the big one?

I am inclined to richard. webster's view that it is a fruit , and probably B. vulgaris.

The pair at the rear (in the most recent shot) of the singular fruit/whatever, seem to confirm the "borne in clusters of 2-5 together" description in my post above. But hey, I failed Botany decades ago, so these days I go with the phloem!

Regards to all

Wombat.

P.S. Sue McDougall's nematodes are not in the picture, rs.

Another possibility, could those red berries be rose hips?

Rose hips picked earlier (south-west England):

richard.webster wrote:


Thanks r.w.

Blimey! These are hard questions. Any chance of a Viva Examination?

At this point I need to quote John Maynard Keynes (who also was not a Botanist): "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

They look like Rose Hips to me. Maybe I need to revisit the site, next year?

Regards to all

Wombat.

Look at the leaf structure is that from the same plant or another underlying plant Wombat?
Did you pick any of the fruit and dissect it. The internal structure would give a clue.

Things to look up: http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgu ... 3%26um%3D1


Huckleberry.

We're going to crack this wide open.

rain says:


Indeed we are, rain.

The problem I have is that I was looking for other things when I took this photograph and hence it was only when I returned home and had my interest stimulated by this thread that I focused on the plants. This little red devil has me really interested now that I don't know what it is.

I didn't pick it. I didn't dissect it. After all, wombat eats roots and leaves, and its leaves had fallen off! So where does that leave me?

But I'm confident that we'll definitely crack it.

Regards to all

Wombat.

http://www.nedfern.nl/www/photo/usa/u-s-a.htm

Wombat it could be an asparagus
very rare


Asparagus densiflorus

It blooms and berries on its own schedule, if at all, and furthermore the berries and sap are a little poisonous. In this, as in other respects, it doesn’t follow the rules.

That doesn’t stop us from appreciating the asparagus fern as a very beautiful foliage plant and, if it should bloom and berry, all the better.

The first rule it doesn’t follow is in how it is named. It is not a fern at all. Probably eons ago someone called it a fern because it looked like one, and the name stuck. But its flowers, seeds and berries place is squarely among the angiosperms, the large family of flowering plants unrelated to the ferns. It is, in fact, related to the vegetable asparagus, and they belong to their own botanical family – Asparagaceae!

We have this over here and it's a pest our council puts out wanted posters on it.

It's berrys are are to rounded and the leaves don't correlate.

Wombat I found a photo of Barberry's that show less of the cluster feature. Thought we'd compare.

Here's a nice clustering effect; took this up in the woods a week or so ago, before I saw Wombat's photo, which then reminded me of this.



I'm not sure what it is, some kind of Sorbus, maybe, and I'm sure a different plant to Wombat's though the berries are obviously similar. But as far as clustering is concerned, maybe it's hard to judge with the Languedoc photo, as we might be seeing it in its depleted form. The ground could have been covered in dropped berries, for example.

Another nice medieval garden to add to Rain's thread - local to me, the very tiny, and very pretty, Queen Eleanor Garden. The link has a few photos.

http://www.cityofwinchester.co.uk/parks ... eanor.html

And a good book I've been reading over the weekend.

The Medieval Garden, by Sylvia Landsberg.



http://www.amazon.co.uk/Medieval-Garden ... 949&sr=1-1

More red berries. Kennet and Avon Canal. Bath, UK. 2004.



As I go through my shots I am surrounded by these little red devils.
This is going to be tougher than I thought.

Regards

Wombat.

I go with Rain's Barberries....that's the one....well spotted.

Richard. .... your bush is a Spindle tree btw, we have lots out here.