At Strangleford: Beautiful Bracken x

I have a love, hate relationship with Bracken. I love the structural form of it. I love that it reminds me of the early Fox Talbot sun prints. I love that its a prehistoric plant and still standing over 55 million years later.

I love its autumn colours more than any other plant. It does this slow changing thing. It shrivels up its fonds into dried brown curly tendrils. You think its dying back, but its so not. Its putting its energy into its roots. The part that expands ferociously in the spring. Its the top plant. The titanium of plants. Nothing successfully knocks it back.

I have friends that 'Braken Bash' with heavy horses pulling heaving crimping rollers. The bruising of the bracken at least makes it suffer so much that expanding its growth is slower. Its perseverance and relentlessness annoys me, yet secretly I admire it.

Its just doing what it was doing 55 million years ago. Its we that can't tolerate it, because we need the grass and soil to farm, not the bracken. The Bracken is a reminder that even man can't change everything, and theres some beauty in that x