The fern in the cotton mask

Days which improve as they go on have to be good! After a drizzly morning when we tried to work out how the locks worked on our 'new' car, we set off down to the town in brightening weather to go to the post office and buy a paper. After a visit to Oxfam where (shhh) I bought a couple of books, we came home the country way, through the Benvoullin woods. 

Along the street approaching the woodland path I noticed a small Asplenium scolopendrium growing at the base of a wall among the self-sown hebes and willowherbs. These Hart's Tongue ferns are known among the cognoscenti as 'scollies'. This tiny sporeling had a couple of divided frond tips so might possibly turn out to be different, so I pulled it out (OK, naughty, but it would probably be sprayed off when somebody gets round to it) and looking for something to wrap it in found my face mask in my pocket, due for a wash anyway. Always good to use something for two different purposes if possible!

Quote of the Day:

Ken Kesey – “Plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom.”