Ivy Broomrape

Day #26 of #30dayswild involved an early morning walk from our accommodation through the streets of Oxford to the village of Iffley, on the Thames or Isis. We didn't really expect to see very much of interest, but nature is all around, and proved us wrong. 

A shaded footpath near Florence Park had an enormous population of Ivy Broomrape, a species that doesn't occur round Peterborough, though is in Cambridge. This is a parasitic plant without chlorophyll, and thus totally dependent on its host, which is Ivy.

The towpath supported a surprisingly diverse flora, given that there was a wall along the edge of the river. The highly poisonous Hemlock Water-dropwort was frequent, growing alongside a range of both wetland species and species of dry conditions such as Chicory while the village of Iffley had some really nice stone walls, with a range of ferns including Rustyback.

We walked back through Florence Park, which is being managed sensitively for both people and nature. They clearly have a policy of retaining dead wood, and one tree sported a large bracket fungus as well as many holes of saproxylic beetles. These were being visited by parasitic wasps and we were able to watch the wasps carefully probing the holes with their ovipositors and laying eggs in the unsuspecting beetle larvae (see extra).