Release the Bracken

Generally speaking, Bracken suffers a lot of bad press. I mean, just look at it - massively invasive, often blanketing hillsides and smothering meadows, resistant to all but the most rigorous eradication attempts, full of nasty horrible deer ticks and it even smells weird. Horrible stuff.

Well yeah, fair enough, but it does have plenty of good points too, including being the sole foodplant of assorted wee critters, a few of which I found today. Below are the feeding signs of various fly larvae - most, if not all, of which can probably be found on a Bracken patch near you. 

Leafmine of Chirosia histricina. Spot the larva yet?

Click here to view a page all about Chirosia histricina.

Chirosia grossicauda feeding signs

Underside view of the same frond

And click here to read all about Chirosia grossicauda.

Little Black Pudding Galls (Dasineura filicina)

Click here to be taken to a page about Dasineura filicina.

Whilst checking the Bracken for galls and mines I spotted a great many Broad Buckler-ferns with heavily galled terminal tips, as can be seen in this image

Chirosia betuleti on Broad Buckler-fern

And you can click here if you want to read up on Chirosia betuleti.

A bit later in the year I shall be looking out for various microfungi that grow on Bracken stems, plus there are a couple more species of flies that could occur on the Bracken up here. There's also a species of planthopper that lives solely on Bracken. I've seen it in England but not up here. Yet.

My ol' mate Tony is coming up from Hampshire in just over a week's time from now. He produced a Hitlist of species he wanted to see last time he was here. I'm fully expecting an updated Hitlist for this trip too. This was on his list of targets last time, hopefully it's on the new list too because they're looking bloody marvellous at the moment.

Melancholy Thistle, what a beaut!

During my 'extensive' research regards this blogpost's title, I discovered that the Kraken (mostly of Clash of the Titans fame) has nothing at all to do with Greek mythology. Perseus slayed the cetus, not the kraken. Zeus was obviously having a bad day when he famously announced "Release the Kraken" Whales and dolphins are collectively known as cetaceans, a word derived from cetus. The Kraken is a Norse belief, typically taking the form of an enormous squid, big enough to pull a ship under. Not sure how it worked its way into Clash of the Titans, but somebody fkkd up bigtime.

And if you thought that was impressive....