Mushrooms make the French ill.

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August 9 2011.    In the past three weeks, 94 mms (nearly four inches) of rain has fallen.  After the heat and drought of the previous months, this has resulted in a flush of toadstools of many species.  Many of the French who retain a strong folk memory of starvation on a diet of  snails, thrushes and toadstools, take advantage of this glut and invade the countryside to collect and eat.  Unfortunately for them, the folk memory does not tell them the difference between the edible and the toxic.
Within the past two weeks the Centre of  Toxicology  at Toulouse has had a flood of inquiries on toadstool poisoning.  Eight people were hospitalised at Cahors, four at St. Céré, two at Figeac.  Village pharmacists all have a training in toadstool recognition,  but few are thoroughly knowledgeable.
The local paper says that the usual culprit was the Satan's mushroom.   What they should have eaten were the cepes.

To the left is the Satan.
It has a pale top about the size of a large dinner plate.The stem is fat and mostly red and the flesh is a bright yellow which changes to blue when cut. The pores below the cap are bright red.
The  cepe is on the right.   They can also be large, though usually a little smaller than the Satan. It is a brown colour. The pores begin white and turn to dirty yellow as they age.  The stem is also a pale brown and the flesh is white and hardly changes when it is cut.  The stem also has a net like pattern on it.   I add that the stem of Satan's toadstool also has a net on it, though in that case the net is whitish yellow on a reddish background.

A basket of cepes

It is almost impossible for anyone but a total innocent to mistake the two.  I suspect that the newspaper journalists don't know the cepe from the others either!  The unfortunate people probably ate something else. 
One can quite easily make mistakes of identification with other genera of toadstools, but anyone who is not certain should never eat any toadstool.
The cepes fetch large prices at the markets - ten euros a kilo is not exceptional.  They are not worth it.  Always, I guarantee it,  if one shows a French person some toadstools in a wood or field, they ask "Can you eat it?".  I reply - "You can eat any toadstool once!"

Weather May-June 2011

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The drought continued. The hay crop was only 9 inches high.  There is a request for anyone with a hay field going to waste to help out the farmers. There are quite a few English, Dutch and Belgian  owners who do not use their fields.  Of course they just revert to woodland.  We allow the hay on our fields to be taken by our neighbouring farmer.   It keeps our view open and we get a good variety of pasture flowers.  The hay was cut just into July and yielded less than three bales.  Last year there were 13 bales.

The orchids this year were almost non-existent, because of the drought.

The rainwater cistern of 42 cubic metres capacity is almost dry.  We have not been able to water the plants since mid June.  Since my daughter Rachel is growing cut flowers for sale, this is a serious matter.

During the first week of May we had the 'Vent d'Autan'.  This is a powerful wind from the South East, rather like the Mistral in Provence.  Fortunately it is not a frequent occurrence (unlike the Mistral, which can spoil any holiday in Provence!). It can be caused either by cyclonic conditions over Spain or anticyclonic weather over mid France. The wind is funnelled from Narbonne to Toulouse and then up through the departément of the Lot.

A hare seems to have made itself at home near to the house.  If one approaches, it hunkers down and pretends that you cannot see it.  If you get about six feet away it then takes off.

Bimonthly Weather Report March April 2011

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March began cold.  The beautiful early flowering St. John's Plum tree did not flower until March 8th.  This wild tree whose fruit in midsummer makes the most excellent jam is often in flower in February (19th February in 2008).

Other flowers were also late - daffodils 14th March, celandines 18 March.  These dates represent a fairly full flowering.  

Our last ground frost was March 20th.

The cuckoo was heard on March 16th.

But then at the very end of March the temperatures rose significantly.

Summer temperatures came in the first week of April. 

the first Orchis morio was seen on April 3rd.

The 6th April we saw the butterflies -Scarce Swallowtail and Orange tip.

The hoopoe was heard on April 1st.  The nightingale on April 25th. It was a few days earlier heard at Lavercantière about 10 km away.

But April saw the beginning of a drought.  Only 4 mm. of rain fell in the month.

It was the driest and warmest April in the last few years.  

April 2010 rainfall was 13 max temp. 19.6 ; in 2009 -168 mm. and 16.2 degrees.

Our rainwater reservoir is in full use for watering the flower crop and our vegetables.

Bimonthly Weather Report

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January was decidedly warmer than those of 2009 and 2010.

Min temps. in order 2.06, 0.58, and this year 2.87

Max temps. 7.23, 4.46, and 8.23

February continued similarly

Min temps. 3.87, 1.93 and 4.14

Max temps. 10.08, 7.96, and 11.07

However the numbers of night frosts showed no trend.  2010 had more frosts.  In 2011 no snow fell in January/February.

Nature..

The 1st Viola odorata  was in flower on the 1st January. The 1st snowdrop on the 16th January (as in 2009 and 2008)  I was glad to see the local wild snowdrops which I transplanted to the edge of our lower woodland produced 8 flowers on February 7th (3 in 2010 on February 19th).  It is always several degrees colder in the valley bottom.  

Celandines in flower on 28th February.

On the 25th February a skein  of about 50 Cranes flew North-East (1st March in 2010).  

A Feather Beetle

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Searching a sample of leaf litter which had accumulated in a ditch beneath oak trees, I found this odd little beast.

Its name takes up more room than the animal. It is less than one millimetre in length and you can only make out its structure with a microscope.

You cannot make out the details of the body because it is too opaque for the microscope. You may make out enough of the shape to see that it is an insect.

The remarkable structure is the great feathery excrescence at the end of the body. The books say that this represents  its wings. There are a large number of ‘cilia’ projecting from each side of the two central axes. These 'cilia' appear to be hollow. Each cilium has fine projections along the length.

What can be their function? I discover in a Russian journal [Zoologičeskij žurnal 2008, vol 87 pp 181-188] that A.A. Polilov has examined the structure of these beetles, but little more is known. He found that many internal organs are severely reduced (even allowing for the minute size). He says..(I quote) ..”The most important among them are the following: the absence of midgut muscles, reduction of two malpighian tubules (i.e. the nitrogenous excretory organs), the decrease in the number of abdominal stigmas (i.e. breathing pores), the strong reduction of the tracheal system (respiratory system), the absence of the heart, reduction of the circulatory system …”. He also lists reduction of the nervous system.

This information may help us to surmise what the function is. The ‘cilia’ appear to be hollow and empty.  It would seem unlikely that the cilia replace the excretory system. We know that the respiratory system of breathing pores and the air tubes (the tracheae) are reduced. Is it not likely that these ‘feathers’ are in fact the breathing system of this minute insect, and that gaseous exchange occurs across their relatively immense surface?

Then we might conjecture on the evolution of these creatures. Could it be that these ‘feathers’ are most effective under water? Is it that the beetles only live in waterlogged conditions or were their ancestors water living beetles?

It is said to be found in most regions of Europe and beyond into Asia.

Bimonthly Weather Report November-December 2010

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November & December 2010

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Compared with 2009 the average temperatures for both months were about 2 degrees lower in 2010.   There was about 10 mm less of rain in both months than in 2009.
This in contrast to the feeling that one had that we had more snow in December 2010, but the total amount was not measured. It was nevertheless very likely so. Snow fell  on November 27th (5 cm), which seems to be unusual.


About six Lapwings were seen nearby on the 3rd of December, just after the first fall of snow from the 27th November to the 2nd December.  We have only seen Lapwings once before, also following a cold spell.  
Cranes were seen flying south on November 2nd and again on December 13th.  That makes three southerly passages of cranes this autumn. (The other was October 11th)

LITTLE KNOWN MINTS

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The odour of mint evokes roast lamb and Sunday lunch.  Mint tea in the Arab desert lands is one of the most refreshing of drinks. Kendal Mint cake refreshes the weary hill walker.  The plant illustrated here has the strongest and most beautiful minty odour of any though it is not strictly speaking a mint at all.  If you live in the very north or east of France, or in parts of Provence you may not find it.  In England it exists on the North Downs and around the coasts of Cornwall. This plant is the calamint (from the Greek Kala = excellent or beautiful plus mint). 

In the 13^th century a  herbalist who came from the town where I now live – Bernard de Gourdon recognised the value of this plant. The virtue of all mints in aiding digestion continues in the fashion of ‘after-eight mints’.  Three hundred years later it was incorporated  in a concoction of herbs used as a poultice to aid the cure of gunshot wounds – the ‘arquebusade’ .  

The form of the flower is different from that of the true mints in that each flower has two lips and they are gathered in rather loose groups.  In the true mints there are four small and somewhat equally sized petals arranged in dense groups or spikes.   You can see this in the mint called Pennyroyal, the other photo.  Again, except for the very north of France it is found everywhere on calcareous land.  In Britain it has become quite rare having disappeared from  most of its erstwhile localities.   It also has a powerful smell and was famed for deterring fleas from the bedding.  It is very likely that the Romans gave it the name of ‘pulegium’ for this reason (pulex = flea).  The name Penny Royal, used since the middle ages, is derived from the early French ‘puliol–réal’ which possibly means the royal flea killer! It also indicates that its medicinal virtues were known amongst the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. In French its name remains la menthe pouliot.

In fields near my home, the sheep avoid the penny-royal. Possibly the minty smell generally repels the insect predators, for these plants seem to be fairly free from such attack.

Both of these species flower late into autumn.  Other species of mint are more common and more spectacular; Apple mint, Pepper Mint (a hybrid of the next two), Water mint, and the most useful Spear mint which everyone should cultivate for mint tea and famously mint sauce, a desirable British addition to be encouraged in the French cuisine.

Pennyroyal Recipe for a weary stomach:-  It is a worthwhile tisane.  Place 30 grams (1 oz.) of the herb in a half litre of boiling water.  Add honey to taste and drink warm.