Bancroft Gardens in Stratford on Avon lies between the canal basin, the river and the RSC theatre. Along the roadside edge of the open space, there’s a row of American sweetgum trees, a species of liquidambar. They make their most striking effect in the autumn, when the leaves change to a range of vivid colours. Most striking recently was these spiky balls. Are they fruit or nuts?
More summer mushrooms on a front lawn. This time, they were boletes, but too far away to narrow it down to a precise species.
The current little flush of summer mushrooms continues, with lurid boletes proving to be one of the most frequent. This one was some distance away, on a front lawn conveniently at waist level. So the picture shows the underside of the cap, where the spores come out of pores rather than gills.
The lime trees seem to have had an even longer than usual flowering season than usual this year. But it’s now over, and the seeds are finally beginning to ripen.
The garden in front of a block of flats. The raised lawn which regularly throws up several species of mushroom each year in their due seasons. There’s already been one set of blushers, much smaller than the usual size. They’ve now gone, to be replaced further along the lawn by others, size back to normal.
Poppies seen on a short walk in Wolverhampton city centre (between the city bus station and the Great Western pub as it happens).
The poppies were all growing wild. There’s at least two different species represented even in this small sample. One kind had flowers on stalks only a few inches tall, with different shaped leaves to the taller ones.