What is this bush/tree/plant?

[campanula]

I take snails and slugs across the road. I don't do head massages though. I would not throw them into my neighbour's gardens...which does strike me as being more antisocial than rehoming in a park.

 

[iona]

When I go round my mum's house I pick up any snails that're in the garden when I leave and release them down the road on the strip of grass and other plants by the station. We're in the process of getting permission to garden that strip of land as well as the containers on the platforms we already look after. When that happens the closest snail-rehoming option that isn't someone's garden will be to take them back on the train and chuck them in the park on my way home. That should stop them finding their way back at least.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I leave snails mostly but I murder every slug bastard I see

 

[campanula]

When my daughter was small, we did a rehoming experiment, painting a blob of nail varnish on snail shells, then taking them to various places around our estate. A large percentage returned to their hibernaculums, over several days. I now fight a nightly battle of ethics,: whether to relocate the snails on the other side of a fairly busy road, knowing of their very strong homing impulse.
My neighbour puts her in her green bin. Another neighbour cuts slugs in half with scissors! I feel a bit wretched stamping on lily beetles (I put the vine weevils on the birdtable). I love it that plants are beautiful, interesting and have no central nervous system, so I can have them in my life without the perpetual anxiety/guilt/empathy which has frequently overshadowed my relationships with the animal/human world.
I was distraught to read 'The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (sp?) which postulated a certain level of arborial sentience.

 

[Clair De Lune]

I can't kill things. Never have been able to.. bar nits, fleas and fruit flies. When I was little my great nan had me pick all the snails and slugs off her veg patch and once I was done she stamped on the lot of them. Well traumatised me tbh. Next time I picked them all off I ran up the lane with the bucket and let them go in a field.

 

[Leafster]

When my daughter was small, we did a rehoming experiment, painting a blob of nail varnish on snail shells, then taking them to various places around our estate. A large percentage returned to their hibernaculums, over several days. I now fight a nightly battle of ethics,: whether to relocate the snails on the other side of a fairly busy road, knowing of their very strong homing impulse.
My neighbour puts her in her green bin. Another neighbour cuts slugs in half with scissors! I feel a bit wretched stamping on lily beetles (I put the vine weevils on the birdtable). I love it that plants are beautiful, interesting and have no central nervous system, so I can have them in my life without the perpetual anxiety/guilt/empathy which has frequently overshadowed my relationships with the animal/human world.
I was distraught to read 'The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (sp?) which postulated a certain level of arborial sentience.

I saw an item on a TV nature programme where they did the same thing. They came to the same conclusion that eventually many of them returned to the same place in the garden.

 

[danski]

Don’t know if people know about this but saw gf using it earlier and was mightily impressed.
Plant and wildlife identifier, in real-time

Seek by iNaturalist · iNaturalist

www.inaturalist.org

 

[campanula]

I don't have much faith in these, danski. I have found that most of these ID sites are rubbish at rare plants and also pretty hopeless with some very common things such as hardy geraniums (which I have seen identified as delphs, japanese anemones) and if, by some chance they get the genus, they never get the exact species. Sorry to come across as a bit dismissive because they do have some use and maybe in a few more years, when the databases have become much bigger, (because of more uploading) but just now, they are still a bit lacking. I actually paid cash money (fleetingly) for one...but have gone back to field guides and botany keys.
The greater part of identifying plants occurs with less visual things such as petals, leaf shape and colour...and much more to do with leaf placement on the stems, petioles, sex organs, textures, scents and bracts and the like...which is also one of the reasons I rarely confidently identify plants on here with a photograph. That and my dodgy eyesight. And as for identifying twigs!
Some of the birdsong ones are OK if you can get a clear sounding...but in a busy woodland, no chance.

 

[Brainaddict]

I use the PlantNet app and find it's pretty good. You can check whether the ID is correct by looking at all the photos of the plants rather than just trusting it. I'm sure it could get some stuff wrong, but it's mostly fine, except with distinguishing closely related and very similar plants - but even then it at least gives you the different options.

 

[AnnaKarpik]

This is supposed to be a gherkin. Even I know it isn't! It's a little over a week since the flower opened and the fruit bit behind it was about 2cm long. I took this photo yesterday and it is visibly larger today. Also rounder, measures L5.5, W5. The plant and flowers look exactly like cucumber, though the flowers are huge, it's growing on a cucumberish vine with fruits every 7cm or so, so far. Does anyone know what it is? There are so many questions I need answers to; will I need to construct a hammock for the giant fruits, is it edible, should I leave male flowers on, should I thin out the fruits or feed more?
My allotment site so far has suggested crown prince squash, cucamelon, melon and 'some kind of squash'.

 

[Artaxerxes]

You won't know till it's ripe, if it's a cucubit it could be anything in squash family.

From the skin it looks like butternut squash, they've got that stripe effect early on when young.

Cucubit fruits always benefit from helping them support themselves but should be fine to leave it I think.

 

[AnnaKarpik]

You won't know till it's ripe, if it's a cucubit it could be anything in squash family.

From the skin it looks like butternut squash, they've got that stripe effect early on when young.

Cucubit fruits always benefit from helping them support themselves but should be fine to leave it I think.

Ah, the unpollinated fruit bit at the base of female flowers is reminiscent of the butternut shape, is that a clue?

This may be further proof that believing I can remember what I planted where is, as usual, a triumph of hope over experience! It also means that my last surviving cucumber is fighting slugs and drought up at the allotment.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Ah, the unpollinated fruit bit at the base of female flowers is reminiscent of the butternut shape, is that a clue?

This may be further proof that believing I can remember what I planted where is, as usual, a triumph of hope over experience! It also means that my last surviving cucumber is fighting slugs and drought up at the allotment.

Yeah the proto-fruits of squash family tend to look like like mini-versions of the final fruit, you'll notice it with courgettes and cucumbers to.

 

[BoatieBird]

This is supposed to be a gherkin. Even I know it isn't! It's a little over a week since the flower opened and the fruit bit behind it was about 2cm long. I took this photo yesterday and it is visibly larger today. Also rounder, measures L5.5, W5. The plant and flowers look exactly like cucumber, though the flowers are huge, it's growing on a cucumberish vine with fruits every 7cm or so, so far. Does anyone know what it is? There are so many questions I need answers to; will I need to construct a hammock for the giant fruits, is it edible, should I leave male flowers on, should I thin out the fruits or feed more?
My allotment site so far has suggested crown prince squash, cucamelon, melon and 'some kind of squash'.

Could it be a cucumber 'crystal lemon'?

Buy cucumber or Cucumis sativus 'Crystal Lemon' cucumber 'Crystal Lemon'

www.rhsplants.co.uk

 

[Artaxerxes]

Could it be a cucumber 'crystal lemon'?

Buy cucumber or Cucumis sativus 'Crystal Lemon' cucumber 'Crystal Lemon'

www.rhsplants.co.uk

Doubtful, grew those last year and they didn't have that zebra stripes pattern.

They are also slightly, and I'll just say it, bollock like.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Squash plants also cross really well so if you don't know where the seeds from it could be anything

 

[gentlegreen]

I'm crap at trees.
This one has bugged me for ages.

Looks superficially like hawthorn in some ways, but no thorns ...



EDIT :-

Labelled as "malus" ... - teeniest apples I ever saw ...

Trees of Bristol

www.bristoltrees.space

 

[Brainaddict]

Malus trilobata I think - only produces crab apples

 

[gentlegreen]

Malus trilobata I think - only produces crab apples

I've never seen anything larger than the tiny berries they're currently carrying ...

I also seem to consistently miss the flowering .. the trilobed leaves are only at the ends of the branches and revert to single blades further down ...

 

[Brainaddict]

At the smaller end of crab apple size the apples can appear similar to hawthorn berries - a related tree - but if you bite them (neither are toxic) you will taste apple.

 

[gentlegreen]

At the smaller end of crab apple size the apples can appear similar to hawthorn berries - a related tree - but if you bite them (neither are toxic) you will taste apple.

I'll hold you to that next time I'm in the park
(though of course I don't have to swallow it)
For some reason I've never got around to chomping on hawthorn berries.

 

[Brainaddict]

I'll hold you to that next time I'm in the park
(though of course I don't have to swallow it)
For some reason I've never got around to chomping on hawthorn berries.

They're not very tasty so few people do. But they are technically edible. Sometimes people make a jelly from them, but I think even for that rowan berries are better, and rosehips definitely better.

 

[gentlegreen]

They're not very tasty so few people do. But they are technically edible. Sometimes people make a jelly from them, but I think even for that rowan berries are better, and rosehips definitely better.

I spotted some rowan berries yesterday - I'll have to taste those too ...

 

[gentlegreen]

The green crab apples definitely had an apply taste.
The sorbus berry was insanely sour - I'm guessing they would be handy if I ever got scurvy ...

oops ...

Rowan fruit contains sorbic acid, and when raw also contains parasorbic acid (about 0.4%-0.7% in the European rowan[15]), which causes indigestion and can lead to kidney damage, but heat treatment (cooking, heat-drying etc.) and, to a lesser extent, freezing, renders it nontoxic by changing it to the benign sorbic acid. They are also usually too astringent to be palatable when raw. Collecting them after first frost (or putting in the freezer) cuts down on the bitter taste as well.

I definitely didn't swallow any ...

 

[campanula]

I used to make rowan jelly and still make crabapple jelly, but mainly because my crab is a John Downie, one of the best for jelly. I make a mixed 'hedgerow' one with whatever comes to hand (have used loads of things such as juneberries, saskatoons, aronia, even fuchsia) ...but in all honesty, the only one I regularly eat a lot of is redcurrant jelly.

 

[gentlegreen]

A mystery tree - pruned as a standard ..

 

[campanula]

Where did you see this, gentlegreen? Looks like Allspice. I have a garden which has Carolina Allspice (calycanthus) where the leaves are similar but not the florets. It also looks a lot like Pieris, but with only the bracts and not the deeper red sepals. Is this in ericaceous soil (would put money on it that it is)? As usual, a combo of crappy eyes and dodgy monitor, making it hard to really get a good look.

 

[gentlegreen]

Where did you see this, gentlegreen? Looks like Allspice. I have a garden which has Carolina Allspice (calycanthus) where the leaves are similar but not the florets. It also looks a lot like Pieris, but with only the bracts and not the deeper red sepals. Is this in ericaceous soil (would put money on it that it is)? As usual, a combo of crappy eyes and dodgy monitor, making it hard to really get a good look.

It's in a Bristol park - soil possibly at least not alkali as the underlying rock is probably sandstone ... but there isn't any ericaceous planting ..

 

[gentlegreen]

This tree is simply listed as "pinus"

It's actually very near that previous tree ...

Trees of Bristol

www.bristoltrees.space

 

[campanula]

Again, gentlegreen , hard for me to see how many needles in each fascicle. Looks like just 2. That, and the elongated cone shape, looks a lot like one of the black pines (pinus nigra) but there are subspecies such as austriacus and corsica, I think. I confess to not being as well up on trees, particularly conifers, as I ought to be.