The Natural Navigator» flowers

Wild Flowers

admin — Tue, 17 May 2011 12:33:21 +0000

I have been doing my best to research the preferences of wild flowers over the last couple of weeks, although writing deadlines have made it something of a sporadic affair. Mad dashes for fresh air and flowers, before it is time to confront the silver tyranny of the MacBook Pro once more.

I have not visited the area of wild flowers for a long time and it has been great fun to garner a few new observations. However, there will always remain hundreds of fascinating habits out there, waiting for the right moment to overcome their shyness and reveal all.

I have noticed that Speedwells, the blue four-petal flowers from the Veronica family, seem to have a preference for the west-facing and north-facing sides of paths in this part of the world. That is they can be found more commonly on the southern side of W-E paths and the eastern sides of N-S paths, not exclusively by a long way, but in numbers that suggest it is not random. Is anything in nature entirely random?

It is early days yet, so I’m not convinced this is a dependable trend yet, but it looks promising at this stage. If this does prove reliable, then the best theory I have at the moment is that they have a preference for sunlight late in the day.

Please do send over any wild flower trends that you have heard of or come across.

Ash and Mist

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 08:09:48 +0000

I went for a stroll this morning in a pair of Ugg boots. My eyes were drawn up to where the taller trees’ branches were getting lost in the mist, but then a strange sensation in my feet pulled my eyes down again. The ground was strewn with the discarded purple flowers of the ash trees above, each step was being cushioned by the soft bounce of the dead flowers.

A Flower Pot Compass

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:16:52 +0000

There is a really good attempt to give a flavour of the whole subject of natural navigation in an article in the Independent today by Tim Walker. Tim came for a walk in London to sample natural navigation urban-style.

Anyway, flower pot time. Take a look at this photo that I took yesterday just before lunch. Note the wet ground in the shade and how the shadow of the pot has moved ‘up’ leaving a wet area in its wake. The shadow is moving west to east, away from the camera. As it is close to the middle of the day, the sun is close to south and to the right of the picture. The shadow of the young tree is a near perfect north-south line.

There is also a shadow in the pot itself, on the right, southern side. This shade is allowing one side to stay moist longer than the other, northern, side. There is more moss close to the southern edge of the pot.

A Scruffy Patch of Land…

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:31:59 +0000

… or a clue to direction. One of the challenges in natural navigation that never goes away is the need to constantly change our focus. Our eyes have a tendency to drift towards a middle-distance focus. This can mean that clues in the background and the foreground can be easily overlooked. The first photo of a field on the lower slopes of a volcano in La Palma is a good example of this. There is a temptation to look to the trees for help, and they do offer some, but better help can be found much closer as the second picture shows. The southern side of these flowers is opening up before any other side. When seen close up like this it is hard to miss, but we all walk past clues like this everyday and our eyes are so often drawn elsewhere.

Great Lettuce!

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:59:01 +0000

There is a good photo of the Great Lettuce, Lactuca Virosa, with its leaves aligned north-south on the Adur Wild Flower website. If you do use this to find your way then make sure you don’t eat too much of it as it is reputed to have psychotropic qualities. You are likely to head off in the right direction, walk in a circle and then find yourself back in the same spot, shouting something like, ‘Great Lettuce, Batman!’ I digress.