On one side of this footpath, a yellow ochre monoculture of wheat, a triumph of 10,000 years of domestication and selective breeding. On the other, a tangle of bramble, docks, hogweed and thistles, merging into the cool shade of hazel, sycamore and oak, all laden with ripening seeds. They would soon rewild these acres if the farmland were left to lie fallow; only annual soil cultivation keeps nature at bay.
The narrow strip of land between wheat and the footpath with its encroaching flora is the province of annual arable weeds, constant companions of crops grown here since this land was first tilled.
It is the passage of the plough that brings buried seeds of corn poppy (Papaver rhoeas) to the surface, exposing them to the light that triggers their germination. Already the last scarlet petals are falling and their pepper-pot capsules tremble and scatter their contents in the slightest breeze.
The fruits of field pansy (Viola arvensis) have split into three boat-shaped segments, whose edges curl inwards, wither and shrink. Their neat rows of egg-shaped seeds, so smooth and shiny that they are as slippery as wet soap, are squeezed ever tighter until they are shot skywards, to patter down to earth among the corn stalks.
The pansy’s dispersal mechanism is crude compared with the elegant artillery of cut-leaved cranesbill (Geranium dissectum), also entwined among the wheat stalks. A circle of five seed-capsules sits at the base of the beak-shaped fruit, attached to its tip by a slender strip of tissue that becomes as tense as a tightly wound clock spring as it dries. One by one they break free from their anchorage and are flicked upwards and outwards, like boulders hurled from medieval siege catapults. Discharged capsules, still attached on their curled springs, are arrayed along the cranesbill stems, like an elegant row of miniature chandeliers.
The arrival of the combine harvester is only a few days away but these insouciant little weeds, whose survival depends on annual disturbance of the soil, have already staked their claim for territory in the next cycle of the seasons. They will be back next spring in this no-man’s land between cultivation and wildness, herbicide spray permitting.
