Recently I’ve been taking morning walks based around the Avon New Cut. It’s a sort of wildlife corridor in an otherwise urban piece of Bristol and there’s a choice of foot and road bridges to vary my walk.
On one stretch of the walk along Cumberland Road I have been puzzled to see several of these:
Plants with little plastic bags placed over the flower heads. I’ve notice four or five of them I think and the bags are on several flower heads on each plant, but not all of them. They seem to be identified with numbers and red dots. What are they for? I’m guessing some kind of research, but what and why?
I think the plant is ragwort, which is highly poisonous to cattle and horses. Not a particular problem where this is situated, but I’d love to know why they’ve been bagged. It could be groundsel which is the same family apparently; I'm not sure. However, I am very curious. Does anyone have any ideas? (Poor quality photos from my phone, I'm afraid)
On one stretch of the walk along Cumberland Road I have been puzzled to see several of these:
Plants with little plastic bags placed over the flower heads. I’ve notice four or five of them I think and the bags are on several flower heads on each plant, but not all of them. They seem to be identified with numbers and red dots. What are they for? I’m guessing some kind of research, but what and why?
I think the plant is ragwort, which is highly poisonous to cattle and horses. Not a particular problem where this is situated, but I’d love to know why they’ve been bagged. It could be groundsel which is the same family apparently; I'm not sure. However, I am very curious. Does anyone have any ideas? (Poor quality photos from my phone, I'm afraid)
how strange! I hope you find out! Gardeners' question time?!
ReplyDeleteYou might like to try the Southville Centre. I believe that they have a group called FRANC (Friends of the Avon New Cut) who may have the answer to your query.
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