Two wrongs make a "that'll do"

16 July

Far, far too hot to walk far today and there are air quality warnings due to forest fire smoke, so an “Offshoots and Byways” post will have to suffice. The small town along the St-Lawrence west of Montreal that I live in has a lot of trees, bosky gardens and several parks. It also has a council that is generally supportive of biodiversity preservation and has some native plant areas in one park as an experiment. On the other hand, the general purpose green areas of the parks are scalped by mowers on a regular basis and inevitably there are non-native plants lurking in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to come out and play. So:

First wrong - the grass was mown far too short by the river, made worse by the >30C temperatures.

Second wrong - Birdsfoot Trefoil is a pretty yellow flower that should not be on this continent, but it is. It took advantage of circumstances.

Et, voila … the scalped, often brown, park grass turned yellow. On the whole, I can live with that. Better than the brown that current temperatures would usually show to passers-by.

Birdsfoot Trefoil - is a member of the pea family. It is here to stay. Can be invasive in certain situations due to its ability to choke out other plant species - on the other hand, being a Leguminaceae species it is a nitrogen fixer..

One of the more evocative names for common bird's-foot-trefoil is 'Granny's toenails', which gives an instant, and perhaps not-so-pleasant, impression of the claw-like seed pods of this abundant and sprawling species. Other common names include 'butter and eggs', eggs and bacon', and 'hen and chickens', which all refer to the egg-yolk yellow flowers and reddish buds. Widespread and found in all kinds of grassy places, from lawns to downlands, roadside verges to heathlands, common bird's-foot-trefoil can be seen flowering from May to September.