SKELETONS ON THE COMMON
Even in the dull days of winter Wandsworth Common is not without its interest and charm. In damp places on the ground, for instance, skeleton leaves may be found. How wonderful they are. The fleshy tissues have been dissolved but the fibrous framework remains. From a central support like the trunk of a tree radiate on each side the resemblance of boughs, branches and twigs, revealing the most delicate and intricate lacepatterning.
J. P. EDE. 39 Broomwood Road. Battersea. S.W.11.
[Ed.] Reader Ede must be a man of great patience. He encloses a sample of skeleton leaves expertly mounted.
[BNA: Link.]
WITHOUT HUMAN AID
Last Autumn when acorns were plentiful, I noticed a spot on Wandsworth Common where a horde of them had been deposited.
Some boy, I imagine, had been collecting a pocketful and then, tiring of them, had dumped them by a gorse bush.
Visiting the rembered spot recently, I found that a number of the acorns had taken root and produced there a little colony of flourishing young oaks.
J. P. EDE, 39 Broomwood Road. Battersea. S.W.11.
[BNA: Link.]
INTERLOPERS
Blackberrying is a very popular pursuit on Wandsworth Common just now, especially as the berries seem to be so plentiful.
Among the many bramble bushes there I have discovered two whose deeply indented leaves shew them to be of a different species from those commonly found. I believe they are a cultivated variety but how these interlopers got there must be left to conjecture.
Incidentally. there used to be a similar bush on one of the allotments. Possibly this accounts for their origin, though their situation is some hundreds of yards away.
J. P. EDE. 39 Broomwood Road. Battersea. S.W.11.
[Ed.] And to prove it, Mr. Ede has sent us mounted specimens of leaves, one of which looks more like a smali rose leaf and the other nothing like any bramble leaf we have seen.
[BNA: Link.]
SURPRISES FOR THOSE WHO LOOK
Surprises are somtimes in store for those who roam the wilder reaches of Wandsworth Common.
Only the other day, for instance, I encountered one of these unexpected pleasures. There growing in the midst of a large, burnt-out gorse bushm was a tomato plant. It bore a number of chracteristic blossoms, and now, a few days later, a few green tomatoes are to be seen.
How did a tomato plant get into that gorse bush?
J.P. EDE. 39 Broomwood Road. Battersea. S.W.11.
[BNA: Link.]
So who was J.P. Ede? And did he write any more letters after 1949?
— March Chronicles 2024 Part One — J.P.Ede: Letters to the South Western Star, 1949 . . .
— J.P.Ede: Further letters to the South Western Star, 1950 . . .
— J.P. [John Philip] Ede: a biographical note.
— Back to the top of this page . . .