The name Pelynt is thought to be from the Cornish Plu-Nent and mean "Parish of St Nonna".
An Iron Age fort known as Hall Rings was located on the spur of the hill to the left. It is thought this may have started as a relatively small twin-rampart hill fort and then been extended later with an outer enclosure. The ramparts were ploughed away during the Second World War.
The purpose of enclosures within ramparts varied quite considerably. Some were built as forts to defend from marauding invaders such as the seafaring Scandinavians. Others were defences built around small villages either as a status symbol/deterrent or for the more practical purpose of preventing domestic crimes such as theft of property by occupants of neighbouring villages. There were even some which were probably just a confined space used to stop livestock escaping!
Primroses grow along the bank on the right-hand side of the path and put on an impressive display in April.
Primroses prefer moist soils so they tend to grow either in semi-shady places which don't get dried out too much by the sun such as woodland clearings and the base of hedgerows, or in wet open ground such as near streams.
The male and female parts of a foxglove flower mature at different times to help avoid self-fertilisation. This also ties in with the flowers maturing at the bottom of the spike first as pollinators often start at the lowest flower and then work upwards. They land on the mature female flowers first with a cargo of pollen from another plant, and then leave via the mature male flowers with a new load of pollen.
95% of all plant life on Earth, including trees, relies on a symbiotic relationship with fungi. It is thought that without fungi, land plants could not have developed at all. Fungal mycelium often grows around or actually within the roots of plants and give the plant access to water and nutrients it couldn't otherwise obtain easily from the soil. In return, the plants provide the fungi with sugars produced through photosynthesis.
Plants contain chlorophyll (the green stuff) which is able to use energy from sunlight to break down a water molecule. The breakdown of water is why plants release oxygen. Some photosynthetic bacteria break down hydrogen sulphide instead of water.
The electrons and protons remaining from the water after oxygen has been formed are funnelled away by bio-molecules in the plant. These are used to drive another chemical reaction to convert a bunch of carbon dioxide and water molecules into a simple sugar molecule such as glucose.
Sugar is effectively a store of energy, and the reaction can be run in reverse to generate energy when needed. At night, when there is no sunlight, plants run off their sugar reserves, consume oxygen and emit carbon dioxide - just like we do.
There quite a few different simple sugars - fructose, maltose etc - but they all have the same chemical formula as glucose (they just have their bits arranged in different orders). Simple sugars are polymerised (chained together) into sucrose (glucose attached to fructose) for medium-term storage and also starches (mega-long sugar chains) for longer-term storage in a root or seed. Sugars are also used to create cellulose - the building material used by plants.
If there are sheep in the field and you have a dog, make sure it's securely on its lead (sheep are prone to panic and injuring themselves even if a dog is just being inquisitive). If the sheep start bleating, this means they are scared and they are liable to panic.
If there are pregnant sheep in the field, be particularly sensitive as a scare can cause a miscarriage. If there are sheep in the field with lambs, avoid approaching them closely, making loud noises or walking between a lamb and its mother, as you may provoke the mother to defend her young.
Sheep may look cute but if provoked they can cause serious injury (hence the verb "to ram"). Generally, the best plan is to walk quietly along the hedges and they will move away or ignore you.
Pelynt is perhaps most famous as the birthplace of Sir Jonathan Trelawney - one of the seven bishops imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1688 by James II and charged with seditious libel. However, they were acquitted. When the news reached Pelynt, the mayor fired the two town cannons and the church bells were rung in celebration.
The Cornish Anthem known simply as "Trelawney" or "Song of the Western Men" was written by Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker. It is thought to be based on older folk songs such as "Ye jolly tinner boys" which contains the line "Why forty thousand Cornish boys shall knawa the reason why". Since Bishop Trelawney was acquitted, there was no march of Cornishmen associated with his custody. It is thought that the song mixes references to the Cornish Rebellion of 1497 led by Michael An Gof.
A fragment of a bronze dagger was found in 1834 at Pelynt when a farmer attempted to plough up a barrow and relics were unearthed. The dagger is thought to have come from Greece and was made during the Mycaenean Bronze Age era of 1600-1100 BC, which has been supported by radiocarbon dating. It is thought to have been brought by traders for tin and may be evidence that sea trade between Cornwall and the Mediterranean took place as far back as the Bronze Age.
This area of the woodland is planted with broad-leaf trees including beech.
Beech bark is very delicate and does not heal easily. Consequently some graffiti carved in beech trees is still present from more than a century ago. This is a practice that should be strongly discouraged as it permanently weakens the tree, making attack by insects more likely which can prematurely end its life.
Wild garlic grows along the lane beside the bridge over the river.
Wild garlic is best harvested in early spring before it flowers and the leaves start to die off. Unlike domestic garlic, the leaves are generally used rather than the bulb, which is very small. Note that there are some lilies that look very similar and are poisonous! If it doesn't smell strongly of garlic/onions, then it's not wild garlic and should be avoided. A schoolboy error is to rub the leaves between fingers where the smell lingers so a subsequent poisonous lily leaf could be misidentified.
Many of the smaller trees in the hedgerow are hazel.
Hazel is one of the smaller native trees, reaching only 20ft. When allowed to mature, the tree lives for about 70 years.
There are quite a few escaped ornamental species now established in the wild in the UK but there are also some native species. Dog rose is the most common of native rose species and even itself encompasses several sub-species which is why flower colours vary from white to pink. It has a rambling growth and can climb up other trees and is quite often found in hedgerows. Flowering is in early summer.
The West Looe river rises near Dobwalls and runs for roughly 8 miles through Herodsfoot and Churchbridge before entering the creeks of the flooded river valley just below Milcombe with a final mile along the creek to its confluence with the East Looe river. The sedimentary rocks surrounding the river form an aquifer reserve which results in the river levels being topped up by groundwater during periods of low rainfall.
In Elizabethan times, starch made from the bulbs was used to stiffen collars and cuffs in clothing. The ruffs that were highly fashionable at the time would have needed a lot of starch to prevent them flopping. The toxins in bluebell sap might also have had the desirable property of preventing the starch encouraging the formation of mould.
The two most common pigeon species are the wood pigeon and feral pigeon (domesticated rock dove). Wood pigeons are larger than rock doves. Rock doves have an iridescent green/purple patch on their necks whereas adult wood pigeons have a white patch on their neck (although this is not present in young birds).
Trout are members of the Salmon family who all have an extra tiny (adipose) fin on their back towards their tail, that most other fish don't have. No-one is quite sure what the purpose is of this fin but a neural network in the fin indicates that it has some kind of sensory function.
Himalayan Balsam is a tall plant with very pretty pink flowers that can often be seen lining footpaths in the summer and early autumn. It was introduced as an ornamental species in 1839 and unfortunately the plant is now a major ecological problem. It can grow from a seed to 9ft high in a few months, forming dense thickets and wiping out other plant species. It is also extremely invasive as the seed pods open explosively, launching around 800 seeds per plant up to 7 metres and the seeds are also adapted to travel by water. It is a nuisance on riverbanks as its roots are shallow and allow the sediment to become easily eroded into the river. It can be identified by its bright pink flowers and it has a characteristic sweet smell.
The word "stile" is based on an Old English word stigel for ladder. This in turn came from an old Germanic word stig meaning "to climb" and the word "stair" also came from this.
Conversely, the word "style" (now used for fashion etc. but originally for literary style or a writing tool i.e. stylus) is from French origins (naturally!). This came from an Old French word stile, derived from the Latin stilus. It's thought the "i" might have been changed to a "y" for snob value to be more like the (unrelated) Greek word stylos (for pillar).
Herons hunt along this stretch of river.
The English surnames Earnshaw and Hernshaw originally meant "heron wood" and the surname Herne is also a corruption of Heron.
Members of the tit family have been seen using tools such as a conifer needle to extract grubs from holes in trees and to exhibit social learning - once discovered, the behaviour of pecking through foil on milk bottle tops to reach the cream spread steadily across the country. This is quite impressive considering their brain weighs less than 1 gram.
During the summer, black-and-yellow dragonflies can often be seen.
The golden-ringed dragonfly is one of Britain's largest dragonflies and the one we see the most often in Cornwall as it seems to like quiet lanes and footpaths. As the name implies, its black body has yellow rings at intervals along its length. The male's abdomen is slightly fatter near the tip resulting in a shape a bit like a baseball bat. The female has a straighter and longer abdomen, in fact the longest of any dragonfly in the UK. It is a formidable predator of the insect world and will eat bees, wasps, damselflies and even other dragonflies.
Foam on the surface of a river can look like pollution but, as with sea foam, it's normally a natural phenomenon. When water plants such as algae die and decompose, organic matter is released into the water. If the water is agitated, proteins in the water can form a froth, just like whisking egg whites. Plant nutrients entering the water will increase the amount of algae, making foam more likely or prolific so a very foamy river can be an indicator of nitrate or phosphate pollution.
Iridescent blue-green damselflies are quite common in summer.
Male damselflies have two sets of genitalia. At the start of mating a packet of sperm (spermatophore) is transferred outside of the male's body between the two and then passed on to the female who uses it to fertilise her eggs as she lays them. Female damselflies lay their eggs inside vegetation. For some species this is in water plants and the female can swim underwater for half an hour before returning to the surface to breathe. Males often guard the egg laying female to prevent a rival male from sneaking in and replacing the spermatophore with his own.
A thick outer bark on a tree helps to protect it from frost damage during the winter. The bark, which is often textured to trap air, and forms an insulating "buffer zone" that shields the living part of the tree, keeping this above freezing when there are sub-zero temperatures outside. The mass of dense wood inside the tree also acts as night store heater, absorbing heat during the day which is gradually released at night.
The growing conditions for trees varies from year to year (e.g. there might be a drought one summer). The "bad years" and "good years" are reflected in the widths of the rings. The pattern of good and bad summers is the same (more-or-less, depending of the location) for every tree so this forms a calendar - the known sequence of wide and narrow rings can be used to assign an exact year to each ring. This can also be done with dead and even fossil trees both to date them and get an idea of what the climate was doing at the time.
The Pisky was a figure of folklore associated with mischief. Piskies were also known under the name "Jack-o-lantern" and this is thought to have similar origins as will-o'-the-wisp - the mythical marsh gas flares that were mistaken for the lights of settlements. Consequently the local dialect for becoming lost was "pisky-led".
It was believed that milk was turned sour by piskies dancing on the roofs of barns. As a preventative measure, farmers would nail lumps of lead known as "piskie paws" to trip up the pesky piskies.
St Nun's (or St Nonna's) Well dates from mediaeval times and was rebuilt in the 19th Century; the stone basin inside is thought to date from Norman times. The well is associated with many superstitions: the well is guarded by an elf, and visitors failing to leave a bent pin as an offering will be followed home by clouds of piskies disguised as moths. The following old story was also recorded in Victorian times:
An old farmer once set his eyes upon the granite basin, and coveted it; for it was not wrong in his regard to convert the holy font to the base uses of the pigsty. One day he drove his oxen and wain to the gateway above, with intent to remove it. Taking his beasts to the entrance of the well, and fixing his chains around the sculptured trough, he tried to drag it from its ancient bed. For a long time it resisted the tugs of the oxen, but at length they started it and pulled it laboriously up-hill to where the wain was standing. When nearly up it burst away from the chains, rolled down towards the well, and, making a sharp turn, rolled into its own old place. No one will again venture to displace it, seeing that ... a man thriving and well-to-do in the world never prospered from that day forward. Indeed, retribution overtook him on the spot, the oxen falling dead, and their owner being struck lame and speechless. No one since has been hardy enough to try the removal of the font.
On the hill spur behind the bend in the lane is the remains of St Non's Camp - an Iron Age hill fort. It is built in a figure-of-8 form to enclose a natural hollow and make use of a natural oval platform. It is thought that it might have been built to defend the river crossing between Pelynt and Duloe.
During the mesolithic (middle stone age) period, hazelnuts are thought to have been carried as portable food and this is thought to have led to the rapid spread of hazel to new areas seen in archaeological pollen analysis.
The churchyard at Pelynt is thought to date from the Dark Ages and the Celtic preaching cross in the wall of the north aisle of the church is a relic from this period. The church tower was built in the 14th Century and the rest of the current church a little later, in Perpendicular Gothic style.
Before Christianity, the Pagan Celtic people of Cornwall worshipped wonders of the natural world. Where clean, drinkable water welled up from the ground in a spring, this was seen as pretty awesome. The sites were seen as portals to another world, and is why fairies are often associated with springs. Where the springwater dissolved minerals, for specific conditions (e.g. deficiency in a mineral) or where the minerals present had antibacterial/fungal properties, the water appeared to have healing powers.
Chestnut trees deciduous but when in leaf, are recognisable by their large, long leaves with serrated edges. In September and October they can also be recognised by the nut cases which are spiky all over (conkers have infrequent spikes with bald areas in between) and the spikes are sharp.
The chestnut tree originated in Sardinia and there is evidence of its cultivation by humans from around 2000 BC. It was introduced into Britain by the Romans who planted chestnut trees on their campaigns to provide an easily stored and transported source of food for their troops.
In England, the chestnut was originally known as the chesten nut. Both this and the modern French word châtaigne descend from the Old French word chastain.
Unlike many nuts which are designed to last through the winter and then germinate in the spring, chestnuts germinate in the autumn and waste no time putting down some roots. The leaves and stem follow in the spring and their established root system gives these a head start.
Since chestnuts don't need to hang around for a long time on the ground, they are nutritionally more similar to a cereal - containing principally starch and sugars - than a typical nut. They contain very little fat and are consequently much less calorific than other nuts: the kernels contain around a third of the calories of a similar weight of other nuts.
The size of the nuts from wild British chestnut trees is quite variable but the largest rival the nuts sold in supermarkets. Nuts that are very flat or less than the girth of your little finger are not worth harvesting; anything bigger is viable. A painless way to extract the nuts is to grip the husk between your feet and rub it between your boots or against the ground. This saves having to handle the spiky husks as the spikes are very sharp and tend to break off under the skin to leave behind splinters. Often the husks contain one (fairly round) large nut surrounded by several small, flat nuts, so it's worth squeezing out quite a few husks to get the larger nuts. Discard any nuts with holes in (as they will contain maggots) or that are very dark in colour - the fresher ones will be "chestnut" brown rather than dark brown.
To roast chestnuts, prick each of your chestnuts with a skewer or slit the shell with a knife - this is vital to stop them exploding (and disappearing into dust). Bake them in a hot oven for at least 10 minutes. Wild chestnuts are harder to shell than the shop-bought variety as the shells are much thinner and the nuts are often smaller. An easier way to separate the edible part from the shell is to simply slice the shell in half and then scoop out the contents with the point of a knife blade. Also this way, the bitter pith covering the outside of the nut is left behind in the shell. The contents of the nut should be fluffy and pale yellow; discard any that are brown. Separating the flesh from the shells is a fairly tedious process, but with a few friends armed with large cups of tea, a formidable amount of chestnut can be extracted which can be used to make stuffings, soups or whizzed into flour and added to bread recipes. It also freezes nicely so it can be stored up for Christmas recipes.
Conifers evolved around 300 million years ago, a long time before the first dinosaurs. For nearly 200 million years, conifers were the dominant form of trees and it wasn't until around 65 million years ago that broadleaf trees were out-competing conifers in many habitats.
Conifer needles contain a waxy coating to retain more water and their shape reduces wind resistance. Both of these help them to colonise exposed upland areas where (unfrozen) water is more scarce. The needles are also less prone to snow damage as snow slides off the young outer needles and only accumulates where needle growth is dense. Conifers do shed their needles but typically keep them for 2-3 years before doing so to economise on the energy needed to create new leaves.
Conifers can produce an economic yield of timber up to 6 times faster than broadleaf trees. Imported species such as Douglas Fir and Sitka Spruce are amongst the more common used for timber production.
It is fairly well-known that conifer plantations support less biodiversity than native broadleaf woods but there are a number of different reasons for this. One is that many of the conifer species are introduced from abroad and the insects that normally accompany them in their native habitat are not present. Another factor is the commercial nature of plantations: some insect species which would live on the trees cause damage to the tree growth and are actively removed as pests. Similarly, plants that compete with the newly-planted trees are removed to allow the commercial crop to succeed. Also the harvesting process means that dead trees do not fall to the forest floor and provide the rotting wood that a range of insects and fungi require.
Like most trees, conifers produce resin to heal wounds. However, conifers also have resin ducts which routinely release it to reduce insect and fungal attacks. As well as including insecticide and fungicide compounds, the resins can also chemically disguise the tree from insects, attract their predators and even emulate hormones to disrupt insect development.
Blobs of resin from conifers can fossilise along with the trees themselves in low oxygen environments to form amber. Over time, the volatile organic compounds that make the resin sticky are lost as the molecules left behind join up into polymers. After a few million years, the result is something very similar to a hard piece of clear plastic. Amber's ability to survive for hundreds of millions of years also suggests that man-made plastics created from organic polymers could persist in the environment a very long time.
The scent of conifer trees mostly comes from volatile organic compounds known as terpenes. Two of the most well-known are limonene (which as its name suggest has a citrus scent) and pinene which advertisers describe as "pine fresh". In fact there are 2 versions of the pinene molecule with the same chemical formula but with a hydrogen atom in a slightly different place. The "alpha" version smells slightly more of pine and is soluble in alcohol and slightly in water. The "beta" version smells more of turpentine and is only soluble in hydrocarbon solvents (e.g. white spirit) so for both reasons is less useful for scented cleaning products and air fresheners than the alpha form.
Squirrels are rodents, closely related to chipmunks and slightly more distantly to dormice. The word "squirrel" originates from an ancient Greek word meaning "shadow-tailed", referring to the bushy tail of a squirrel. A family group of squirrels is known as a "drey" (also the word for a squirrel nest). A group of unrelated squirrels is known as a "scurry", though squirrels tend not to hang out in groups.
Grey squirrels were introduced to the UK from the USA in the late 19th Century and within decades they had replaced the native red squirrel in most parts of the country.
Compared to red squirrels, grey squirrels are able to eat a wider diet (including acorns), are larger so can survive colder winters, and are better able to survive in the fragmented habitats created by urbanisation. They are also thought to be carriers of a squirrel pox virus which they usually recover from but has been fatal to red squirrels, although red squirrels are now also developing some immunity.
To date, culling of grey squirrels has not reversed their domination of woodland habitat and alternative approaches such as planting food with contraceptives are being explored as a means to control the population. The theory is that infertile squirrels can compete for food against fertile squirrels, whereas culling can create a glut of food resulting in a higher number of squirrels surviving which replace those that were exterminated. Natural predators such as goshawks or pine martens also remove more grey squirrels than red squirrels. This is because red squirrels are more savvy having co-evolved with the predators so for example they recognise the scent of pine martens and actively avoid areas with this.
Squirrels assess each of their acorns before burying them. If an acorn is too light (which suggests it might have a hole), the squirrel will eat it immediately rather than risking it going mouldy.
In order to later find the nuts that they've buried, squirrels need to be organised. Some species of squirrel have been studied and found to structure their hoards by type of nut e.g. burying all their acorns under one tree and all their conkers under another. This is equivalent to us organising all the veg onto one shelf of the fridge to make it easier to remember where to look for them.
As well as forgetting where they buried some of them, squirrels may also lose a quarter of their buried food to birds, other rodents and fellow squirrels. Squirrels therefore use dummy tactics to confuse thieves by sometimes just pretending to bury a nut.
Squirrels eyes are positioned on the sides of their head which allows them to spot predators approaching from behind them. When a squirrel spots a predator, its runs away in a zigzag pattern. This confuses many of their predators but unfortunately it doesn't work well for cars.
Young squirrels suffer a high mortality rate in the wild and less than one in three make it to adulthood. The ones that do, live on average for about 6 years, although a lucky one can live to about 12 years old. In captivity, where there are neither predators, cars nor cold winters to contend with, they can reach 20 years old.
By using their tail as a parachute, squirrels are able to survive falls from high trees. This allows them to attempt risky jumps between treetops that don't always work out. They are one of the few mammals that can (but not always) survive an impact at their terminal velocity i.e. if a squirrel jumped out of an aeroplane, it may well survive.
In urban areas in cold countries such as Canada, a black form of the grey squirrel is more common which is able to withstand the cold better both by retaining more heat and also having a slower metabolism. In wilderness areas where predators are more common, the black squirrels don't seem to do so well, perhaps because they are less camouflaged against trees than the grey ones.
The dandelion-like flowers along the coast are most likely to be catsear, also known as false dandelion. Catsear is very salt tolerant, not only growing along the coast but actually in sand dunes. The easiest way to recognise it is by the hairy leaves, hence the name. If you can cope with the texture, the leaves are edible and are much less bitter than dandelion leaves.
Another way to tell them apart is when they are flowering. Although dandelion flowers over quite a long period, the most profuse flowering is in April and May whereas catsear's intense flowering period is in late June and through July. Catsear has neater flowers than dandelion with squarer edges to the petals (but still toothed). The stems supporting the flowers are also solid, in contrast with the hollow stem of the dandelion.
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