Fireweed...

I spent a couple of hours of the morning walking around Orton Pit, trying to increase the plant species list. It was grey and rather breezy, but just right for a brisk walk with the dogs. It was surprising how many plants were still flowering, or flowering again, though few of them looked at their best.

The autumn colour changes haven't really got underway yet, though there were a few deep red bramble leaves and one stand of rosebay willowherb Chamerion angustifolium which was particularly vivid. In the summer the stately deep-pink spikes of this species brighten up many road verges and railway embankements, especially in northern Britain.

As a native species it thrives best in northern climes, even into the Arctic, and colonises naturally open areas including rocky habitats, screes and riverbanks . In Britain it only spread widely after the industrial revolution, when railway and road construction, felling of woodland and increasing areas of industrial wasteland provided it with just the habitat niche it had been waiting for.

It particularly likes ground where there's been a fire and was a familiar sight in bombed-out areas of London during the Second World war. It has also invaded many hectares of North America, where it is known as Fireweed - a particularly apt name at this time of year, when the leaves look positively molten. It seems possible that some genetic mutation has allowed it to become more vigorous and adaptive in the last hundred or so years.