Fascinating fasciation

February Fill-dyke was the old country name for this wet month, and the time of the year when farmers were recommended to occupy the fallow time with maintenance tasks like hedging and ditching. Accordingly I spent a while trying to clear the ditches alongside the lane where, in wet weather, water seeps out of the ground ( like a winterbourne in Southern England - a stream that flows only in the wettest season of the year).

This damp ground is ideal for two things in particular. One is willow trees. I planted some here several years ago and now they are quite sizeable. (Willows are the easiest trees to grow since you only need to push a stick of it into the ground and it will, like as not, take root.) One or two of them produce this strange mutation which is called fasciation. It means that several shoots are fused together in this flattened strap-like form which curves as it grows. The image includes a normal single shoot beside it.

The name of this particular variety is Salix sachalinensis or fantail willow, named for the moist  island of Sakhalin,off the Pacific coast of Siberia, that was once divided between Russia and Japan. These curious curved willow ribbons are popular in Japanese flower arranging and known also as Cock's Comb or Dragon Tail Willow. The term fasciation however refers back to the Latin word fasces, bundle, which is also the icon and etymology of the Italian fascists headed by Mussolini in the mid 20th century, although the symbol has been used much more widely and more benignly from Roman times onward.

Phew! From ditches to fascists in two short paragraphs - although you could say the latter belong in the former.