Sugared by Drift Sands. Empetrum nigrum, Black Crowberry, Aekingerzand, Drenthe-Friesland, The Netherlands
The weather was half-way decent yesterday afternoon so I'd actually half expected my Naturalist Friend to call around. We made off for the Aekingerzand on the border of the provinces of Drenthe and Friesland more or less to the south of Groningen near the town of Appelscha. This is a drift-sand dune landscape - one of the very few in the Netherlands, and it's been made into a natural reserve to preserve it from encroaching forestation and agriculture. It's a marvelous, even a bit of a desolate area. But there's lots to see if you've an eye for it. Right on the border there's also a pretty fen pond appropriately named 'Grenspoel'. The dunes themselves go by the Dutch for Bald Dunes. Stark Scots Pines - Pinus sylvestris - define the horizons whether - unusually - blue or gray with clouds.
One of three kinds of heather here is this Empetrum nigrum, Black Crowberry. At this time of the year the fruits are particularly beautiful. These berries are edible; they taste a bit like watered-down blue berries, and they quench the thirst of Sand Walkers.
The last decades has seen a re-arrangement of botanical classification through the advances of e.g. DNA research. Formerly the Empetraceae were their own family. A decade ago especially molecular analysis led botanists to make Empetraceae a subgroup of the larger Heathers, the Ericaceae. But our Empetrum nigrum retained it's name, derived from Dioscorides in Ancient Times who'd seen Empetraceae growing on rocky and sandy places. Such is the Aekingerzand.
Sugared by Drift Sands. Empetrum nigrum, Black Crowberry, Aekingerzand, Drenthe-Friesland, The Netherlands
The weather was half-way decent yesterday afternoon so I'd actually half expected my Naturalist Friend to call around. We made off for the Aekingerzand on the border of the provinces of Drenthe and Friesland more or less to the south of Groningen near the town of Appelscha. This is a drift-sand dune landscape - one of the very few in the Netherlands, and it's been made into a natural reserve to preserve it from encroaching forestation and agriculture. It's a marvelous, even a bit of a desolate area. But there's lots to see if you've an eye for it. Right on the border there's also a pretty fen pond appropriately named 'Grenspoel'. The dunes themselves go by the Dutch for Bald Dunes. Stark Scots Pines - Pinus sylvestris - define the horizons whether - unusually - blue or gray with clouds.
One of three kinds of heather here is this Empetrum nigrum, Black Crowberry. At this time of the year the fruits are particularly beautiful. These berries are edible; they taste a bit like watered-down blue berries, and they quench the thirst of Sand Walkers.
The last decades has seen a re-arrangement of botanical classification through the advances of e.g. DNA research. Formerly the Empetraceae were their own family. A decade ago especially molecular analysis led botanists to make Empetraceae a subgroup of the larger Heathers, the Ericaceae. But our Empetrum nigrum retained it's name, derived from Dioscorides in Ancient Times who'd seen Empetraceae growing on rocky and sandy places. Such is the Aekingerzand.