Goosefoot Friday 1st September 2000, 2/2, West Yorkshire

IT MAY BE GOOD WEATHER for frogs, raining as it does for much of the day, but as I don't see much else in the way of natural history I decide to sketch this weed which grows by the pots of Green Peppers in a sand tray on the staging in the greenhouse.

Those greenish clusters of tiny bobbles are the flowers. Even with the weed here in a jam jar and with several good wild flower guides to help, I can't be sure about its identity. The nearest I can get is Nettle-leaved Goosefoot, Chenopodium murale, a weed of light, well-drained soils, such as sand-dunes and rubbish tips. But it also looks very like Common Orache, Atriplexus patula.

This is where I'd be asking an expert, if I happened to have a botanical friend to hand. But by drawing it and attempting to identify it I've at least got my eye in to start looking at related species.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@daelnet.co.uk'

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