Roy Vickery will be leading a free Plant Walk on Tooting Common, London Borough of Wandsworth, on Monday 30 August, starting at  2.00 p.m. and continuing for about 45 minutes; for further details see the Events page on this website.

Report:  About 14 people turned up to discuss the plants growing in a small area near the café.  We started by examining native plants including strawberry clover (Trifolium fragiferum) and wild carrot (Daucus carota) and moved on to enjoy the flowers of chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) which has been known on the Common since 1924, but is not thought to be native here.  Finally we examined  Chilean potato-vine (Solanum crispum) which as its name suggests is native to Chile and Peru and  has been established growing through a bramble patch since 2015, and Indian shot (Canna indica) ‘Russian Red’, native to Central and South America, clearly discarded from a nearby garden but apparently thriving (see photo), first noticed earlier in August.  Comments included:

‘Thanks for the very informative walk today, really enjoyed it.’