the same inevitable result. Would the plants appear
a third time in 1971?
In the following spring I visited the site to see
if any vegetative evidence had appeared. It was
disappointing to find that the ditches had been
thoroughly scoured and greenness of the wide verges
was nothing but an unsightly plaster of clay. Yet
later in July, I learned that turmoil is not always
disastrous for survival for there was revealed the
most vigorous and splendid display the site had
yielded in the three consecutive years. This time
I drove to Felsted with a fresh sample and the
integrity of G. speciosa was confirmed and established.
In July 1972 I made my now annual pilgrimage to
the Theydon area. It was as though it had never
been - not a sign of a single plant. The visitation
was over. How could those splendid plants of '71
have failed to set viable seed? Yet I might have
suspected that all was not well for I recalled
that late in that previous summer I had searched
the ripe seedboxes for a few seeds to propagate at
home. I had found none, but at the time assumed
that I was too late to catch any of the crop before
its ejection into the undergrowth. This may well
have been the case, but none presumably was capable
of germination.
As expected in 1973 the verge was again devoid
of any plant. That was that. Galeopsis speciosa
had vanished from our county as suddenly as it had
appeared.
One evening at home, before last July was out
(1973) my wife called to me in words that are
fairly familiar in our household, 'Come out into
the garden a minute and tell me what this plant is'.
(In more frustrated and less guarded moments the
rendering might be 'Come here and tell me if this
is one of your weeds'). On this occasion the plant
was indeed one of my weeds (three of them in point
of fact) - and none other than Large Hemp Nettle!
In some manner unknown I must have been responsible
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