Himalayan balsam

Sunday’s walk to the river where she engaged in doggy water sports was the highlight of Zoey’s week. It was during one of these walks, probably in the late eighties, that I first spotted Himalayan balsam. The flowers, shaped like policemen’s helmets and ranging in colour from pale lilac to dark violet, dangled from slender peduncles and swayed in the breeze. As autumn progressed I watched their fertilized ovaries turn into five-ribbed green flasks. These became fatter until a point was reached when the slightest touch caused them to burst open along lines of weakness between the ridges. The five sections separated, each coiling like a tight green snail shell, and ten black seeds were catapulted out. To me this was a rare, interesting and exotic plant. I wanted to bring it back to surprise others, but once it lost connection with its water supply, it quickly wilted and the seed capsules lost their potency.

Zoey died, and, without the gentle, intelligent animal, there was no reason to walk among thistles along that straight, narrow stretch of silent, brown water. Himalayan balsam was spreading and became included in lists of alien, invasive species.

Last week, taking advantage of warm September sunshine after a summer of grey clouds and rain, John and I brought cameras to the river. The grass along the bank had been trampled and mined with pats by a herd of cows that had recently grazed there. The place had been transformed. A silver sally had grown on one side of the bridge. Its leaves glinted in the sun. Further along the bank two exotic trees, one with glossy dark green, the other with lighter palmate leaves, intertwined at the water’s edge. Himalayan balsam was present, but not abundant. It clung in small clumps to the vertical river side of the bank, but grew more vigorously around a drain that emptied into the river.

Yesterday we took the canal walk from Toome down to Lough Neagh, looking out for Himalayan balsam. Along the canal and on the shores of the lake we could see none, but there were clumps in swampy ground. The flowers produce copious nectar and John photographed a bee visiting one.