It being a day of heat to come, an early morning circuit, starting something before 07:00, with the East Street hollyhocks looking well. Which I now know from the rather thin reference 1, to be ancient immigrants from China, so ancient that they might almost count as native.
Wanting to know more about the flower, I give Bing the clue 'structure hollyock flower', which does not give me what I want, while Google turns up the tricky photographs of reference 2. But which for me, could usefully have been supplemented by a diagram.
Neither Bing nor Google seem to have be disturbed by the missing 'h'.
I try Google with 'diagram hollyhock flower', and the best he can do is included above, lifted from reference 3.
So plenty of words, plenty of photographs, but people out there do not seem to be so keen on the careful botanical drawings of the 19th century.
At which point, I try getting up from the laptop and getting out Zomlefer, whom, as I had expected and hoped, did my business. With more botany than I could readily digest.
Back at East Street, a close-up.
But the Zomlefer structure not visible and not brought out by zoom: clearly need to go back to take a closer look, perhaps over several days to catch the development. Maybe even pick one, if I remember to take a suitable padded box to put it in.
Pushed onto Sainsbury's with a trolley, to find that at Wickes they are happy to leave piles of stuff outside, overnight. Can't see all this having been put out before I got there at around 07:30. It must work for them.
While in the path down to the footbridge over the railway, some nuts were coming on. Nuts in June, rather than the May of the jingle. Must be time for the squirrels to come and strip our nut tree of all its immature nuts. We rarely get any and I wonder this morning what happens in orchards.
Gemini seems to know all about it. Maybe there is something in the theory that he does well on questions that lots of people ask. And coping well with all the different ways in which we put the question. The start of his story is snapped above.
Further on there is talk of shooting and I associate this morning to the small strawberry farm we used to know in Hambledon, in Hampshire, occupying a walled a garden. The gardener and his sons used to lie in wait at night with torches and catch the squirrels, a major pest for them, coming over the wall at night with shotguns. An army family, so they would have known all about guns.
But I also wonder how reliable this memory is. Have I tidied things up, organised it, rather in the way that Gemini sometimes does?
Nearer home, more hollyhocks. Not as flashy individually, but a lot of them. You get them there every year, which makes me think perennial, while Wikipedia says not really. One more puzzle!
PS 1: I have now consulted Bentham & Hooker about hollyhocks, which I found rather confusing. But I have learned that the marshmallows that I used to toast over a fire as a child are descended from a confection made by the ancient Egyptians from the root of the marshmallow, a close relative of the hollyhock, a connection now broken by replacing the active ingredient from the root with gelatin. This from Gemini, the end of whose story is:
'... The plant finally got pushed out of the recipe because it was too labor-intensive to harvest and process. As demand skyrocketed, candy makers looked for a mass-production shortcut.
By the late 1800s and early 1900s, manufacturers figured out they could replicate that signature "squishy, bouncy" texture much faster and cheaper by using gelatin (derived from animal collagen) or starches instead of the plant's root sap.
The Verdict: Today's grocery store marshmallows contain absolutely zero marsh-mallow plant. They are essentially just corn syrup, sugar, water, and gelatin whipped with air. But without that gooey marsh weed, we wouldn't have the name, the texture, or the excuse to put them on a stick over a fire'.
I then wondered, having a Canadian mother, whether toasting marshmallows on a camp-fire was a north American thing. Gemini agrees with me, coming up with another splendid story, including:
'... Around the 1890s, "marshmallow roasts" became the ultimate summer trend at fashionable beach resorts in places like New Jersey. It wasn't a rugged wilderness activity back then; it was an upscale, bohemian social mixer for young people. Newspapers at the time described it as an "excellent medium for flirtation," where young men and women would gather around a beach bonfire, nibble gooey sweets off the ends of each other's sharpened sticks, and socialize. ..'.
So the confusion at Bentham & Hooker did have its upside. And the story went on for quite a while. Gemini strong on camp-fire nostalgia - even on the differences between the North America, British and Australian traditions...
But I don't remember about pouring jam down the middle.
PS 2: I now remember that marshmallows was a Bonfire Night thing, while twists and dampers were a Boy Scout thing. As a child, we were lucky enough to have vacant lot next door which did very well as a Bonfire venue. Complete with a handy chunk of tree trunk.
PS 3: no marshmallows in the archive. But at least 14 hollyhocks, going back to 2014, with a London rather than an Epsom specimen. See reference 5 - from I also learn that I have been taking bacon sandwiches from Duncannon Street for more than a decade.
PS 4: Wednesday afternoon. Had a second go at the clump of hollyhocks above, earlier today. I think I am now clear that the long white threads in the middles are the female parts, ready to take pollen, with some grains visible, while the yellow thread behind are the male parts, presumably ripe and finished, thus avoiding incest (generally thought to be a bad thing, inbreeding in domestic, traction and farmed animals notwithstanding). All this being explained rather better at reference 2. But I have now seen it for myself.
References
Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcea_rosea.
Reference 2: https://naturesdepths.com/the-intimate-life-of-a-hollyhock-flower/.
Reference 3: https://wildflowers-and-weeds.com/Plant_Families/Malvaceae.htm.
Reference 4: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/bury-lodge.html. The home of the strawberry farm.
Reference 5: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/06/colour.html.
Group search key: 20260621.
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