a field student spoke with a wild plum in his mouth, he thinks

Wild Plum - Prunus domestica?

21st July 2013

The field student is all fingers and thumbs recently in his efforts to document the flora and fauna of the allotment site. Sticking his fingers (and occasional thumb) into the photographs may be a disingenuous gesture given the Rabelaisian pretensions he divulged back in May . If he is somewhere or something between the giants, Gargantua and Pantagruel, the attempts (pictured) to convey some scale may be as potentially misleading as his field identifications/namings. The field student ate some of the fruits featured in the pictures and they seemed sweet and 'plummy' to his palate. His scoffing of those fruits of the hedgerow (H-G) have not yet proved reckless however caution will prevail and only the pictures of the fruits will be shared.

'Food for Free' and 'Flora Britannica' (Richard Mabey) provide a variety of names for the Prunus species -  Bullace, Damsons, Wild plums, Crixies and Winter Crack. 'Crixies' is the vernacular for wild damsons in Essex and so the field student may have been spitting feral 'Crixie' stones here, there and everywhere (sic) with only a little regard for the 'Byzantine complexity' of the 'genetic reservoir' they represent. 

We have been negotiating the complexities of a discussion between Richard Mabey and Steven Poole (along with many other writers and comment makers) about being out and about in the field, and writing about it. Field Study's Man in E17 is trying to work out what sort of plum he speaks with in his mouth before commenting more on his escapes to the virtually sun dappled allotment.