Today's species spotlight is a strong contrast with yesterday's tiny plant with almost invisible flowers. This really is a large, showy, impressive plant and one that you may well already be aware of. It's Rosebay Willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium) - a tall (up to 2.5 metres (8 feet) in height) plant. It is frequently a coloniser of bare ground, including former industrial land and the sites where the vegetation has been burned away (hence the name Fireweed, which is used in North America). During the second world war in the UK it became known in some places as 'bombweed' because of its ability to colonise bomb craters.
Although there are at least 15 species (plus several hybrids) of willowherb in the UK (all in the Evening-primrose Family), this one actually looks a bit different from all the others (some of which are exceedingly difficult to tell apart) and is grouped in a different genus. One feature it does share with the other willowherbs, however, is its long thin fruits. These split along their length when they are ripe (a process known as dehiscence) to reveal the tiny seeds attached to cottony plumes, which are carried away in the wind, potentially to new sites which it can colonise.
Rosebay Willowherb has featured in several works of literature (often as fireweed) including my favourite book of all time, The Lord of The Rings, in which Tolkien describes the site of a bonfire in the Old Forest, and lists some of the wildflowers the hobbits saw there - "No tree grew there, only rough grass and many tall plants: stalky and faded hemlocks and wood-parsley, fireweed seeding into fluffy ashes, and rampant nettles and thistles" (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring - page 156 in my edition).
One final fact for you - if you live in Greater London, this is your flower. In a 2002 poll by the charity Plantlife, Rosebay Willowherb was voted the 'county flower' of London (feel free to leave your thoughts about whether London is a county or not, in the comments 🙂).
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