Daily Walk in Difficult Times 87

White Bryony (Bryonia dioica) is a climbing and trailing plant that uses fine tendrils to cling to other plants in the hedgerow. The example in the pictures is growing over dogwood and hawthorn in the hedge near the river at Charlton Down. The flowers are not very noticeable from afar but in close-up are quite spectacular, in their quiet way, with hairy green-veined white petals and the strangest of reproductive parts in the centre. In autumn the plant bears red berries.