One of the advantages of not being able to drive is that, as a passenger, you notice more.

Over much of Kent I have witnessed a phenomenon this Spring. Along the many of the bare and ugly road-verges and central reservations of our A-roads and motorways dense, delicate pink or white coatings of low-growing flowers have appeared like stars in the Milky Way, where the previous year there were none. The continued and rapid spread of Early Scurvy-grass (Cochlearica danica) has been quite astonishing this year and the reason is simple; the hard Winter.

Danish or Early Scurvy-grass beside an A-road

How? First of all it is a Northern species, so it doesn’t mind the cold, in fact it thrives within the Arctic Circle. Then it is a halophyte, a salt-loving plant and salt/gritting operations this winter were so extensive as to change the salinity of the roadside soil over hundreds of miles in a strip anything up to 3m wide. Early (or Danish) Scurvy-grass’s natural habitat is bare, sandy or gritty seashores but it is colonising far inland. I first encountered it on the hard shoulder of the M25 some years back (don’t ask). The salt burns away the natural vegetation leaving a bare strip, which the scurvy-grass and other maritime plants can and do colonise in a long linear fashion. However it has been noted that where bare soil leads away from the road edge but is no longer salty, the plants refuse to follow. Incredibly, the seeds appear to be dispersed in the slipstreams of motor vehicles and also in the mud attached to them. The Kent populations could have originated from the M25, though in truth lorries from all over the country and the rest of Europe pass through the county. In parts of the country it is colonising at a rate of over 30km per year.

Early Scurvy Grass - Cochlearica danica

The plant is rich in Vitamin C and like other members of its family, is so called because it if famously antiscorbutic (anti-scurvy). Scurvy still occasionally occurs in badly nourished people in Britain but the affliction used to be particularly common in sailors whose diet after a long time at sea lacked fresh fruit and vegetables and also in country people after a long winter without the same. Although symptoms could become severe and unpleasant (gradual weakening, pale skin, sunken eyes, tender gums, muscle pain, loss of teeth, internal bleeding, and the re-opening of old wounds), the restoration to health on Vitamin C rich plants was rapid.

The irony is that this immense new crop is likely to be so full of heavy metals and other roadside pollutants that it would do you far more harm than good. And that is without being mown down by a juggernaut when you stop to pick some.