BOTANY

The fact that so much botany was carried out here, from the 18th Century, even before: it became a centre for people interested in plant life. That’s perhaps an interesting continuity that people could celebrate. Pennant and others came here to learn about plant life. People living here learnt a lot because it was in their interest to do so, to learn about the botany of the area ….and they would confer that on other people - I like to think that was a two-way process. So I think that’s an interesting angle on the past of Dyffryn Peris. I am not a botanist myself, but it would be nice to think that it would remain an interest to people who are concerned for the natural environment and enjoy it and wanting to sustain it.

The first rock climb I think – started really on Clogwyn Du Arddu, with people gathering plants and starting to use their hands to climb to gather the plants, rather than just walking. So those were the first climbs.

When I first moved into my house 10 years ago, I had a lawn that was just grass. And now it its all lawn moss - … (Rhytidiedelphus squarrosus) [look up ‘lawn moss’ on the internet and see what comes up – shocking!] and my neighbours too. So looking at my lawn, so on that tiny scale, perhaps there is an increase in moss, and maybe that’s a reflection of other changes are going on. But when I go round the quarries nothing really has changed in terms of moss.

You’ve got different mosses that like different things – different climate, different substrate. They are not all drought and flood tolerant. They need a habitat to live in so if there is a climactic or hydrological or substrate change then mosses that are there will probably die and new mosses will come in. There are something like 30 species of sphagnum. There’s been due to the intensification of agriculture, places that were nice rich wetlands are now dominated by common rush, and one particular type of sphagnum – sphagnum sphallax [flat topped bog moss].

My favourite plant is a flower called Crossleafed Heath.

You’ve got Robbie Blackall Myers in town [Llanberis] who writes for the Guardian : He writes a blog called Robbie’s Rare Plants. So Ben and Robbie, Fossil Plants, their tiny little house has a garden where everything is a pre-historic plant. They are in discussion with all the national authorities about the import and transport of rare plants. They do collecting missions - they’ve got plants from syria that would have gone, growing at TOGY (Bangor). He runs a project called Cae’r Ddol at the top of Llyn Padarn, the Llyn Peris end, which is about cutting to keep the floral abundance.

We are in the perfect place for climate change in this valley. Its temperate. We’ve fucked the rest of the world but the UK is probably the prime place to be as temperature rises – we get plenty of rain, it’ll be verdant. Nature has an amazing ability to adapt. I don’t think its going to be OK but I think as far as the world is concerned it’s a good place to be.

There’s a lot more moss around. That area there had hardly any moss on it, it was basically rocky. I don’t know, I presume that’s climate change?

They’re fantastic, mosses. I’m a big fan of ferns as well. They’ve been here since dinasour times, and they’ve barely changed. There are fossilized ferns and they look exactly the same. But people get rid of them, you know. And I say to them ‘oh don’t get rid of them’ and they say ‘but there’ll be snakes underneath them’. It’s an old wives tale round here: snakes live under ferns. Like don’t sit on slate, you’ll get piles.

I’ve been watching one patch of land, its waiting for planning, it’s derelict. I can see it from my front door. Birch and Ash were growing there and got cut down. Now he’s got knotweed. But the land also grows a forest of beautiful yellow spiked mullain, st johns wort, 2 or three types of plantain, Fox and Cubs, beautiful purple vetch. These all are so valuable - medicinal properties. Until there’s houses, it might as well be a place where we can all go and say look what grows when the trees have gone. Leave it to its own devices, and it comes back. Don’t tell me that the place, the world is fucked. That really pisses me off. If we stop doing the bad stuff, it gets better.

What’s really great to see is how much more multicultural its become. Certainly since I was little. I was lucky in that my dad’s a welsh farmer but we spent time in India, so that was cool, but I don’t think there was a person of colour in my village until I was about 16. That’s only 20 years ago. I think the tourists have become more multicultural as well. It only struck me about 10 years ago, someone on the radio was explaining how segregated the countryside is, how it is a very white, middle class space. The great thing about – a really unifying thing about the countryside around here is magic mushrooms. You’ll get – it annoys people – but it is what draws them to the countryside and gives them these connected spiritual experiences.