Liriodendrum

In Epsom town this morning, for an authorised purpose, although I did use the occasion to pay visits to Grape Tree and Waitrose to stock up on a few items of wet and dry grocery. And kippers - which, incidentally, were perhaps one third of the price of haddock. A smoke at a snip, as they say. Then on the way back, the liriodendrum of West Hill caught my eye, the one last noticed at reference 1.

Poking around in the flowerbeds underneath, I recovered three seed pods, about two inches long, about half an inch near the base, tapering to a point at the top. Pretty wet. There is a snap of the green pods at reference 2.

Back home, I found that the seed scales peeled away from the central core, two of which can be seen bottom left in the snap above, in a most engaging & clever way. A sort of mutant pine cone. We shall see if I can conjure any of the scales into life.

Then after lunch, our regular game of Scrabble, at which BH is improving, or at least taking more seriously, and is now winning around one game in three. Yesterday, by a considerable margin. So today, I was pleased to turn the tables, beating her by getting on for a hundred points, although the aggregate score was poor, something under 500. Particularly pleased with my coup of 68, achieved by getting 'quailed' to straddle two double words - although I did have to be firm about this counting four times.

PS: OED tells me that quail as in bird is a foreign word, that is to say French. Whereas quail as in fear is a proper Olde English word.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/liriodendrum.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/wisley-themed.html.