The wasteland - what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?*

The fragrance of newly mown hay drying in the sun in Weardale’s meadows is just a memory now that the last cut has been gathered in, but 10 miles down the dale, in this small market town, it lingers. It grows stronger as we walk down an alley to the post office, past a bulldozed wasteland that was, until last year, the council depot.

A forest of melilot (Melilotus altissima) has appeared in the brick and concrete rubble. This is a plant supercharged with coumarin, the compound that gives mown grass its heady aroma. Today the scent comes in waves, released as the plant’s tangled stems brush against each other in the warm wind.