Last week’s curiosity was a plant called montbretia. Each swelling is called a corm. A corm is an underground stem. It stores food for the plant to use in the following year. When the plant grows, it forms a new corm on top of the old one.
In this picture we have a very old corm almost buried in the soil, a younger very large corm above it, a smaller corm above this that is younger still and the smallest corm that has been formed this year at the top.
As Ettie the canal barge sailed through waters close to the Mediterranean Sea the water around her changed from fresh water to salt water and this animal came floating by. It had come from the sea. What is it?
