A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

There's not much to photograph in the way of wildflowers at this time of the year, but without doubt, any walk will throw up something of interest. Here's what I found on a short walk here this day. Most of last year's wildflowers are now history and the spring plants are beginning now to come into flower such as this Hazel tree. Corylus avellana    The next few photos are the seed heads of last year's wildflowers. Common Knapweed Centaurea nigra agg. Greater Knapweed Centaurea scabiosa Traveller's Joy Clematis vitalba  These multi coiled seeds belong to Lucerne. A very similar seed is the closely related Sand Lucerne but their seeds only have 1 to 1.5 coils. Medicago sativa subspecies sativa  The numerous black berries in a pyramidal clump belong to Wild Privet. In this plant, some have fallen or been eaten by birds, mice etc. Ligustrum vulgare I noticed several fungi too; this was a lar...

This title is a hashtag that I picked up on Twitter that I first saw from a fellow naturalist, @Britnatureguide  It dawned on me that posting a selection of 4 photos once a day with this hashtag on twitter was an excellent way to engage the public with what we have in our countryside and thus what we also have to lose with thoughtless, profit driven developments and intensive farming the main culprits for endangering our wildlife. Other factors for decline incude poor management and neglect of the environment. For example, mowing road verges before wildflowers set seed; leaving cuttings behind that enrich the soil and favour thuggish species sich as nettles and hogweed; undergrazing or neglect  allowing scrub to grow and outcompete rarer wildflowers such as orchids and gentians; overgrazing, leading to no plants setting seed; and so it goes on. Add to the above climate change, drought; flood, nitrogen deposition, eutrophication of freshwater and more, and it seem...