A Short Break to Kent in Mid June 2025

 On my long drive up from Cornwall in mid June to collect my granddaughter from Kent, I had the opportunity to spend all day recording along the route. I also had a few days recording in Kent as well, before returning to Cornwall. This is a summary of this trip.

 

 My first stop was at a well known lay-by on the Dorset/Somerset border, where the Bee x Fly orchid hybrid is known from. I was rather lucky to find a couple of plants still in flower given they started in May and the weather had been hot and dry for an extended period.

Ophrys x pietschii 

 

 I recorded the area and moved on. A few miles down the road I stopped again and found Field Pennycress on a road verge. On the second photo, the general consensus was the insect on the pod was an aphid infected with some type of fungus.

Thlaspi arvense

 Hairy Sedge (Carex hirta) and False Fox Sedge (Carex otrubae) from another lay-by en route.

 

Away from the acidic soils of the South West, Common Spotted Orchids were the prevalent spotted orchid species found. A fine specimen here from near Bourton.

Dactylorhiza fuchsii 

  

A Five Spot Burnet Moth pair mating on the rayed form of Common Knapweed.

 Zygaena trifolii

 

A Vapourer Moth caterpillar from another lay-by. It's a weird looking caterpillar for sure.

 Orgyia antiqua

 

 I found two spikes of Knapweed Broomrape in Wiltshire on a road verge, a tall impressive plant that parasitises Common Knapweed and Greater Scabious. I spotted it as I drove past, and it took me a mile to find somewhere to turn around. That's either dedication or obsession! 

 Orobanche elatior 

 

 

 Fleet Services in Hampshire had a fine stand of Rough Dog's Tail grass in the car park under planted pine trees.

 Cynosurus echinatus

 

 Heath Groundsel was present on the sandy soils around the car park too.

Senecio sylvaticus

 

 

 Nearby was a grass verge full of Fox and Cubs with their lovely orange flowers.

Pilosella aurantiacum

There were many more interesting plants found in lay-bys and road verges on my way to Kent, but I eventually arrived and went to the famous Ranscombe Farm the next day.

Stinking Chamomile is a rare plant register species in Kent, and there were thousands of them here. They can be told apart most easily (there are other ways) from other Mayweeds and Chamomile in that if you crush a leaf they smell very unpleasant. Scentless Mayweed has no smell when crushed; Scented Mayweed has a mild pleasant scent and Chamomile is very pleasantly aromatic and usually very small in height too.

Anthemis cotula 

 

In some restored chalk grassland, Common Rock-rose had come up in some numbers.

Helianthemum nummularium 

Horseshoe Vetch was nearby.

Hippocrepis comosa 

Pyramidal Orchids were common in grassy areas, this one with Fairy Flax as a companion species.

Anacamptis pyramidalis and Linum catharticum 

I found a few "normal" Bee Orchids but nearby was a solitary rare variant. Unfortunately, this was the only one there; a few years back there were around 30 plants with multiple flowers. Unusually, they grow under Bracken in semi shade, but the area had been trampled over the years making paths through the bracken that were not there a few years back. Bee Orchids also tend to only last around eight years or so in an area before dying out. They usually pop up again nearby a few years later. Hopefully, this lovely variant will do the same.

Ophrys apifera var. cambrensis 

 Ranscombe is mostly known for its rare arable flora. I failed to find Ground-pine and Blue Pimpernel which is usually present here, possibly burnt off by drought conditions. However, there were still plenty of interesting plants to find, such as Corncockle, now more or less extinct in most of the UK's arable fields.

Agrostemma githago 

Broad-leaved Cudweed, not quite in flower, but very rare. I only found a few, but some years ago there were thousands, so there will be plenty of seed in the seed bank here. I noted that (mostly dog) walkers had trampled the field edge where they used to grow (Longhoes field), the path now three times the size it used to be.

Filago pyramidata

 

A single, dried up Venus's Looking Glass.

Legousia hybrida

 

Dwarf Spurge, sometimes a single stem as here, sometimes bushy in appearance.

Euphorbia exigua

 

One of the rare plants that had seemed to do well in the hot dry weather was Rough Mallow. It's a small flowered, hairy plant, known here for centuries. I often only found one or none, but this time I found several small colonies dotted around the fields.

Malva setigera

 

Common Poppies dominated many fields, but amongst them were Opium, Prickly and Rough Poppies. The Rough Poppy was found easily enough as it was quite tall, with bright red, curled up petals and spikey seedheads.

 

Roemeria sicula

 

  

 

 Opium poppy is usually found on waste ground and pavements, but it was common in the arable fields here.

 

Papaver somniferum

 

  

 Amongst swathes of Common Fumitory was a stand of Dense Flowered Fumitory. Small flowers (under 11mm) with very large sepals separate this from the other small fumitory species.

 

Fumaria densiflora 

 

 

Along a field edge I'd not walked before, I found a few hundred Narrow-fruited Cornsalad, a rarer species than the usual Keel-fruited and Common Cornsalad species I normally find. To determine these you have to look at the seeds as each species is a bit different in shape and/or hairiness.

 

Valerianella dentata

 

 

Knotted Hedge Parsley was a frequent field edge plant, it's usually very small, low to the ground with tiny flowers, like a mini Cow Parsley. However, the seeds are more interesting, and clearly they spread by catching on the fur of passing animals and my socks.

 

Torilis nodosa

 

  

Of course, I found many more species than I have shown here, but it's time to move on. From here I travelled a few miles to Kent Wildlife Trust's Holborough Marshes reserve. I had hoped to find lots of marsh orchids here, but the western meadows were seriously scrubbed over and I only found one amongst a scattering of Common Spotted Orchids. Likewise, there no Southern Marsh orchids at all to be found.

 

I only found a single Early Marsh Orchid where six years ago I'd have found 30-60 spikes. Kent Wildlife Trust is getting this site's management seriously wrong. The eastern meadows also usually held many orchids, but had several ponies grazing. The sward was much shorter and in good condition, but of course, ponies on the land in June, meant that there were no orchids flowering, as the ponies eat them. This is the best KWT reserve in West Kent for marsh orchids and Carex species, and it's going to be lost if nothing is done very soon.

 

Dactylorhiza incaranata subsp incarnata 

 

A stream around the reserve held some Lesser Water Parsnip, a new species for the monad. It differs from Fool's Watercress (with which it might be confused) by having a white ring around the leaf stalk at the nodes and the pairs of opposite leaves turning up several degrees from the horizontal (see first photo below). Again, the habitat was degraded with trees shading the stream to the extent that there was diversity only where the light could get in.

 

Berula erecta

 

Several people thought this Sedge below might be Lesser Pond Sedge, but the bracts were far too long and it didn't quite look right, so I asked the Kent VCR for help and he suggested that it is likely Cyperus Sedge. I found it in two locations here. When mature, the female spikes will droop.

 

Carex pseudocyperus 

Meadow Barley grew in one place near the grassy sea wall defences. It is much more slender and delicate compared to Wall Barley and isn't stiff to the touch.

 

Hordeum secalinum 

 

 

In the drier, eastern meadow was plenty of Narrow-leaved Birdsfoot Trefoil. It has fewer, paler flowers than Common Birdsfoot Trefoil; is more upright in habit; and the leaves are around 6 times longer than wide.

Lotus tenuis

 

By the nearby railway line, a female Stag Beetle crossed the path in front of me.

 

 Lucanus cervus

 

The next day, I visited an area near Bredhurst to record and admire the chalk flora there. This place has hundreds of orchids of many species, with a huge population of Chalk Fragrant Orchids.

 

Gymnadenia conopsea

 

I managed to find a white flowered variant too, lovely.

 

When I last visited this venue around 2019 or thereabouts, there were no Greater Butterfly Orchids. However, they have now colonised the chalk bank there and I found at least 30 flowering spikes with more in a copse nearby.

 

Platanthera chlorantha

 

 

There were lots of species here apart from orchids, including Carline Thistle, Wild Marjoran, Wild Basil, Common Rockrose, Wild Thyme and so much more. Chalk grassland in June is a real delight. On the edge of the downland were many Common Cow-Wheat, but being on chalk, these were a different sub species to those (more common) that grow in acidic soils. They parasitise woody plants and these were likely attached to Beech tree roots.

 

Melampyrum pratense subsp commutatum

 

The last plant of note from here was the hybrid between Chalk Fragrant Orchid and Common Spotted Orchid. It's an unsurprising hybrid given that both parent species grow within inches of each other in large numbers, so hybridisation is inevitable. I didn't even really look for them and I found two. They are nearly always somewhat scented and mostly show hybrid vigour, towering above the parent species. 

 

X dactylodenia heinzeliana

 

On my second full day in Kent, I visited an under recorded monad near Istead Rise with only 4 records in it. I made the effort to walk most of the monad's footpaths and road verges and recorded over 200 species of vascular plants. Here's some of the more noteworthy finds.

 

Warty Cabbage grew near a water pumping station along a road verge and had spread into a disused field too. It looks rather like the coastal Bastard Cabbage with knobbly seedpods up the stems, but a closer look shows the pods to be irregularly shaped and dotted with warts. It also has warts on the stems and softly hairy leaves. I had seen this plant here before many years ago, but it wasn't in seed and I couldn't identify it. With the pods though, it was easy to determine. I've only seen this species once before in an old bomb crater on Blackheath. As it's an unusual plant, I've included several photos for you.

Bunias orientalis

 

As I walked down a rural lane, I noticed a badger path going into some relict woodland by the roadside, so I went in for a look. I found several White Helleborines in seed, Southern Wood-rushes and several flowering Man Orchids, so that was well worth a short diversion!

 

Orchis anthropophora

 

 An unusual find as a pavement plant was a large strip of Wild Liquorice (there was a lot of it at Ranscombe Farm too) growing along a pavement, albeit, a pavement that no-one used as it ended on a bend of a busy main road in a rural area between towns. There was no habitation of any kind nearby either. As a result, many wildflowers flourished along the sides of it. 

 

Astragalus glycyphyllos

 

 Chicory was also found by the main road. There are three subspecies of Chicory and you can tell them apart by reading Kent Botany 2024 page 34. You can find it at bsbi.org/kent

 

Cichorium intybus subsp silvestre

 

 Wild Basil on the same footpath. 

Clinopodium vulgare

 

Off the road verge in the shade of some trees I found some Turkish Iris, no doubt originating from garden waste being dumped here some time ago. The native Stinking Iris was also flowering nearby.

 

Iris orientalis

 

 On an arable field edge, I found a Hawthorn with very red flowers, a type I'd not seen before. They're usually white or pink. I checked many styles and each flower only had one and the flowers weren't doubles (flore pleno) thus ruling out one of the red flowered hybrid hawthorns that can be purchased from nurseries. As such, it seems it's a simple, though rare, colour mutation of Common Hawthorn. 

 

Crataegus monogyna

 

 Another unusual find was Love-in-the-mist, a garden plant that when it escapes, is usually onto pavements or very close to the parent plants. However, here I found it along an arable field edge, next to a crop of Barley with no other alien species anywhere close by. As such, I can only think it was a seed comtaminant and inadvertantly spread by the farmer earlier in the year. They were much more robust, healthier looking plants than those found in pavement habitats.

 

Nigella damascena 

 

  

 My last plant of note was an apple tree in fruit. The fruits were very small and I thought perhaps it could be the native, but rare Crab Apple. However, the undersides of the leaves were hairy and crab apples are hairless, so it was a domestic apple variety after all. I later read that domestic apples that produce very small apples are often grown from seeds from discarded apple cores, whereas, apples that are the usual size are almost always planted. Unfortunately, I didn't record the source of that study.

 Malus domestica

 

That ended my three very hot days in Kent. I picked up my granddaughter and the next day we made a very early start back to Cornwall to avoid the traffic. I hope you liked the blog and my plant selection. For my trips to Cornwall and to a few Devon venues, see my other blog at https://sylvatica2022.blogspot.com/

 with a trip to Berry Head's limestone outcrops the next instalment to be written soon.

 

Take Care

Dave