A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

Littlestone is a small non descript town on the coast on the South West corner of Kent. It has a shingle beach and when the tide goes out there's more mud than sand, so it isn't popular with day trippers. However, just North of the town there is a golf course and between this and the sea wall there is a great habitat for wildflowers and insects, comprising of stabilised old sand dunes, now pretty much flattened over decades and grassed over.  In 2013 I found here a small colony of the last Kent wild orchid of the season to flower, the Autumn Ladies Tresses. These are quite small, with single spikes around 4-8" tall poking up with  tiny white and yellow centered flowers spiralling up it. In 2015, I didn't find any on two visits here, so was rather concerned they had gone for good. This area behind the sea wall is a good habitat for Sea Holly, a Kent RPR species due to habitat loss. This time though, the habitat loss isn't through intensive farming or build...

I only have a few photos from this day out. We diverted to Seasalter to have a look around. I had found nothing of note along the sea front and beach areas, so I had a look around along a dyke behind the sea wall (that's a ditch in Kentish lingo for those unfamiliar with the term)  I finally found a wildflower that I have been looking for, for the last 3 years. I've never found it in West Kent and though I was told they could be found in East Kent, I had completely forgotten about them, until now. Doesn't look much does it! It was about 4" tall and looked like a Red Dead-Nettle which it isn't. It was a Cut-leaved Dead-Nettle These are rather like Red Dead-Nettles with cut leaves. When said like that it completely fails to communicate to you the excitement I felt when I realised what it was, a new species for me. The leaves are cut to 3-4mm deep, much deeper than Red Dead-Nettles and the flowers are smaller and few in number. Lamium hybridum  ...

This is only a short blog where I revisited this venue to see some rare plants. Though I had seen them in previous years, I like to revisit to see how they're getting on or not as the case may be. This country park is quite large, comprising mainly of woodland with some small lakes and overgrown quarry areas. As I parked the car I was very pleased to see this Purple Emperor on a car boot sunning itself. I'd not seen one here before. Last year I was treated to an odd coloured Silver Washed Fritillary, it's a good butterfly venue. Apatura iris I came across the first Ploughmans Spikenard I'd seen flowering this year. They flower in late Summer and the flowers completely lack ray florets. They are a tall, bushy plant so are easy to spot. Inula conzae   I then came to the small lakes, one of which was dotted with the flowers of Greater Bladderwort, an insect eating species! Its underwater leaves have bladders which implode on touch, su...

Holly Hill is a large area on the chalk hilltops of the North Downs just West of the Medway Gap. There's a mix of pristine chalk grassland and remnants of ancient woodland. There's always something amazing to see here, if only for the views South and East. Don't be fooled by going into the woods by the Holly Hill car park, there's not much to see there. Instead, walk back along the road to Birling Hill, cross that road and the chalk grassland opens up before you. As you enter you don't know where to look first, flowers, butterflies and bees everywhere. However if you are planning a visit, I am writing this 3 weeks later and by now most flowers will have by now gone to seed. I'd just walked in from the road and found this Eyebright and Common Centaury growing together. Euphrasia sp. & Centarea erythraea Carline Thistles love the chalk, but from standing height they look, well, rather dead! Look closer and you may se...

This blog should have been done before the last one on Strood, but I missed it! We had a day out at Sandwich, a small town on the East coast of Kent. There are many botanical rarities in this area, so when I heard that a brand new public footpath had been opened, called the England Coast Path, I thought we had to walk it. On the way we stopped on the Thanet Way for a drink, so naturally, I had a look around. This is Mugwort with its flowers fully open! They are tall leafy plants which when crushed have a lovely smell. They grow just about anywhere as well. Artemisia vulgaris There were plenty of plants around, but the only other photo I took here was the underside of Wild Carrot. This shows its feathery bracts underneath, very distinctive. Most flower heads also have a red flower bang in the centre of the umbel (but some don't ). Daucus carota Lunch at McDs arrived so the camera was put away here. Got it just in time as well, as they had a power cut s...