A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

I spent a few hours surveying TQ8164 for the BSBI 2020 atlas project, then had a wander around the nearby Kent Wildlife Trust reserve at Queendown Warren to see what I might find. Here's what I photographed this day. Dog Rose used to be simple, it was a Dog Rose. Now there are hybrids to contend with as well and many older Dog Rose records are considered unreliable as a result. It would be ideal to have the time to differentiate them, but unfortunately I don't, thus it's: Rosa canina agg I've realised photos of these always look better with the sky as a background rather than in a mass of vegetation. To get these shots means some awkward convolutions of the body and looking very odd to passers by, but I think they're worth it. When looking at wildflowers, it's easy to forget trees and shrubs. This is Dogwood and it's very common on chalk soils, both as a colonising shrub and planted in hedgerows. Cornus Sanguinea  a The heavily...

We travel down to East Kent most years to have a look at the beautiful orchids at Yockletts Bank which is a Kent Wildlife Trust reserve. Someone found a stunning Fly Orchid variant here and word soon spread. So as me and my partner go there anyway, we thought we'd have alook for it. It wasn't long before a plethora of orchids were found, including the first Common Spotted Orchids of the season for us. Dactylorhiza fucshii Common Gromwell was flowering along the paths. Lithospermum officinale We had missed the Herb Paris in its prime ,but I still photographed some as I find it a fascinating plant. Paris quadrifolia The first Greater Butterfly Orchids were now in bloom, bright flecks of white dancing in a shady breeze. Platanthera chlorantha Of course, the big draw for people to come here a...