A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

Managed by Plantlife, the only UK organisation with reserves for wildflowers, Ranscombe Farm is close to the M2 and urban concentration of Medway. Yet when you enter it's like stepping back in time with fields full of flowers within the crops, wide weed filled crop margins and orchid filled ancient woodlands. The views are pretty good too! Plantlife Website First up was a meadow filled with Buttercups, Dandelions, Speedwells and lots of Cut-leaved Cranesbills. Geranium dissectum Various moths fluttered out of the grasses as we walked. I think this is a Burnet Companion, difficult for me to say only seeing the underside. Hop Trefoil were abundant, looking like miniature hops. These have more than 20 flowers in the head with a rolled over reflective lower petal, helps tell them apart from the similar Lesser Trefoil which had fewer flowers and straight forward pea type flowers. Trifolium campestre We then entered Mill Hill

Throughout the Summer months the KBRG hold field trips where the relative novice like myself can not only learn a lot quickly, but also get to see some rare plants. The Scotney estate is on mainly acid soils and I wondered what might be found. I am used to alkaline chalk soils that support a huge amount of species. Acid soils tend to support a more varied rush, sedge and grasses population, a section of botany I am still struggling with! This trip was a joint one with the Sussex Botanical Recording Group as well, as the walk straddled the two counties botanically. The botanical boundaries are historical (called Vice Counties) and no longer completely follow modern day county boundaries. This is quite typical of a field trip, getting muddy grass stained jeans! As expected there were many rushes and sedges to be found like this Hairy Sedge. Carex hirta This was one of the plants I had hoped to see, a pea family member called Bitter Vetch. I