A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

 I had visited three venues this day, but the blog would become far too long if all of them were combined, so I have split them up for easier reading. I had planned to revisit the Kent Wildlife Trust Holborough reserve again as the orchids there should be at their best now. Being a wet alkaline fen like environment it is a very rare habitat and I also wanted to see what else I could find there. At first glance I thought these were Field Horsetail, but the leaves have a rather different arrangement, the teeth along the stem and the flowering time is different (though they aren't technically flowers). It's Water Horsetail, a fern. Equisetum fluviatile Not a brilliant photo in the bright sun, but this is the first Meadow Vetchling coming into flower, there's a lot of it here. It differs from the trefoils/birdsfoot in having grass like leaves. Lathyrus pratensis I soon came to one of the orchids I wanted to see. T

In 2013 I stumbled on a small patch of chalk grassland above an arable field between Great Buckland and Luddesdown. It was a wonderful mini habitat of the usual numerous wildflower species of chalk grassland and its associated butterflies and beetles. The revisiting of the site and nearby today was relatively brief just to see what was still there. This site is seriously scrubbing over and in a few years will be gone under a sea of Hawthorn and large shrubs. So my main purpose was to see if a small colony of Greater Butterfly Orchids were hanging on. I was pleased to see they were with 10 flowering plants there, the same number as previous years. This orchid is distinguished from the Lesser Butterfly in having the pollinia angled to each other. In the Lesser they are parallel. Plantanthera chlorantha The orchids here were not very tall and you can see the brambles beginning to invade their space. If unchecked these will be swamped soon.