Posts

Botanical Recording in Strood West, Kent - 31/07/16

Image
This OS square is under recorded, probably because much of it is taken up by the A2/M2 interchange with the HS1 railway going through it as well. However, there are some paths and areas to explore, which I what I did this day. I was fortunate enough to record 129 new records for this monad. I didn't get the camera out too often, but the following is what I did photograph. This is Common Fleabane, a plant that actually is Common and can be found on wasteground, shingle, dunes, road verges, just about anywhere really. Their leaves are light green and hairy giving it a silvery appearance, making them easy to identify. Pulicaria dysenterica Even alongside roads you can find wildflowers, such as this Fennel, with its fine, thread like leaves and umbels of yellow flowers making it very distinctive. Foeniculum vulgare Another plant that can be found anywhere the soil is poor, such as in pavement cracks, is this Annual Pearlwort, a very tiny plant with

Lullingstone & Dry Hill CPs, Kent - 25th July 2016

Image
We visited 3 venues this day: The A225 Roadside Nature Reserve near Eynsford Lullingstone Country Park, and: Dry Hill Nature Reserve All in the Sevenoaks area. This is the only site I know for Green-flowered Helleborines in Kent. They are a wild orchid but most unimpressive, as this variant has flowers that self pollinate and never open. They're right by the A225 near Eynsford on the verge. Epipactis phyllanthes var. degenera This is all you see of most flowers, they just don't open. I have known people prise open the sepals to get a photo but it's not something I would do. If this is its natural state then that's how it gets photographed. Much of this part of the RNR is heavily overgrown with trees but this Purple Toadflax got around that by growing out from them at 45 degrees towards the light. What's more, it was a pink variant. Linaria purpurea That was it for flowers here. Further along the road in May were hu

Botanical Recording near Meopham, Kent, 24th July 2016

Image
I'm a couple of weeks behind on my blogs now, so this already seems like distant history, despite it being less than a month ago. Anyway, when I get time I try to record plants in 1km OS map squares (monad) with hardly any records in order to bolster the records for the next BSBI atlas. This day, I was revisiting a monad to the West of Meopham via public footpaths. I had last visited in late October last year so I hoped to find new records at this time of the year. As I walked down a country lane noting plants along the way, I had some company that I shooed off the road for their own safety. I'm not a bird person, so I don't even know what they are. There were several of these beautiful Nettle-leaved Bellflowers in hedgerows throughout the walk, quite an impressive wildflower, they can grow reasonably tall and usually have multiple blue/lilac flowers. Campanula trachelium As I left the road and ventured into the