A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

It's been a very slow start to Spring in Kent, following a prolonged cold snap in January and February. Most plants are flowering 2-3 weeks later than they did in the preceeding three years. Thus it's been quite a challenge to find anything to write about, but as I do write this, Spring has finally arrived in Kent. Each week now, more species will come into flower. Today's blog details those found in the last 2 weeks at various sites. I'll start off with a trip to the Sandgate and Folkestone Leas area on the South coast of the county. This is a garden escape long naturalised on shingle here. It's Three-cornered Garlic. It has drooping sprays of white flowers with obvious green lines running down the petals. And if you crush any part of it you get a lovely Garlic smell akin to being in a French restaurant perhaps! Allium triquetrum I found the plants flowering below, in the car park at Sandgate and also along the base of the s

It's been a drab, cold time of the year, no surprise really, being Winter! However, the end of 2015 was exceptionally mild and wherever I went I always found some wildflowers. Not so a year later. Parts of December 2016 were very cold and in North Kent we had several hard frosts down to -5 Celsius. Worse (for wildflowers) was that these temperatures coincided with thick freezing fog, meaning that layers of ice crystals decimated the less hardy flowers still out. Anyway, back to the first day of 2017. The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) now organise a wildflower "hunt" from 1st to 4th January each year. Data is put into a database and observations can be drawn from the results. For full details go to: http://bsbi.org/new-year-plant-hunt It really is quite fun to do and gives me a purpose to go general recording at a time of the year when it's all too easy to sit in front of the TV watching the same old films and shows. The main difference to

There is a large arable field just North of Longfield that has been left fallow for well over a year. I thought it might have some interesting arable plants now so I had a quick visit to see what I could find. Apart from being a nice open space, it doesn't look much does it. However, when the farmer leaves it a while before spraying, the seed bank in the soil comes to life. Longfield can be seen to the left of the photo. Scarlet Pimpernels are almost guaranteed to be present and can be found in a variety of habitats from pavement cracks to shingle areas. However, arable field edges are their stronghold. Always keep a look out for subspecies, such as the rare Blue Pimpernel or a rose coloured variant. Anagallis arvensis subsp arvensis There were at least a thousand of these Small Toadflax plants scattered throughout the field, with their snap draon type small flowers being distinctive. The flowers are mostly white, but look closer and you'll see pink