A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

I was very surprised at the number of flowering plants I found in this stunning wood this day. As there are so many, I'll keep the writing to a minimum and the photographs to the max! Situated just outside the M25, these woods are an oasis in the urban jungle not too far away. Along the woodland border of the photo below, lives a colony of protected Deptford Pinks. These are now a rare wildflower and the main flowering period is in the Summer, but I did hope to find the odd straggler in flower still. You can see from the photo that Autumn was in full swing with the leaves now turned into a coppery shimmer in the Autumn breeze. The flowering plants in the photo are of course, Hogweed. However, I didn't start in this area, so read on to see if I found those elusive wild Pinks still flowering! These were pink but not the ones I was looking for. Common Centaury which only fully opens in sunlight, mainly a Summer species, but till a few to be found toda

This ancient heath in North Kent is now virtually surrounded by urbanisation, but it still holds several rare and threatened species, such as Upright Chickweed and Petty Whin. Being well into Autumn I didn't expect to find much of note, but as usual I was wrong! Michelmas Daisies aren't hard to spot, however, it can be tricky working out which type of Aster they are, and this day I didn't have time to do that. Aster agg. These were well into the heath away from the car park, so they may have naturalised there from wind blown seed from the urban gardens less than a mile away. When I took this photo, I thought it was of a patch of Red Dead-nettles as they were only a few inches high. However, they were actually Black Horehound. The area had recently been mowed, hence the low growth and late flowering of these plants. Ballota nigra It was very pleasing to see plenty of Harebells still fluttering in the breeze. Though