A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

I walked from east of Bough Beech reservoir to Winkhurst Green this day and here's some of the amazing plants I found this day. It' always a great feeling to find a new orchid site and here is a Violet Helleborine by a woodland path. Epipactis purpurata  Two colour forms of Scarlet Pimpernel along a field edge This beautiful colour variant is called: Lysimachia arvensis f. carnea ( formerly Anagallis arvensis) Fungi were just starting to put in an appearance. It's nice to find some in mint condition and not half eaten away by slugs. Foxgloves are quite amazing plants and this one was late flowering with most in seed by this time. Digitalis purpurea What I thought was a white form of Dovesfoot Cranesbill  (they're usually pink) turned out to be Cut-Leaved Cranesbill. It's easy to get a bit lazy and not check all the ID features on a plant, especially when you see them regularly. I didn't notice a

This area had two under recorded OS map squares on the Kent side of the River Medway with the opposite bank being in East Sussex. Here's some of the wildflowers I found on this day on a tiring walk along field edges and overgrown river banks. Betony - Betonica officinalis Bifid Hemp-nettle - Galeopsis bifida Common Hemp-nettle - Galeopsis tetrahit Tansy - Tanacetum vulgare A white form of Musk Mallow, the usual pink forms were close by too - Malva moschata The bright and colourful Common Fleabane - Pulicaria dysenterica Marsh Woundwort, much less common in Kent than Hedge Woundwort. Stachys palustris Purple Loosestrife Lythrum salicaria My most interesting plant of the day was Water Chickweed found on an overgrown small island submerged when water levels are high. Myosoton aquaticum (in the distance is Angelica sylvestris ) The bright red berries of Lord and Ladies f

This day out was a short tour from Dungeness to Littlestone on the south Kent coast, but only staying a short time at each as the weather wasn't so good. Anyone who knows Dungeness for example, wouldn't want to stay too long on a very windy and wet day which this day was. For a change, we headed off to the end of Dengemarsh Road just west of the power station rather the usual areas around the lighthouses or the RSPB reserve. I didn't expect to find anything new, but it's always a delight to see coastal plants when one lives inland in any case. On this grey, miserable day, the first flowering plant I noticed was amazingly, something new! From standing height this looked like Common Storksbill, but the leaves and form of it was wrong for that species. It was of course Sea Heath, a species I'd not seen before and a rare plant in Kent. In places there were dense carpets of it amongst the shingle. Frankenia laevis I'd not been her