A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

The KBRG runs numerous field trips each year covering a massive range of wildflowers and habitats, giving those attending the chance to learn how to identify new species each year. The last field trip of the season is the Glassworts one, aiming to familiarise those attending with how to identify Kent Glassworts ( Salicornia ). Unfortunately, I could only commit to half the session so I missed out on some species, but here are those we found in the first part of the meeting. This day we met at Oare Marshes near Faversham to survey some nearby salt marsh. Only an hour before we got there it was raining very heavily and blowing a gale; but the rain had stopped and the wind died down to a gentle breeze with occasional blustery episodes and by lunchtime I took in some sun on a sheltered sea wall. And we're off - along the sea wall. You can just see an indentation in the wall ahead which is an inlet and that's where we were headed. There were plenty of Bristly Oxtongue floweri

The area about the Dover Patrol memorial belongs to the National Trust and comprises of some good quality chalk grassland.  The memorial itself is an obelisk and much historical informaiton about it can be found here: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1070067 Dover Patrol Memorial Here's a  view of the memorial obelisk with a nice stand of Weld and Wild Teasel ( Reseda luteola and Dipsacus fullonum ) in the foreground . Being the second week into September I wasn't sure what I might find as many species had gone to seed, as shown above, and it had been quite dry too. Some of the best plants to be found were in the closely mown lawn around the obelisk itself. This flower is very small and easily missed in longer grasses. It can be identified easily in that its leaves are of unequal lengths, it is Squinancywort. Asperula cynanchica This is quite common on good quality chalk grassland, such as that found close to

The first day of Autumn was of course wet and with many more wet days to come, the countryside turned Autumnal, almost overnight, to match. I was recording botany in a few monads around Pembury which is a small town north east of Tunbridge Wells. I didn't really know what I'd find, but a look at Google Earth satellite images beforehand led me to investigate an area of so called "waste ground" right next to a Tesco supermarket. Growing in a damp area was a Kent RPR species, Corn Mint. This was a good start. Mentha arvensis That wasn't the only surprise here, nearby was another rare plant, Heath Speedwell, it's habitat nicely maintained by local rabbits scuffing up the soil. Veronica officinalis Signs of Autumn were now common, even though Summer was just a day before! Here are the fruits of Honeysuckle. Lonicera periclymenum  The first Earthball fungi had appeared in the damp places under trees. R