A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

I thought it might make a change to enjoy a selection of plants from more than one trip in one blog. It will give you a flavour of what there is to be found at the beginning of June following on from a long drought in May. Beaked Hawksbeard is the earliest Hawkbeard to flower, making it easy to get one's eye in for it, before numerous look alikes appear. However, this one was a massive fasciated plant with a mind boggling amount of flowers. Field edge near Eynsford. What a monster! Crepis vesicaria Found nearby was this Fumitory. I thought it would be interesting to include this to show you what you need to consider to start identifying them. The size of the flowers and sepals are important. I find Broomrapes are fascinating and there are several species in the UK to find. They parasitise other plants. Some are very particular as to which (so are rare as a result) others attach themselves to pretty much any plant nearby, like this Common Broomrape. They are usually an off purple/li

Unfortunately I have to keep this venue secret as it's mainly about Lesser Butterfly Orchids and they are now gone from all of West Kent except this one venue. So, to protect them from theft or inadvertent trampling, I will keep this blog generalised in regards to location. All of this was unbeknown to me as I headed out for a relatively local walk in the West Kent downland. I didn't even know Lesser Butterfly Orchids were even found in West Kent so I hardly expected to find any. In fact the purpose of choosing this venue to explore was some 10 years old records for Fly and Man Orchids and some older records for Birds Nest Orchids, so I hoped to re-find some of these. It was a long walk uphill from the car to this wood, but I eventually got there. It was a hot day too, around 25 degrees and the walk made me perspire. As I walked along a narrow overgrown path I spotted something down a slope. From a distance it looked a bit like a Star of Bethlehem or perhaps an Allium,

I don't know why I picked this monad to survey. I had done some of it only last year, so didn't expect to find that much not already found. However, this time, I thought that I would properly explore the piece of Darenth Woods that fell within this square and the adjoining area too. Here's what I found in the woodland part on the first day. White Bryony is pretty much everywhere now with its big leaves, coiling tendrils and greenish flowers, there's nothing much else that looks like it. It was abundant around the woodland edges. Bryonia dioica This grass was on Watling Street on the northern edge of the woods. It's a one sided spikey looking grass and is called Rough Dog's Tail. I later found it in massive amounts on the main road junctions for Bluewater nearby.  Cynosurus echinatus There were some lovely displays of Stnking Iris, even in very densely shaded areas under the trees.