2000 South Downs Sussex July One Day Meeting
By the time you read this spring will be on its way, if still in the distance. As I write, autumn is over and the leaves are down. All to say that it is cheering toread reports of last summer's botany meetings and visualise the plants seen. Our meetings leaders do give so much pleasure and the Society is grateful to them indeed. . .
Back in June, Mrs Ann Ohlenschlager was joined by ten members to visit, first, the Anton Lakes near Andover. This is a conservation area in the Test valley and the warden was able to show the party a good variety of local plants. Later, they went on to a Hants. Wildlife Reserve, the Old Lime Quarry at Burghclere. Ann writes that this is a lovely sheltered place and the sun shone. They saw plenty of the chalk flora, including Fly Orchid, Twayblades and White Helleborine.
Early June was also a splendid time for the Great Orme where Wendy McCarthy, too, had a party often for a packed day of spectacular botany. The limestone grassland was in full display, with Geranium sanguineum (Bloody Crane's-bill), Potentilla neumanniana (Spring Cinquefoil), Helianthemum oelandicum (Hoary Rock-rose) and Hypochoeris maculata (Spotted Cat's-ear) to everyone's delight, while the air was filled with the apple-like smell of Sweet Briar. On the crags, there was the first of the summer's Veronica spicata ssp. hybrida (Spiked Speedwell), the Orme's special Hawkweeds and the equally special Cotoneaster cambricus on the western cliffs. These are only a small selection of the plants seen and enjoyed, but what a day! A visit to the West Shore where there are a number of interesting aliens, including Reseda alba (White Mignonette), rounded it off; leaving the party, as Wendy puts it, puzzling over Marsh Orchids in the dune slacks.
The weather did not hold so well for Tina Teearu's Montgomeryshire meeting on June 24th. Starting at the base of Breidden Hill, the company soon encountered Gymnocarpium dryopteris (Oak Fern), and a local speciality Sedum forsterianum (Rock Stonecrop); then they made a detour for Orobanche rapum- genistae (Greater Broomrape). The Shropshire Wildlife Trust's Sweeney Fen had several orchids and also some Trollius europaeus (Globeflower), virtually at its southern limit at this site in Shropshire. Llanymenech, where the party had lunch in light rain, is a lovely place for limestone plants and from there they could look back across the valley to Breidden, their eventual goal. Tina describes the rest of their outing: "We waited for the active quarry there to close before returning to visit the real specialities of the site. Plants seen included Pilosella peleteriana ssp.subpeleteriana (Shaggy Mouse-ear-hawkweed), on old quarry walls. Lychnis viscaria (Sticky Catchfly), still with a few flowers remaining, Veronica spicata ssp. hybrida (Spiked Speedwell) in perfect condition, and Potentilla rupestris (Rock Cinquefoil) which was unfortunately in fruit, but on the other hand we did get much closer to it than I had anticipated. It had been a long day but worth it in the end."
In July David Curry led a less eventful, but no less enjoyable, walk on the South Downs in Sussex during which 186 species were noted. The party had lunch in a dried up dewpond and all around were Frog orchids, Sagina nodosa (Knotted Pearlwort), which had been noted as extinct in Sussex in the Sussex Plant Atlas, Clinopodium acinos (Basil Thyme) and Thesium humifusum (Bastard- toadflax). (I have always wondered why the latter is so named in English: can anyone explain it?). Other interesting plants included the Sussex speciality Phyteuma orbiculare (Round-headed Rampion) and Valerianella dentata (Narrow-fruited Cornsalad) which I personally always associate with the South Downs. Lonicera xylosteum (Fly Honeysuckle) at the foot of the Downs on the way home rounded off the day nicely. As David writes, "this was a very happy and fruitful outing".
The next local meeting report I have had comes from Doug Grant who took a group for a walk in Bedgebury Forest in Kent. This is a large area of mixed conifers and deciduous trees managed by the Forestry Commission, but the tracks are evidently not well maintained and the leader had trouble in finding a route which was possible for walking, avoiding the worst and deepest mud. However, a good range of the local flora was seen, including a number of sedges. Notables were, Hieracium cantianum, Agrimonia procera, scarce in Kent, but masses to be seen that day, Oreopteris limbosperma, also scarce in Kent and Eleocharis multicaulis at its only known location in the county. Doug says that he enjoyed the day and "judging by the comments, so did everyone else".
Finally, on July 30th six members met at Leven in East Yorkshire. They drove first to Hornsea Mere and I leave the leader, John Dews, to describe their day. "With the help of a local guide we waded purposefully into the reed beds. We were rewarded with Peucedanum palustre (Milk-parsley) in full flower and other interesting reed-bed species such as Typha angiistifolia (Lesser Bulrush), Rumex hydrolapathum (Water Dock) and Ranunculus lingua (Greater Spearwort). After lunching by a small pond where Bolboschoenus maritimus (Sea Club-rush) was somewhat surprisingly growing, we moved back to Leven to visit the disused canal, opened in 1802 but now only used for angling. I fished out Ranunculus circinatus (Fan-leaved Water-crowfoot) and Myriophyllum verticillatum (Whorled Water-milfoil) both of which were obligingly in flower, after which we walked to Far Fox Aqueduct. Most of the tall waterside plants to be expected were seen, although reeds dominated the bankside vegetation until a welcome stand of Calamagrostis canescens took over near the aqueduct. Nuphar lutea (Yellow Water-lily) Nymphaea alba (White Water-lily) and Sagittaria sagittifolia (Arrowhead) all adorned the canal surface. We returned on the other side of the canal, passing Salix triandra (Almond Willow) in flower before pausing to admire and photograph Galeopsis speciosa (Large- flowered Hemp-nettle). A pause to consider the identity of a pondweed which we eventually agreed was only Potamogeton pectinatus brought the meeting to a close". John adds a list of other watery plants seen that day which I omit for lack of space, but I note with interest, and feel deserve mention, three further pondweeds - Potamogeton lucens (Shining Pondweed), P. crispus (Curled Pondweed) and P. natans (Broad-leaved Pondweed). Not many meetings, even "watery" ones, can boast a selection like this.
I have given space to these one-day meetings because they do seem to me to be one of the best things that the Society does. All the meetings described here had near enough ten people joining them and this is a good number, allowing people really to see the plants, to ask questions about them and to recognise them again. Beginners need never feel daunted and never get left behind. There is mostly a rare speciality to be seen as a bonus, but the real object is to identify commoner plants and associate them with their habitat, an essential aspect of botanical study for us all.
EDITOR (Elizabeth Norman)