2002 St Martha's Hill Surrey 4 May One Day Meeting
In spite of this meeting being identical to one I have led several times before, about sixteen members, including several beginners and new members, came on 4th May to explore the flora around St Martha's Hill near Guildford. Starting off with a hand-and-knees session on the rabbit-cropped turf near the car park we discovered Ornithopus perpusillus (common birdsfoot) and viewing this exquisite little flower through a lens was made compulsory for any who had not done it before! Cerastium diffusum and C. semidecandrum (dark green and little mouse-ears) were here, too, the latter a new 'tick' for my list for this site. Then it was down into the woodsy between sheets of bluebells, to the banks of the River Tillingboume. Cardamine amara (large bittercress) on the far bank was tantalising, as binoculars were not enough to see its purple anthers, but further downstream there were more plants by a millpond. It was here that a few seedlings Ilmpatiens capensis (orange balsam) were coming up - Rodney Burton having informed us only minutes earlier that this plant was first recorded in England by the River Tillingbourne! Nearby an unusual find, also made by Rodney, was Adoxa moschatelina (moschatel) bearing fruit capsules.
The afternoon, on the bare windswept hilltop around St Martha's Chapel and in a disused sandpit, provided a complete contrast. Hypochoeris glabra (smooth cat's- ear) was obligingly open in the sun; nearby were several plants of Filago minima (small cudweed). In spite of 32 eyes searching the graves where I have previously seen Vicia lathyroides (spring vetch) we found none. However a few days later Peter Lukey travelled down from Bamsley for the day! to look at this area and tells me that he found it in a different part of the churchyard. Teesdalia nudicaulis (shepherd's cress) was abundant on bare sand at the foot of the hill then we made our way back along a farm track, passing two comfreys, Symphytum orientale and S. grandiflorumon the way, and rounding off the day with a meadow edged with hundreds of Saxifraga granulata (meadow saxifrage).
PAT VERRALL