2005 Teston Kent 12th March One Day Early Stagers Meeting
This Early Stagers trip was a joint venture with the UK Phenology Network, and they kindly sent us recording forms and other literature in case we could interest WFS members who are not already Phenology recorders. In the event, only two of the 12 WFS members who attended were recorders.
Just to briefly explain what Phenology is about. If one becomes a recorder, one is contributing to over 300 years of observations, and helping scientists and conservationists to understand the impact of climate change on plants and animals. Every observation that is logged will enable The Woodland Trust and UK Phenology Network to make this exciting project even more significant. All one has to do is to register as a Recorder and fill in the form provided or fill it in on the website which has lots of other fascinating information, including live maps which are updated as each observation is logged.
This meeting was all on our home ground, starting at Teston Picnic Site on the River Medway. We spent the morning doing a circular walk in typical Kentish scenery.
The last snow had just melted the day before, so flowers in bloom were in very short supply. The leaves of the copious Caltha palustris (marsh marigold) were only just emerging, but the Salix caprea (goat willow) catkins were out, and the Alnus glutinosa (alder) catkins were dying. The flowers of Primus spinosa (blackthorn) were only just in bud, though we saw another Prunus (not P. cerasifera) in full flower. There were copious Viola odorata (sweet violet), white and purple, and also Ranunculus ficaria (celandine), Veronica persica (field speedwell), Primula vulgaris(primrose) and Galanthus nivalis (snowdrops) to be seen.
After lunch which we were able to eat at picnic tables in the warm sunshine, we moved our cars up to the village and spent a leisurely time examining a grassy bank in the road where we had parked. A lot of Veronica polita (grey field-speedwell) was in bloom and in the bright sunshine, it was possible to see the fruits with a mixture of glandular and eglandular hairs which distinguishes V. polita from V. agrestris (green field-speedwell). The bank was white with Erophila (whitlow grass), which the experts among us have since confirmed was E. glabrescens. It had hairless petioles and leaf surfaces, completely different to the copious Erophila verna growing on the wall and in the pavement by the Post Office.
Also in the pavement by the village green we saw Arabidopsis thaliana (lhale cress), one solitary Viola reichenbachiana (early dog-violet) in bloom, and Anemone blanda (Balkan anemone) naturalised in long grass by the churchyard wall. In the churchyard we managed to find one flower on the Cymbalaria muralis (ivy-leaved toadflax) and looked at a planted Buxus sempervirens (box) and the Taxus baccata(yew) in flower. In the village we saw an apple tree so covered with Viscum album(mistletoe) that it looked like "a mistletoe tree"!, We managed to pick a twig with male flowers in bloom which we later compared with the flowers of a female plant that obligingly grows low down on an espalier apple tree in our garden.
We then walked through the ancient woodland at the back of our house and were able to examine the first Adoxa moschatellina (moschatel) flowers in detail. When we arrived at the site where Lathraea squamaria (toothwort) usually grows in profusion round a holly tree, there was no sign of it, but we were very pleased when we scuffled in the leaf litter to find several plants just emerging.
We finished the day by walking through the orchard to see an ancient Castanea sativa (sweet chestnut) which has been registered as an ancient tree. It has a girth of 8.89 metres (29 feet 2 inches) and is believed to be at least 400 years old.
During the day, even though everything was so late after the cold spell here, we had seen 66 different species, 40 of which were in bloom. Hopefully everyone felt the day made an optimistic start to this year's botanising.
DEREK AND LORNA HOLLAND