A great flowering


Over the weekend I paid a brief visit to Banstead Downs. The amount of flower on show was terrific - locally we seem to be experiencing a great flowering at the moment, at least on our precious chalk downland. The most eye-catching was this Kidney Vetch, which will be good news for the Small Blue colony, as this is their food plant. There was plenty of Fairy Flax, Bird's-foot Trefoil and Dropwort also on show. The only slight downer was that the patch of Basil-Thyme (very local in Surrey) is much smaller this year. It seems to be getting crowded out by coarse grasses.

Comments

Simon Douglas Thompson said…
that's a grand carpet! we've had stunning poppies here!
29 June 2015 at 15:38
Steve Gale said…
I would love to come across a large field full of red poppies Simon, something that I've rarely seen over the years.
29 June 2015 at 17:07
Derek Faulkner said…
That field is amazing Steve. What are the pinky-white balled flowers, they look like Strawberry Clover to me.
Cracking weather today, great for butterflies, I'm on countdown for the first moan about it being too hot, there's normally one.
29 June 2015 at 19:19
Steve Gale said…
Hi Derek, they are Kidney Vetch, having lost most of the yellow petals.
29 June 2015 at 20:04
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