Vegetated verges
Roadside verges can be a rich source for recording wild flowers. Here in Banstead we are lucky enough to be in an area where the housing planners of the 1930s considered that green spaces were advantageous to residents - thus we have many grassy strips that are allowed to grow (largely) unchecked - mainly due to council cutbacks that do not stretch to frequent mowing. A ten-minute walk from home provided me with 60 species of wild flower utilising these areas. Although this morning's list was not populated by anything surprising, I have found Common Broomrape, Small Toadflax, Pignut, Blue Fleabane, Pyramidal Orchid and Bee Orchid on these Banstead verges in the past. The underlying ground is chalk, so it is quite usual to find plants that would usually be associated with calcareous grassland on these suburban havens.