NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

This afternoon's visit to Langley Bottom/Vale Farm was enlivened by a fine show of arable flora, including a profusion of blue-flowered Scarlet Pimpernel, masses of Small Toadflax and both Sharp-leaved and Round-leaved Fluellen, up to a dozen Ground Pine plants and some 'well over' Common Cudweed (first image). Marvellous stuff! Ground Pine - up to a dozen plants are huddled in a corner of a field at Langley Bottom Farm this year. This species is doing really badly elsewhere. Scarlet Pimpernel of the blue-flowered form. There are fewer plants that stir the blood so much. The third photograph shows some Small Toadflax on the right hand side.

Last week, whilst wandering along the top of the beach at Sidmouth, I spied several 'fleshy' knotgrass plants lying prostrate on the shingle. I had no camera, no eyeglass, no nothing. I suspected that they might be Ray's Knotgrass, a species that I have only seen once before (further east along the coast at Charmouth). It was a hot day, there were holiday-makers sitting on their towels only feet away from the plants in question and I didn't want to invade their space to collect a piece for later identification. So I left them, but felt that if they were Ray's, then it was something that might just be noteworthy. I wouldn't be going back to Sidmouth any time soon, but I knew of a 'blogging virtual friend' who lived right on the doorstep... I sent an email to Karen Woolley, author of the excellent blog Wild Wings and Wanderings . She has a deep interest in botany, soon went along to have a look, and indeed they were Ray's and a tick for her to boot! ...