Monday 29th April presented us with a beautiful morning for our wildflower nature walk. We had a great turnout, the walk was led by Wendy Thomas.
With the wet weather and lack of sunshine, many of the plants which were flowering this time last year, are still not out
We started in the church car park and as we entered the churchyard, Wendy was straight into showing us some wonderful plants, starting with Black Bryony with its distinctive leaf shape which will produce greenish white flowers in late May followed by strings of red berries.
Other plants that we saw in the churchyard:
Butchers Broom
Lesser celandines
Germander speedwell
Chickweed
Oxalis – wood sorrel, which will produce white flowers with fine pink stripes this month
Queen Anne Lace/Cow parsley – this is the first umbellifer to flower
Ground ivy
Cuckoo pint
Alexanders
3 cornered leek
Spanish bells
Black medic
Scurvygrass
Mouse ear
Stinking iris
Violets
Jumping Jacks – along the wall to the right of the church door, still in bud but will be beautiful when they flower in the next week or so
Smooth sow thistle
Primrose and woodrush
Herb Robert
Mouse ear Hawkweed – lemon yellow rather than the darker yellow of other dandelions
Red dead
Spear thistle
Cleavers
Greater plantain
We then moved through the gate into Love Lane where we saw other plants not present in the churchyard:
Broad leaved dock
Periwinkle
Green alkanet
Cranes Bill
Tutsan – St John’s Wort
Hairy bittercress
Pendulous sedge
Honesty
A big thank you to Wendy for such an interesting walk, she had certainly put a lot of effort into identifying the plants beforehand.
Our next Nature Walk will be on Wednesday 26th June at 10am which will be a bird watching walk from Sturt Pond Hide to Keyhaven Hide. More details will be on the website nearer the time.