Henfield area

Field meeting reports

Meeting date: 28 July 2013

(Leader: Nick Sturt)

Sylvia was unable to join us but she sent two eager new recruits in the form of Helen and Malcolm.  They survived a fairly challenging morning with the author around the industrial estates and southern margins of Partridge Green slowly accumulating additions to TQ11Z.  Meanwhile Frances, Rita and Bob set about TQ11Y where pickings were similarly hard to come by, especially as Bines Green has declined in botanical interest due to lack of management – one recalls also the case of Oreham Common, reported here last year.  Elisabeth, Carol and Sue tackled Jolesfield Common in the hope of eroding TQ12V’s quite substantial SPA missing list.  Honours for the morning were about even – 18 to 20 species added to each – with the prize awarded for Sue’s Muellenbechia.  Helen caught up with the party at lunchtime after something of an odyssey from East Sussex.  Her reward was an afternoon luxuriating in a five-star damp meadow recently discovered near Henfield.  Such floral treats as Cirsium dissectum (Meadow Thistle), Pedicularis sylvatica (Lousewort), Scutellaria minor (Lesser Skullcap) and Veronica scutellata (Marsh Speedwell) were matched with a bounty of sedges including Carex echinata (Star Sedge), C. nigra (Common Sedge) and C. panicea (Carnation Sedge).