Wivelsfield

Field meeting reports

Meeting date: 21 June 2006

(Leader: Rita Hemsley)

On a cool windy evening nine members met at Wivelsfield Church and immediately began recording the car park and roadside verges. Most notable along the verges were the large clumps of Carex divulsa ssp. divulsa (Grey Sedge) and some garden escapes. We spent some time recording in the churchyard, but it was too manicured for us to stay long. Going through a large meadow, and with the help of Beryl, we were able to add many grasses to our list, including Alopecurus myosuroides (Black Grass), A. pratensis (Meadow Foxtail) and Phleum bertolonii (Smaller Cat’s-tail).

The ditches surrounding the next field gave us a good number of records, including several clumps of Hypericum tetrapterum (Square-stalked St John’s-wort) and Galium palustre (Marsh Bedstraw). On the banks of the stream at the bottom of the field we found Allium ursinum (Ramsons). Turning north, we crossed another field to reach our last habitat, an old wood, where we recorded Carex remota (Remote Sedge), C. sylvatica (Wood Sedge), Sanicula europaea (Sanicle), Hyacinthoides non-scripta (Bluebell) and Poa nemoralis (Wood Meadow-grass).

Not anticipating, nor indeed finding, any unusual plants, we nevertheless added about 170 records to this tetrad in a chilly two hours.