Billingshurst/Barnes Green area

Field meeting reports

Meeting date: 21 April 2007

(Leader: Alan Knapp)

Somewhere between Billingshurst and Barns Green 25 members converged on a grid reference dictated by Brigadier ‘Grassy’ Knapp.  Four special operations units were sent out, the reward for whose morning labours was a gentle ramble together in the afternoon around lanes gay with Cardamine pratensis (Cuckooflower).  In this latter session the highlight was a population of more than thirty plants of Angelica archangelica (Garden Angelica) along a trackside.  Earlier each of the four companies had brought back in excess of 100 records, many of these being the Spring woodland species most especially desired and including Adoxa moschatellina (Moschatel), Allium ursinum (Ramsons), Anemone nemorosa (Wood Anemone), Luzula forsteri (Southern Woodrush) and Ranunculus auricomus (Wood Buttercup).  The weather was perfect, the bluebell woods at their breathtaking best, and it was a pleasure to work alongside new members and to meet again old friends whom we had not seen for some time. Alan is to be congratulated on his organisational skills which led to such a splendid day.