Plumpton Green

Field meeting reports

Meeting date: 19 July 2009

(Leader: Rita Hemsley)

On a very windy morning about fourteen people, led by Rita Hemsley, met at Plumpton Green, divided into three groups, and set off to record in TQ31T, S and M with instructions to return for lunch by 1.00 p.m.  There was a very heavy downpour soon after we departed, resulting in wet recording cards, but the remainder of the day was dry though still windy.  Two groups were able to start recording immediately and added records to TQ31T and 31S, Chenopodium glaucum (Oak-leaved Goosefoot) being found in both of those tetrads. After the rain those recording TQ31S were rewarded with a roadside bank covered with flowering Stachys officinalis (Betony) and, nearby, some Trifolium medium (Zig-zag Clover). In TQ31T Chaenorhinum minus (Small Toadflax) was found by a railway footbridge and there was also the unusual sight, away from the coast, of a patch of Trifolium fragiferum (Strawberry Clover) in a field. Those recording TQ31M had a longer walk through claggy fields but were rewarded with many plants of Lathyrus nissolia (Grass Vetchling) and purple stretches of Stachys palustris (Marsh Woundwort). Most of us were brave enough to eat lunch huddled against a fence while Alan identified specimens from wet polythene bags, and we all left together in the afternoon to record TQ31N.  Here we found Trifolium fragiferum in the fields and re-found an old record of Ononis spinosa (Spiny Restharrow), increasing the record count for this tetrad by 20 to 271.