Crawley Down

Field meeting reports

Meeting date: 14 July 2013

(Leader: Kathryn Knapp)

By 10.45 it was already hot under a shimmering Summer sky.  As Arthur, Frances, Steven and Sue stepped gallantly forth along the Worth Way, we the other party (Kathryn, Elisabeth, Richard and the author) had no idea that they would never see them again.  At least not for lunch.  For our part we focused on the tetrad missing list and gradually added a plant here and a plant there, at length reaching some good water where many SPA species were re-discovered despite the attentions of a proprietorial swan – Callitriche platycarpa (Various-leaved Water-starwort), Carex paniculata (Tussock Sedge) and C. pseudocyperus (Cyperus Sedge) probably the pick.  Moving into the next tetrad we soon fell upon a dung-heap and plundered it, with Chenopodium glaucum (Oak-leaved Goosefoot) arguably the prize.  Richard did indeed argue, pointing to a rose cultivar which he confidently claimed to be ‘Champagne Moment’; we were more than a little impressed with his identification until we noticed the nursery tag still attached.  It would have needed a quick march to reach the lunchtime rendezvous even if we had not taken a wrong turn and so at length we sat down under the shade of an oak and over a sandwich or two wondered why we had not exchanged telephone numbers with a grown-up in the other group.  We learned the tale of that group over drinks outside the Royal Oak later.  They too had prospered well – Epipactis purpurata (Violet Helleborine) in flower and a smorgasbord of Potamogeton: P. berchtoldii, P. crispus and P. natans  Small, Curled and Floating Pondweeds).  Kathryn’s organisation of the day was predictably impeccable and it is only fair that the author owns up to the map-reading error.  A total of 46 species was added to TQ33N, 18 to TQ33T and 9 to TQ33U: a highly satisfactory day.