Hurstpierpoint

Meeting date: 12 May 2013

(Leader: Rita Hemsley)

Rita had done her homework and soon dispatched the seven members to three different tetrads with the injunction to be back for lunch at 1.00.  And before you could say Jack or indeed Richard Robinson it seemed we were tucking into our picnics, exchanging problematical specimens and comparing notes.  It was clear that Ady and Helen had had the best of the morning, adding no less than 34 species to TQ21S including a good tally of woodland plants and some naturalised Eranthis hyemalis (Winter Aconite).  The traditional plenary afternoon session followed, starting with a stroll along Manor Road on the west side of Hurstpierpoint where Geranium lucidum (Shining Crane’s-bill) entertained.  Some allotment holders of the town were willing to admit the party to their plots but the standard of weeding was such that treasures were hard to come by – a little Myosotis discolor (Changing Forget-me-not) was the Weed of the Day.  In the fields the early meadow grasses were beginning to make a stand and a small patch of Carex nigra (Common Sedge) compensated those looking in vain for its missing cousin C. flacca (Glaucous Sedge).  The proceedings ended just before the promised rain arrived from the West and in time for the author to attend a splendid concert in Amberley church put on by Richard Robinson’s London choir Concordia.