the Nature Conservancy would also be pleased to hear from
anyone with such information and has a short questionnaire
for the purpose. Further details may be had from the
Nature Conservancy, Monks Wood Experimental Station, Abbots
Ripton, Huntingdon, Hunts.
Ron Allen
**********
REPORTS OF MEETINGS 1970
July 12th. General Meeting No. 1163. Essex and Herts Border
Seven members met at Harlow Town station for this
meeting on a very sunny and hot July day. We spent the
morning in Parndon Wood Nature Reserve, owned by the Harlow
U.D.C. Although the wood is not rich in variety of plant
species, it does harbour two ferns, the male and buckler
ferns, which are well established here. On the edge of the
wood John Fielding drew our attention to the somewhat rare
(one star in Collins Field Guide) dyers' greenweed (Genista
tinctoria) in flower.
In the afternoon we ambled through Hunsdon Mead between
the River Stort and the canal. A large meadow, and of great
interest botanically, we found amongst the more common plants
the cathartic flax, Ophioglossum, the partially parasitic
yellow-rattle (mostly gone to seed and rattling well) and
quaking-grass. The towpath and canal provided a different
set of plants, including four species of Potamogeton, skull
cap, purple loosestrife and figwort. The river on the
opposite side of the meadow forms the boundary of an estate.
A number of typical plantation species were seen here, with
weeping willows, Turkey oaks and that exotic-looking plant
Polygonum sachalinense, with bamboo-like stems and cordate,
net-veined leaves, which is spreading as an escape from
gardens and plantations.
The river and its banks gave us Schoenoplectus lacustris,
(the true bulrush), arrow-head, the two yellow-cresses
(Rorippa islandica and R. sylvestris),scelery-leaved butter-
cup and hemp agrimony.
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