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Meeting to Epping Lower Forest. 2nd. June 1974.
We met near St. Margarets Hospital, Epping and
split into two parties, of botanists and Ornithologists
respectively.
Time t/as spent in a small clearing and at the Lake,
while after lunch we walked to North Weald Station
via Rood Street Railway Bridge and the 'Essex Way'
through Gernon Bushes and Birching Coppice.
Clearing at TL472031. to the south of the North Weald
Road,
This is used as a car park during weekends and is
subject to people and car wheels at this time. The
clearing is in semi-mature woodland of oak with silver
birch, willow and hawthorn around the edge. Low
common gorse forms a fringe to the clearing with birch
and hornbeam regeneration. Between this and the
mown area is a fringe of coarse grassland and low
herbs where clumps of soft rush, heath bedstraw,
tormentil, louse-wort, scabious and bulbous buttercup
were typical plants.
The overgrown ditch alongside the A122 provided
brookiine, burdock and cow parsley amongst others.
The Lake, is an area of shallow open water with a
small wooded island. The pondside verge has birch
regeneration with hawthorn, oak, willows and rushes.
The shady areas have a large flora with rose, ivy,
wood Sanicle, wood speedwell and black bryony, amongst
the 20 recorded flowering plants. The marshy ground
around the pond has male fern,. creeping jenny, figwort