27
Copperas Wood.
21st June, 1983
The weather was fine at the start of the day
when we were shown around the area by the
warden, Peter Smith, although it rained very
heavily on the way home once we were back to
the cars .
The wood is mainly old coppiced sweet chestnut
(Castanea sativa) and hornbeam (Carpinus betulus)
with some small leaved lime (Tilia cordata).
The ground flora is characterised by quantity
rather than variety and we saw large areas
carpeted by yellow archangel (Lamiastrum galeob-
dolon) and bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta),
with wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa), dog's
mercury (Mercurialis perennis), and townhall
clock (Adoxa moschatellina).
Some interesting ferns were seen, including
three species of Dryopteris. The broad buckler
fern (Dryopteris dilatata), with its tripinnate
leaves and scales with a dark region in the middle
was present, together with the narrow buckler
fern (Dryopteris carthusiana), which has
uniformly coloured scales and narrower, tripinnate
leaves, and the common male fern (Dryopteris
filix-mas), with pinnate leaves and deeply
Pinnatifid pinnae. Also present was the soft-
shield fern (Polystichum setiferum), which has
a circular indusium as opposed to a kidney
shaped one. The fronds are bipinnate and
flaccid with the basal pinnules of the lower
pinnae shortly stalked.
In the afternoon we left the wood and walked
to the river. In one interesting patch of
ground we found early hair-grass (Aira praecox),
the yellow-and-blue forget-me-not (Myosotis
discolor) and water-blinks (Montia fontana).