26
BOTANY MEETING, WEELEYHALL WOOD RESERVE,
26TH MAY, 1986
A bright spring day greeted the party as it
ventured south from Weeley church to the
main entrance of the wood. Inside the wood,
just east of the main ride, a small pond
displayed the flowering heads of the Greater
pond-sedge,Carex riparia, and a ditch
draining into it the very local moss Plagio-
thecium ruthei .
Following the main ride south, a damp patch
revealed the presence of Ragged-robin, the
flowers still in tight bud, Wood-sorrel and
Primrose. All along the ride isolated
patches of the rare Narrow Buckler-fern,
Dryopteris carthusiana, unusual in such a
dry situation, could be compared with the
ubiquitous Broad Buckler-fern, D.dilatata.
The fronds of the latter arise from a
tight 'shuttlecock' and have rachis scales
with a dark central band, whereas the Narrow
Buckler fronds originate in groups from a
creeping stock and have uniformly pale-straw
coloured scales. Also scattered along
either side of the main ride the equally
rare Golden-scaled Male-fern, Dryopteris
affinis, subsp. borreri could similarly be
compared with its abundant cousin the
ordinary Male-fern, Dryopteris filis-mas.
Several hundred handsome large new plants
of 'borreri' were found on the loamy subsoil
recently excavated to enlarge a pond to
the east of the main track. The fronds of
' borreri' rise almost vertically from their
shuttlecocks, in contrast to the inclined
fronds of ' filix-mas' , they are much paler
in colour when young and are clothed with