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Meadow Saxifrage, and further, this time very extensive patches, of Vulpia ciliata
Ssp. ambigua, clearly distingusihed from V. bromoides by its upright habit, reddish hue
and on closer examination,vanishingly minute lower glume. A few patches of the Dune
Fescue V. fasciculata were also found, plus further extensive patches of Medicago
minima and Poa bulbosa. Tim Pynner reported that in 1993 he had found Medicago
polymorpha on the seawall but it could not be refound. Tim also reported that earlier in
the year he had found patches of Saxifraga tridactylites close by the western wall of the
compound.
Ken Adams
BOTANY GROUP FIELD MEETING, PURFLEET, 29TH MAY 1994
This meeting was intended to assess the ecological damage likely to be incurred by the
new Channel Tunnel rail link. In the event it was found that the apex of Beacon Hill had
already been quarried away and the floor of the chalk pit had become an industrial park.
Members therefore explored the fragments of chalk habitat left in the area and compiled
lists for two local 1km squares.
The old Botany Pit, so called, Martin Gregory informed us, because it was formerly
planted up as a botanic garden, had become completely overgrown, but useful lists were
compiled from the nearby recreation ground, the banks of a lane leading to Beacon Hill
pit, and a nearby building site. The latter two sites yielded Iris foetidissima and three taxa
of Hieracia, H. lepidulum, H. strumosum and an as yet undetermined brownish/purple
spotted taxon related to but not the same as H. maculatum. The southern slopes of Beacon
Hill are now all but enveloped in modern housing, but several patches of Geranium
rotundifolium were found on waste ground, a plant that we are repeatedly turning up in
hedgebanks and on waste ground on the southern Essex chalk where as Tim Pyner
observes it appears to replace Geranium robertianum.
On the broken ground of the narrow cliff edge on the southern margin of the Beacon Hill
Pit, two plants of Deadly Nightshade, Atropa belladonna were found, and a sizeable
patch of the Milk Vetch or Wild Liquorice Astragalus glycyphyllos, precariously perched
on an overhang, appeared to be parasitised by an equally sizeable patch of the broorape
Orobanche minor. Tim clambered down into the pit, to investigate a yellow flowered
alien Comfrey on a spoil heap, which turned out to be Symphytum tuberosum. Altogether
152 species were clocked up for 1 km square TQ55,78.
Finally, after lunch an area of disused barracks and new sea wall defences was explored
on the west side of the Mar Dyke. Lactuca saligna the Least Lettuce, one of the 62
specially scheduled plants supposedly protected by the Wild Life & Countryside Act
1981, was searched for without any success. The new seawall defences having destroyed
the small colony that had been in the vicinity since at least 1849. Apparently, although
aware of the colony NCC failed to act in time to save it. The same fate
befalling all the Kentish colonies on the other side of the river. The landward slopes of
the new sea wall however had been colonised by a large population of Petroselinum
segetum the Com Parsley, a plant now considered endangered in Europe. In the disused
barracks area a further colony of Geranium rotundifolium and a patch of Carex divisa
were found, plus a patch of the rayless form of Matricaria recutita. The latter resembles
large headed Pineapple weed M. discoidea but smells of camomile rather
than pineapple. 92 species were recorded for the 1km square TQ54,78.
Meanwhile on the same day, up in north Essex Terri Tarpey & Co. reported finding a large
patch of the Mossy Stonecrop, Crassula tillaea in Alphamstone gravel pit, new to Essex.
Ken Adams