and he was also unaware that it had been recorded not far from his house in Felsted by
a Dr Tench of Dunmow in 1891 'beside the railway beyond Dunmow' as recorded in
the Felsted School Science Society Report of 1891/92 p.55. In 1976 however Brian
Adams recorded it in the then green lane running south from Pepper's Green and
through the eastern end of Hardy's Plantation. Three flowering spikes occurring on
the east side of the lane to the south of the wood together with several Early Purple
Orchid Orchis mascula, and six spikes in a bed of ivy midway along the east side of
the lane as it passed through the wood. In 1977 I could only find two spikes at each
site, but in June 1978 all nine were in flower. In 1979 only four spikes appeared, two
to the south of the wood, but two additional plants appeared in the lane just north of
the wood giving a total of 11 plants altogether along the lane. I recorded only four
spikes appearing in 1980. Where the lane emerged from the wood at its southern end,
a large patch of the very scarce 'Common' Gromwell Lithospermum officinale also
grew in the lane (see Plates 7 & 8).
In 1972 The Essex Way was conceived as the result of a competition funded by the
Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), and unfortunately it was routed
along this lane without any attempt in those days to do an environmental impact
assessment, and immediately the lane became a mecca for horse riders and the lane
through the wood was churned into a wide quagmire. When Tim Pyner visited the
lane in 1992 there was no sign of any orchids or Gromwell. Then in 2009 because it
was registered as a byway the lane was surfaced with granite chippings and crushed
concrete to accommodate motor vehicles. Ironically by late 2009 the strip of land
where the fly orchids formerly occurred had recovered, now with a covering of Dog's
Mercury rather than ivy. In the process of opening up the lane for metalling however,
as fate would have it, a large pile of tree roots was dumped on the very spot where the
group of six fly orchids had occurred, and at the southern end a huge tree root and
trunk had been dumped on the very patch where the Gromwell occurred.
Green lanes used to be one of our most significant botanical habitats, but many have
now been grubbed out, or have become overgrown, and the majority of those that are
still open are used excessively for horse riding, motor bike scrambling or four by four
driving; are flailed in the flowering season - and now have nothing of botanical interest
apart from the occasional Purging Buckthorn or Wild Service tree in their hedges.
Apart from the Fly Orchid we have now lost the Clustered Bellflower Campanula
glomerata from all of its sites on the Chalky Boulder Clay, several of them formerly in
green lanes.
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 62, May 2010
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