BOTANICAL NOTES FROM THE ASHFORD 

 DISTRICT 



'T'HE season has been remarkable in two ways. Firstly for being the 

 -*■ first year of freedom from rabbits and secondly for the perfection 

 of its summer after a cold spring and very wet May. 



The local activity has consisted largely in the completion of cards 

 for the Distribution Map Scheme. The filling in of these cards is an 

 exacting task which ensures that the area in question is subjected to a 

 very careful survey. As a result of this, little that is quite new has been 

 discovered, but many new stations for known local species have been 

 added. 



I propose briefly to refer to two noticeable changes that have followed 

 the clearing of the woodlands. 



The first relates to the piece of woodland immediately west of the 

 residual boggy field in Willesborough Lees. About ten acres of this 

 woodland have been cleared, leaving the standards. The boggy field 

 produces numbers of common sedges with, in a ditch, one or two plants 

 of the White Sedge, Carex curta Good., a few patches of the Marsh 

 Violet, Viola palustris L. and two or three of the Mountain Fern, 

 Thelypteris oreopteris (Ehrh.). The cleared wood was intersected with 

 runnels which, in June, were fringed and carpeted with hundreds of 

 plants of the White Sedge and the Bulbous Rush, jfuncus bulbosus L. 

 Along a ditch were a few patches of the Marsh Violet and the Mountain 

 Fern. This was a very pleasing sight for those of us who had come 

 to think that Car^x curta was decreasing and would soon disappear. 

 There was a little Calluna and, further on in the thick wood, an area 

 where the Star-of-Bethlehem, Ornithogalum umbellatum L. was growing 

 among the bluebells. 



The other area that I have in mind was a portion of the Warren 

 Wood near Ashford. This undergoes serial coppicing. In a recently 

 cleared portion in late May the tracks were in places covered with large 

 patches of the Birdsfoot, Ornithopus perpusillus L. and the Trailing 

 St. John's Wort, Hypericum humifusum L., and in August displayed 

 large flowering colonies of Orpine, Sedum telephium L. In another 

 area the rare Copse Bindweed, Polygonum dumetorum L. was luxuriating 

 over the undergrowth and growing up the young trees to a height of 

 twelve feet or more. These plants change their habitats locally according 

 to the stage of succession. This wood produces many other interesting 

 plants such as the Lily-of-the-Valley, Convallaria majalis L., the Small 

 Teasel, Dipsacus pilosus L., the Hard Fern, Blechnum spicant (L.) and 

 the delicate little Bristle Scirpus, Isolepis setacea R.Br. 



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