Buckinghamshire: Radnage to West Wycombe: Chiltern Gentians

22 August 2011   OS Explorer 171 & 172 Chiltern Hills West & East

Length: All day

This walk is constructed around three classic Chiltern gentian Gentianella germanica sites.  It is also a pleasant and scenic walk for its own sake.

          We parked by Radnage church SU786979.  The name of this tiny village derives from the Anglo-Saxon rēad āc “red oak-tree”.  It seems unlikely this would refer at such an early date to the alien species “red oak”, more likely a distinctive native oak-tree with reddish bark or leaves, or one marked with a red design.  Such a tree, however, would presumably have been lost long ago, although pedunculate oaks Quercus robur are of course still frequent in the vicinity.  The Church of St Mary seems to date back at least to the 13^th century and contains some 16^th century wall paintings.  It has a low square central tower and featured in the film “Month in the Country”.  The man who is said to have killed the last wild bear in England is buried to the left of the church door, the gravestone showing a man hunting bear with bow and arrow.

Radnage Church

A footpath (Chiltern Way) leads through the churchyard itself, which is creditably managed leaving plenty of longer grass.  To the accompaniment of red kites mewing loudly (we had good views of them most of the day), we noticed that lily-of-the-valley Convallaria majalis had spread across two graves and was well-established; other plants we saw included harebell Campanula rotundifolia, dark mullein Verbascum nigrum, burnet saxifrage Pimpinella saxifraga, salad burnet Sanguisorba minor, marjoram Origanum vulgare, common (mostly) and chalk knapweeds Centaurea nigra & debauxii, green alkanet Pentaglottis sempervirens, wild basil Clinopodium vulgare, and nettle-leaved bellflower Campanula trachelium showing that the soil here is chalky, and these were all plants we would see regularly the rest of the day. 

Harebell

The church walls were kept well cleaned of plants, but a little hartstongue fern Phyllitis scolopendrium survived at the base of one wall with pellitory-of-the-wall Parietaria judaica and wall lettuce Mycelis muralis.  Hedge browns were already flying at 9.30am.

          After leaving the churchyard by a stone stile the path crosses two pastures to a stile where two paths diverged.  We took the left-hand one up to the gate giving access to Yoesden Bank on the left. 

Yoesden Bank

This is a botanically-rich chalk slope managed by Bucks County Council.  Apart from the common chalk flowers above, there was an abundance of rest-harrow Ononis repens, plus eyebright Euphrasia nemorosa, wild thyme Thymus polytrichus, small scabious Scabiosa columbaria, quaking-grass Briza media, dwarf thistle Cirsium acaule, yellowwort Blackstonia perfoliata, common spotted orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsii and white helleborine Cephalanthera damasonium and several other orchids in fruit, and kidney vetch Anthyllis vulneraria. 

Rest-harrow

Dwarf thistle

Chiltern gentians were abundant but more scattered along this long hillside than at many sites, along with smaller hybrid gentians Gentianella x pamplinii, although no true autumn gentians G. amarella. 

Chiltern gentian

Active here were Roesel’s bush-cricket, sloe bugs Dolycoris baccarum, many butterflies – meadow and hedge browns, common and chalkhill blues, and small heath, and heath snails Helicella itala typical of this habitat (despite the English name) and distinctive with their wide umbilicus.

Sloe bug

Chalkhill blue

Small heath

10 Heath snail (upper side)

Heath snail (lower side)

Having explored here a while we returned to the path, which continued up the slope into an area of scrub with devilsbit scabious Succisa pratensis, nettle-leaved bellflower, dewberry Rubus caesius, rock-rose Helianthemum nummularium and more Chiltern gentians.  

Devilsbit scabious

Rock-rose & marjoram

By the path the woolly galls that commonly infest marjoram were obvious, caused by the mite Aceria origani.  We continued to follow the Chiltern Way through some trees and along a double hedgerow separating agricultural fields.  This soon led to the main road through Bledlow Ridge, where we left the Chiltern Way and turned right along the road a little way until another footpath departed on the right, past houses and gardens and then diagonally across a field. 

View from below Bledlow Ridge to Saunderton Lee & Bradenham Woods

Where it meets a hedge we kept to the west side (the path was not all that clear here), and continued downhill through pasture with few flowers but some dwarf thistles, followed by a former field of oil-seed-rape marked by a forest of dry stalks under which there was a carpet of new rape growth giving off an unpleasant cabbage smell as we walked across.  Passing under a line of pylons we reached an isolated pair of houses with a surfaced track which we took to the right leading to Haw Lane.  Here we turned left and walked up a slight slope, with dark mullein on the verge, until a footpath came off on the right going up Slough Hill.  We passed a pretty shrub of guelder rose Viburnum opulus with its bright red berries and then typical chalk plants of long grass all the way to the top of the hill – pleasant and full of butterflies, even if nothing specially notable.  At the top of the hill, just past a hedge, a footpath goes diagonally across a field to a small road.  The field had just been ploughed, however, and the path unmarked.  We fortunately estimated the direction near enough, aiming for a large gap in the hedge at the bottom, near which we found the exit to a bend in the lane where we continued left along the lane.  The lane leads under a railway bridge and into Saunderton.

          Here we directly crossed the busy A4010 (Bradenham Road) and went straight up Smalldean Lane to the eponymous farm, where a footpath to the right goes through the farmyard and left up the hill to the edge of Park Wood above. 

Small Dean Farm

The path then follows the wood-edge along a wide strip of rough grassland between the wood and ploughed fields for about a kilometre. 

Edge of Park Wood

Again there was a common chalk flora, plus yellowwort, common spotted orchid, common centaury and brown spikes of old clover broomrapes Orobanche minor in one large patch. The field edge had few arable annuals except lots of dwarf spurge Euphorbia exigua.  Having turned a corner of the wood we passed a little rock-rose and entered a small chalk bank with a few dozen Chiltern gentians.  After more wood-edge with brimstone butterflies the path gently descended through arable fields along a comfortable wide grassy verge.  While not botanically rich this is a very pleasant walk with wide views and Bradenham Manor among the trees ahead.  The cultivated land had a few more plants, including small toadflax Chaenorhinum minus, field pansy Viola arvensis, field madder Sherardia arvensis, and scarlet pimpernel Anagallis arvensis.

          At Bradenham we crossed the road and walked along the edge of the mown grass in front of the churchyard (and the flowering crab-tree festooned with mistletoe Viscum album featured in our Post for 19 April 2011), and round two sides of the Manor.  Here we reached the woods and took the right-hand footpath into Pimlocks Wood and then a long walk through Kit’s Wood, with some sizable beech Fagus sylvatica and oak trees, wild cherry Prunus avium and holly Ilex aquifolium, and spikes of wood-barley Hordelymus europaeus.  

Kit’s Wood

A roe deer passed quickly ahead of us and out of view, and speckled woods passed by frequently.  Having reached the east edge of Kit’s Wood at its lowest end, before a fence starts on the right of the path, it is possible to walk through the trees on that side towards grassy glades visible beyond them.  These glades have a chalk grassland flora and wind between clumps of scrub until one finds one’s way, somewhat by trial and error, to a wider chalk slope which has hundreds of clustered bellflower Campanula glomerata on the lower slope and a good number of Chiltern gentians on the upper part among a lot of dwarf thistle.  

Clustered bellflower

Chiltern gentian

There was also yellowwort, ploughman’s spikenard Inula conyza, chalk knapweed and large thyme Thymus pulegioides.

Chalk knapweed

Returning to the path we left Kit’s Wood and came to the railway line where there is normally a crossing, the path continuing on the other side directly to West Wycombe.  This was fenced off, however, and an easy but dull stone track has been laid along the east side of the line 500 metres south to another path which crosses underneath a bridge and then crosses a cornfield to the A4010 road.  In this field we passed a few clumps of the coarse alien grass cockspur Echinocloa crus-galli.  This is occasionally seen on waste-dumps from discarded bird-seed.  Here it probably derives from a seed-mixture used for feeding game-birds nearby, spread by birds or muddy boots. 

Cockspur grass

Crossing the road the path goes along a hedgerow under a grand row of fruiting hornbeam Carpinus betulus boughs. 

Row of hornbeams

This path emerges into Church Lane, West Wycombe, and we turned left to follow it down to the main road (A40) in the centre of the village.  Opposite is the George and Dragon and a welcome chance of rest and refreshment.

          Leaving the pub along the road to the west to the end of the village, we had a choice of a path up past the Mausoleum on top of West Wycombe Hill and along the ridge, or walking beside the road off to the right past the garden centre.  With a stomach full of sausages and mash we opted for the easier road option, which proved fortuitous.  (The route along the ridge is covered by our Post for 19 April 2011.)  Just before we reached a row of houses on the right there was scrub with lots of traveller’s joy Clematis vitalba just at its flowering peak (aptly named for walkers), but also a wide patch of tall mint Mentha x smithiana, a garden escape but well-established here. 

29red Traveller’s joy

Tall mint

We also came across a low plant of vervain Verbena officinalis that had just survived road-verge cutting, and hedgerow cranesbill Geranium pyrenaicum.  Passing the houses we also saw several spikes of hollyhock Alcea rosea, more garden escapes, on the left-hand side of the road.  But it was just at the end of the houses that we noticed a plant of horse-radish Armoracia rusticana conspicuous for the number of snails on its leaves.  We were surprised to find that among the snails were many pointed (or sandhill) snails Cochlicella acuta normally only found on the coast, where they are common. 

V5 Pointed snails

Michael Kerney’s “Atlas of the Land and Freshwater Molluscs of Britain and Ireland” says that these snails are rarely introduced further inland and then they do not last long.  He does however include a 1988 record for West Wycombe!  Obviously this is an exceptionally long-lasting inland colony.  We found the living snails and plenty of old shells for some way along the road after this spot, on all sorts of vegetation.  Also on the horse-radish were the small dark blue leaf-beetles Psylliodes napi which are common on a wide range of plants in the cabbage or crucifer family.

          At the crossroads we took the right-hand road, Slough Lane, a narrow but very quiet lane with little traffic. 

Path to Buttler’s Hangings

We ascended the footpath on the right between double hedges and entered another chalk bank, which was until recently the Buttler’s Hangings Nature Reserve of the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust until there were difficulties over continuing the lease.  The reserve is now becoming scrubbier, but it still contains important flora and fauna.  Chiltern gentians occur densely here in their thousands, even growing in the steps of the path as it goes up the south end of the bank. 

Dense Chiltern gentians

As well as chalk flowers already found frequently, there were carline thistle Carlina vulgaris, small scabious, rest-harrow, blue fleabane Erigeron acer, wild thyme, rock-rose, devilsbit scabious, sweetbriar Rosa rubiginosa with erect sepals on the hips, chalk knapweed, common centaury, glaucous sedge Carex flacca, and squinancywort Asperula cynanchina on ant-hills becoming swamped by more vigorous vegetation.

Carline thistle

Blue fleabane

Chalk knapweed

Common centaury

Among the butterflies were brown argus and large skipper.  A fungus growing not too far from the wood-edge (and probably associated with beech-tree roots) was Boletus fechtneri, one of those with bulky stems, bright yellow at the top, and a light grey-brown cap sticky after the rain, the pale flesh turning slightly blue in part of the upper stem on cutting.  There are few records of this fungus but it is thought to be under-recorded (possibly because it is not illustrated in any of the usual field-guides). 

Boletus fechtneri

Bedeguar galls (robin’s pincushions) are familiar on rose bushes, usually on the stems: here we found them also on the sepals of hips.  Rose sawfly caterpillars ate statuesquely on the leaves.

Bedeguar gall on hip

Rose sawfly larvae

A wooden seat celebrates the haiku writer Norman Barraclough:

“Sawn down hawthorn

orchids flowering through its shadow”.

Barraclough seat

One could spend much more time exploring here, as this is another large site, but we had to return to the footpath and go back downhill to the road. 

Leaving Buttler’s Hangings

This time we chose to walk beside the cultivated field rather than between the hedgerows and came across musk mallow Malva moschata, an apparently misplaced Chiltern gentian, wild mignonette Reseda lutea, hop trefoil Trifolium campestre and some yellow chamomile Anthemis tinctoria, like a small corn marigold but with pinnate leaves. 

Yellow chamomile

We continued up the lane to Slough Bottom Farm, opposite which is a footpath on the left going straight uphill to Bledlow Ridge.  There was little to retain our interest here except a lone specimen of the yellow-stainer mushroom Agaricus xanthodermus. 

Yellow stainer

The path becomes a surfaced lane and then leads into Chinnor Road along the top of the ridge.  Here we turned right into the village of Bledlow Ridge.  We passed the first footpath at the edge of an elaborate children’s playground and took the next one, a bridleway, just before a road junction.  Where the track leaves the housing we took the right turn off the bridleway along a footpath that descends and then cuts around the rolling hills below Bledlow Ridge.  There was common cornsalad Valerianella locusta at the edge of one of the arable fields here.  The path then skirts Yoesden Wood where there is rock-rose and wood barley on the bank. A comma butterfly flew over the flowers of rest-harrow and devilsbit scabious along the path, which soon leads to the gate below Yoesden Bank where we had arrived from Radnage Church at the beginning of the walk, so it was only a short way back to the car.  Looking back up at Yoesden Bank it seemed remarkably dull – pale browns and greens interrupted by small dark bushes – giving no hint of the colour and variety to be seen at close quarters.

Buckinghamshire: Prestwood to Naphill: Chiltern Gentian & Sedges

19 August 2011   Walkers & Riders Map for Prestwood & Kingshill*

                             OS Explorer 172 Chiltern Hills East

Length: All day

This walk was our second one in search of good Chiltern gentian sites.  The added bonus was a chance to look at some local sedges and to be able to compare them (OK, not everyone’s cup of tea!).

We started at Lodge Lane, Prestwood SP873000.  In the grass verge on the south side of the road, at the western end, the long-established thrift Armeria maritima was just finishing flowering (see Post for 2 July 2011).  We crossed Wycombe Road at the end of Lodge Lane.  The grass verge here has corky-fruited water-dropwort Oenanthe pimpinelloides, spilling out from its only county site. It has spread to a number of points (depending on where the verge is cut), from its main location in an orchard and pasture-field on the other side of the hedge (also see Post for 2 July 2011).  We found a dozen plants, one still in flower, the rest in fruit, on the left hand side of the house entrance.  They are easily recognised in fruit from other umbellifers by the stiff thick pedicels.  There is no pavement on this side, so we re-crossed the road to go south.  At the church we crossed again and went through the churchyard, where there was burnet saxifrage Pimpinella saxifraga, common knapweed Centaurea nigra, heather Calluna vulgaris and harebell Campanula rotundifolia (where it escapes mowing beneath the yew trees Taxus baccata).  In the lower churchyard was dark mullein Verbascum nigrum.  We left on the right-hand side into the footpath and down into a pasture known as Prestwood Park, walking under the Lucombe oak Quercus x crenata, which was now bearing small bristly acorns reflecting the fact that turkey oak is one of its parents (see Post for 2 May 2011, which also included this part of the route). 

Lucombe Oak acorns

Common blue and meadow brown were flying.

          The footpath continues west through Lawrence Grove Wood, across cultivated land, and then steeply down through Meadsgarden Wood (male roe deer noisily barking in competition) and to Hampden Road.  Here it is necessary to walk along the narrow road south the length of one (long) field to Prestwood Picnic Site and Local Nature Reserve on the left.  We took the path up the chalk slope that starts at the notice-board behind the picnic benches.  Still flowering at this date were wild parsnip Pastinaca sativa, marjoram Origanum vulgare, ox-eye daisy Leucanthemum vulgare, wild basil Clinopodium vulgare, rest-harrow Ononis repens, field scabious Knautia arvensis, small scabious Scabiosa columbaria, eyebright Euphrasia nemorosa, milkwort Polygala vulgaris, burnet saxifrage, and wild carrot Daucus carota. 

Marjoram at Prestwood Picnic Site

At a small scrape on the left was the first patch of Chiltern gentian Gentianella germanica, some plants tall and bushy (biennial form), others small with single terminal flowers (annual form).  

Chiltern gentian at Prestwood Picnic Site

Chiltern gentian, annual form

Near this pit and bare earth under a young oak is a little basil thyme Clinopodium acinos. 

Basil thyme

All three knapweeds are here: greater, common and chalk Centaurea scabiosa, nigra & debeauxii.  Further up the slope on the right is the largest patch of Chiltern gentians, often over a hundred spikes, with numerous small first-year versions, some with only 4, not 5, petals.  Here a few yellowworts Blackstonia perfoliata and pink common centauries Centaurium erythraea were still flowering.  Crossing the slope northwards to the path on that side of the reserve we encountered many clustered bellflowers Campanula glomerata and the fruiting stems of both agrimony and fragrant agrimony Agrimonia eupatoria & procera.  The latter tend to be larger and more robust, but the surest means of identification is to use the fruits, which for fragrant agrimony are less clearly lined on the basal portion, above which the bristles bend back before rearing upwards, appearing more bushy, whereas in common agrimony the lines are sharply indented and the bristles are vertical.  

Fragrant agrimony fruits

Butterflies here included green-veined & large whites, small copper, brown argus, common blue, meadow brown, and hedge brown. 

Female common blue

On the marjoram and other flowers were several large handsome hoverflies Volucella inanis, once limited to the London area, but now becoming more frequent in this area.

Volucella inanis

Having circled the slope we left the reserve and continued south down Hampden Road
a little way and then turned left up Perks Lane.  After housing finished on the left there was some creeping Jenny Lysimachia nummularia well-established on a bank on the right side of the road.  

Creeping Jenny

On the bend at the top there was also a small amount of grey sedge Carex divulsa divulsa on the right-hand bank, one of our target sedges for the day, growing among wood melick Melica uniflora which is abundant along the dark road-banks here.  The other sub-species, Leer’s sedge Carex divulsa leersii, also occurs in this region.  It is stiffer, the fruiting stems not bent over flexibly like grey sedge, the fruit clusters are closer together, the individual nuts a deeper brown and spreading to give a more “prickly” look.  There are a few clumps of the Leer’s sedge in the corner of the pasture where the footpath left Meadsgarden wood, at the edge of the wood, but our route would take us past another site for this sedge.  (See the article by Foley & Porter “Notes on the morphology of Carex divulsa (Grey Sedge)” in the BSBI Newsletter, April 2008, for a study which includes the Perks Lane site and others on this walk.)

          Just above the bend is an entrance to Longfield Wood, where there was a large clump of wood sedge Carex sylvatica, a very distinct sedge because of its long narrow drooping pedicels.  It is one of the commonest of the woodland sedges in this area on the chalk, along with remote sedge Carex remota, which is also common on more acid soils.  Remote sedge is similar to grey sedge but has much more separated fruiting clusters lower on the spike and the lowest bract is extremely long, usually exceeding the whole spike.  As we walked along the upper path through Longfield Wood (keeping to the left) we passed much of both wood and remote sedges.  Also at the side of the path was yellow pimpernel Lysimachia nemorum, a native ancient woodland indicator, which is a more delicate prettier plant than the garden escape creeping Jenny.  Wood millet Milium effusum and wood meadow-grass Poa nemoralis are common along here.  The wood also has wood barley Hordelymus europaeus along some of the lower paths.  These grasses are ancient woodland indicators, as is enchanter’s nightshade Circaea lutetiana, which is very common along this path.  It was no surprise to see speckled wood flying here to add to our list of butterflies.

          The path continues along the top of Longfield Wood and into Hatches Wood, which follows without any clear boundary.  Near the end of Hatches Wood we reached a wooden fence separating a rather remote house and garden.  Here we turned right off the path and through an area of beech Fagus sylvatica, littered with branches from recent felling.  After a few yards there is a distinct woodland bank at one time separating the wood from a chalk grassland slope to the bottom the valley (known as Hatches Bank).  Some 50 years ago this was converted to a plantation mainly of larch (Juniper Plantation – was there once juniper here, or was this just a flight of fancy?).  Most of the larch and some other trees have now been removed but it is still mainly scrub and incipient secondary woodland.  The local conservation group Prestwood Nature have recently been trying to restore the grassland by removing the scrub on behalf of the owner, because some of the original grassland flora still survived in small glades, including a good colony of Chiltern gentian.  The slope here is one that has been cleared, resulting this year in an incredible display of the gentians in their hundreds carpeting the site, some of them very vigorous and large, and including hybrids with autumn gentian Gentianella x pamplinii. 

Hybrid gentian

Other plants currently flowering at this rich site were: carline thistle Carlina vulgaris (also responding well to the increased light), dwarf thistle Cirsium acaule, basil thyme, large thyme Thymus pulegioides, field scabious, harebell, ploughman’s spikenard Inula conyzae, common knapweed, and yellowwort. 

Carline thistle

Ploughman’s spikenard

Among the brown carder bees Bombus pascuorum attending the flowers were other bumble-bees with brighter ginger hairs on the thorax and a white tail, the new immigrant tree bumble-bee Bombus hypnorum, now well-established in this area.  As one of the prettiest of the bumble-bees it is most welcome.  As usual round-mouthed snails indicate the quality of this chalk bank and slow-worms are common.

          We left the site to return to the path and walked down to the road at the bottom (Hatches Lane), which we descended to our right.  We passed the wood on our right, followed by two isolated houses and horse pastures.  Just past the entrance to the second house were several clumps of sedge on the right-hand verge and these proved to be Leer’s sedge, at another of the sites mentioned in Foley & Porter’s paper. 

Leer’s sedge

On the opposite side, on a wide verge that has been much disturbed, grew a colourful display of tall corn sow-thistles Sonchus arvensis. 

Corn sow-thistles, Hatches Lane

At the bottom of the lane on the right-hand side is a wall belonging to Lower Warren Farm which has wall-rue Asplenium ruta-muraria and wall pennywort or navelwort Umbilicus rupestris, a western and coastal plant that is extremely rare in this region.  Possibly introduced, it has been established here for decades at least.

          We were now back on Hampden Road, but crossed it and took the footpath directly opposite, which passed between some houses and then through a pasture and a field of maize.  At the second stile we turned left along a footpath down the edge of the field to the road at the bottom (Speen Road).  Here we turned left along the road as far as Stocking Lane on the right.  We walked up this road, and near the top of the slope by the entrance to a small trading estate, there were more clumps of grey sedge.  

Grey sedge

We carried on up the road to Naphill, as we passed near habitations coming across plants such as fennel Foeniculum vulgare and (surprisingly) woolly thistle Cirsium eriophorum. 

Woolly thistle

The latter does not usually occur in this area and these plants, close to houses, were no doubt garden escapes.  The cobwebby calyx and large purple or white flowers make them unmistakeable.  Swallows and house martins were gathering on telegraph wires in the traditional manner, preparing for a journey south to warmer climes – this August having been largely wet and cool one could hardly blame them.  At Main Road, Naphill, we turned left and stopped for a lunch break at The Wheel, a pub set back a little way from the road (reflecting the fact that before this village was as built-up as it is today common-land extended across here and the pub was sited on its edge).  This inn is currently Pub of the Year for the region in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide and serves traditional pub lunches.  

The Wheel

A large black weevil on the window-sill next to our table was a vine weevil Otiorrhynchus sulcatus, a common inhabitant of houses and gardens that can be a crop pest.

          After refeshment we carried on along Main Road eastwards for about a kilometre, past one junction and footpath on a bend, where the road becomes Coombe Lane, and took a footpath on the right (the sign hidden in the hedge on the road-bank, but it is just after houses end on that side) as we started to descend the hill towards Hughenden Valley.  This took us down a sheep pasture that was white with an exuberant display of wild carrot and yarrow Achillea millefolium in full flower.  (As we have mentioned before in these blogs it is sometimes the commonest flowers that provide the most memorable scenes.)  The path enters allotments and goes along the western and southern sides.  By taking the main path from the southern side through the centre of the allotments we found Irish spurge Euphorbia hyberna, well outside its native region. 

Irish spurge

There is also quite a lot of hedgerow cranesbill Geranium pyrenaicum.  The path continues through another field where the margin was thick with unusually tall “dwarf” spurge Euphorbia exigua.  The next field hosts the origin of the Hughenden stream, unfortunately now completely dry.  A couple of willows give away that fact, but there was no sign of water plants, even though when the stream flows there can be an abundance of water-cress.  We crossed this field to the gate leading on to the roundabout on the A4128 where it turns up Cryers Hill.

          We walked up Cryers Hill on the left-hand side, where a pavement is separated from the road by a wide grass verge, although this is no protection from the noise of the traffic, which is rather wearing on the walk up here.  There is, however, a reason for persisting, as there is a rare plant long-naturalised on this verge as the road, half to two-thirds of the way to the top, bends slightly to the right.  This is longleaf Falcaria vulgaris.  It is established along quite a long section and is usually easy to spot with its large scrambling bushy stems spilling across the grass and even over the kerb.  It has for several decades been left by the verge-cutters, but this year the whole colony had been cut to the base, with only a few small flowering and fruiting stems escaping the pogrom.  This plant seems to have been an early victim of the financial cuts, which have resulted in “rationalisation” of the road-verge cutting regime, during which information about the preservation of this plant seems to have been lost.  We hope it will survive this vandalism and that the council can be persuaded to take better care of it next year.

Longleaf, a flattened plant resurrected

In the village of Cryers Hill we took a digression east (along Cryers Hill Lane) to the vicinity of Hazlemere, where we were interested to see if the plant it was named after Corylus avellana still abounded.  Walking a lot of the edge of the now extensively built-up area (basically an extension of High Wycombe) we could at least establish that hazel does still grow in hedges on its boundary, but in no more greater proportion than it does anywhere else!  It is a mystery why a place should be named after a common plant that one would have thought hardly served to distinguish it from anywhere else, but perhaps the original village was a source of hazel stakes for fencing or nuts to trade.

Nuts!

The main road at Cryers Hill leads straight back to Prestwood, if you can stand the noise of traffic, but there is one difficult section with no sidewalk between Great Kingshill and Prestwood.  Available footpaths take you on rather circuitous routes, either westwards via Pipers Corner School and retracing Hatches and Longfield Woods, or eastwards into Great Kingshill and to Heath End, where a path leads through Crooks and Peterley Woods and ultimately back to Lodge Lane.  We chose the latter, although there is little of botanical note along the way.  A brief rest may, however, be made at Cockpit Hole, a deep pond recently restored and improved, where we saw gipsywort Lycopus europaeus, great willowherb Epilobium hirsutum, purple loosestrife Lythrum salicaria, reed Phragmites australis, reed sweet-grass Glyceria maxima, bulrush Typha latifolia, and water mint Mentha aquatica.  We also passed through Peterley Manor Farm where a piece of cultivated ground just before the farm buildings has small nettle Urtica urens, creeping yellow-cress Rorippa sylvestris, and shaggy soldier Galinsoga quadriradiata.

*Available from Amersham (Fox’s), Great Missenden (Roald Dahl Shop, Station Kiosk & Taxi Office), Little Kingshill (The Full Moon), Prestwood (King’s Head, Peterley Manor Farm Shop, Polecat, Post Office, PEM Newsagents)