3 May 2013 OS
175: Reading & Windsor
Length: 1 hour.
We started from the car-park by the northern arm of Maidenhead Thicket (National Trust) at SU855816. Across the road was an open access field carpeted with cowslips Primula veris, one of the best cowslip meadows we have seen, thick with vigorous plants. This is Pinkneys Green Common, managed by the National Trust.
Cowslips, Pinkneys Green
Common
Wood anemones, Maidenhead
Thicket
Ramsons, Maidenhead
Thicket
Some plants of
hybrid bluebell Hyacinthoides x
massartiana near the car-park made us wonder about the origins of the flora
in this wood. The few-flowered garlic is
certainly an introduction and can spread rapidly, ramsons is native but also
occurs widely as a garden escape, and the same applies to many other plants
here, such as red currant and gooseberry.
Others like sanicle and woodruff are almost certainly native. However it got to be this way, it is still a
great spectacle in spring.
Afterwards a brief
drive took us to Burchetts Green SP840815 (walking there is awkward because of
the intervening motorway). Here an old American
red oak Quercus rubra stands at the
crossroads opposite the Crown pub. It
was just opening its bright yellow leaves at our visit.
The former mansion
is now a further education facility teaching a huge range of work skills from
farming to hairdressing to dog-handling and the park makes a very pleasant
milieu. A range of daffodils has been planted
along the road verges. We did not stop
to identify most, but we were struck by the cultivar 'High Society', which has
a trumpet which is pink, white, yellow, then green inside.
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