About this Blog

This blog reflects our twin interests in walking and natural history, especially botany.



"Ich wandle unter Blumen

Und blühe selber mit ..."

Heinrich Heine





Walking is important to us as a way of being in direct touch with the environment, experiencing species and habitats in their ecological and historical context. By walking between different flower sites we experience the character of the general countryside, getting to know as much where flowers are not as where they are. Walking allows for the serendipitous - chance encounters with animals, meetings with local people, unexpected species - which enrich the experience.

We set up this blog to share a variety of mainly day-long walks centred on "iconic" flower sites and locations of rare plants, where these are publicly accessible. The accounts include descriptions of the routes taken, key plants seen, other wildlife encountered, and anything of general environmental or historical interest. All the walks allow time for looking around (some flowers need searching for), photography etc, and usually include a half-way stop for refreshment at some suitable establishment. The walks are seasonal, depending on the flowering/fruiting times of different species, although one cannot hit the peak time for all species seen on one walk, and the best timings will vary from year to year. Lengths vary but the walks may be anything up to 12 miles or more, so an early start is recommended.



A certain knowledge of our flora is assumed, but those less familiar should be able to identify most of the plants mentioned with the help of one of the good field guides - Blamey, Fitter and Fitter Wild Flowers of Britain & Ireland (A&C Black) or Francis Rose The Wild Flower Key (Warne) - although occasionally recourse may be needed to more technical tomes such as Clive Stace New Flora of the British Isles (Cambridge) or the specialist volumes published by BSBI (Botanical Society of the British Isles) on grasses, sedges, umbellifers etc.



While examining plants it is interesting to note the galls, leaf-mines and fungi (rusts etc) that are often specific to particular taxa. For galls we use Redfern and Shirley British Plant Galls, for leaf-mines http://www.ukflymines.co.uk/ (which also includes lepidopteran and other mines), and for fungi Ellis and Ellis Microfungi on Land Plants, although this is a technical tome rather than a field guide.

Our completed walk around the coast and borders of England is described on http://www.coastwalking.blogspot.co.uk/ and our current walk around the coast of Wales is on http://www.coastwalkwales.blogspot.co.uk/




Saturday 19 April 2014

Berkshire: Childrey and Sparsholt

11 April 2014                                   OS Map 174: Newbury & Wantage SU8736-8734
2 hours

These two quiet neighbouring villages just west of Wantage are only a kilometre apart and easily covered by a short walk, with plenty of botanical interest, particularly spring bulbs.  The area has several old records of wild tulip Tulipa sylvestris and this was one of our main targets, having failed to find it in many other locations where it has been recorded.  We were, indeed, beginning to think that it had vanished from all its former haunts.  Although not a true native, but a southern European plant, it had long been established, possibly introduced by the Romans or early Crusaders.
          We started at the church in Childrey.  There was a colony of creeping comfrey Symphytum grandiflorum under the wall of the house opposite the churchyard, while the churchyard walls had wall-rue Asplenium ruta-muraria and pellitory-of-the-wall Parietaria judaica

Creeping comfrey, Childrey

The grassland of the churchyard itself had a splendid display of primroses Primula vulgaris and polyanthus Primula x polyantha cv., attracting bee-flies and spring butterflies like orange-tip, peacock and small tortoiseshell. 

Primroses, Childrey churchyard

Other introduced bulbs included:
          Garden grape-hyacinth Muscari armeniacum, distinct from our native Muscari neglectum in its bright blue flowers (not dark blue to black) - although garden centres often sell it as neglectum (even more confused by the fact that the illustrations in Blamey, Fitter & Fitter's "Wild Flowers" appear to be the wrong way round!);

Garden grape-hyacinth
          Several daffodil cultivars such as 'Vulcan', 'Carol Lombard', 'White Lady', 'Kilworth' and 'Aircastle';

'White Lady'

          Yellow and blue anemones Anemone ranunculoides and A. apennina.

Yellow anemone

Blue anemone

Other low plants included slender speedwell Veronica filiformis, cowslip Primula veris and cuckooflower Cardamine pratensis.

Slender speedwell

The churchyard has a number of tall Lawson cypress Chamaecyparis lawsoniana which were just now colourful in their new flowers (red male, and white female towards the tips of each spray).  There was also a tall conical form 'Lutea' with golden foliage.

Lawson cypress flowers

Lawson cypress (right) & form Lutea (left)

Along the lane going west towards Sparsholt, just before leaving Childrey, was some shining cranesbill Geranium lucidum.  Approaching Sparsholt opposite a house on the left is a low marshy area with marsh marigold Caltha palustris and a copse with large patches of few-flowered garlic Allium paradoxum.  At the roadside was also a daffodil escape or throw-out, 'Actaea', attracting the hoverfly Melanostoma scalare.

Few-flowered garlic

'Actaea' daffodil and hoverfly Melanostoma scalare

At the end of this lane, instead of turning right into the village, we turned left, going south from Sparsholt.  Half way along on the right hand side was another solitary house and opposite it the bank had an extensive patch of creeping comfrey, perhaps the largest we have ever come across, extending into the copse above.  There were also large clumps of spurge laurel Daphne laureola, more patches of few-flowered garlic, some cowslips and a clump of gladdon Iris foetidissima.

Creeping comfrey well naturalised at Sparsholt

Spurge laurel, Sparsholt

At the crossroads at the top of this lane the banks had more cowslips and lesser celandine Ficaria verna, but the real joy was reserved for two colonies of wild tulip, one behind a fence on the right-hand side, under some trees, the other along the open banks of the lane going left.  There were going on for a hundred of the yellow acute-petalled blooms altogether, but many more clumps of the distinctive narrow grey-green leaves, so unlike the usual garden tulip.  At this site, at least, the plant is doing well.  The bulbs are easily available for purchase and we resolved straight away that we must buy some for our garden and help ensure the survival of this splendid species.  The Berkshire Flora mentions that many of the wild tulip populations are sterile, but it is apparent that it must here be managing to spread by seed, with two patches separated by a road.  Whether this plant has been here centuries or merely decades, it is impossible to tell.

Beneath the trees

Beside the road

A flash of gold

We then returned jubilantly to the main part of Sparsholt village.  The verge outside the churchyard was very flowery, with yet more few-flowered garlic (which has an extensive hold around the village), leaves of winter aconite, and more grape-hyacinth, this time the dark-flowered native species, though no doubt here it is a garden escape. 

Roadside carpet of few-flowered garlic in Sparsholt

Grape-hyacinth

In the churchyard itself there were again many primroses (with a clump of the umbelled variety), mixed with cowslips, both sweet and common dog-violets Viola odorata and V. riviniana, and field woodrush or Good Friday grass Luzula campestris.  The only plants on the church walls, however, were hart's-tongue Asplenium scolopendrium and greater celandine Chelidonium majus.  On the way to the Star Inn in the centre of the little village, for an excellent lunch, we passed some spotted medick Medicago arabica.  At lunch we had soup with a pesto of "wild garlic" and there could be little doubt of local provenance!  Perhaps finding a use for the few-flowered garlic has helped ensure its survival.


Umbelled primrose, Sparsholt churchyard

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