Large-sepalled Hawthorn

A day book-ended by Langdyke Trust meetings - a morning meeting with the local Internal Drainage Board at South Drain, an a late afternoon meeting of the Conservation Committee, which was held outdoors, with all the seats spaced at a suitable social distance. It was really good to see people in the flesh after so many Zoom meetings!

On the way back from my morning meeting I dropped in at a couple of local sites, but didn't go far as it was baking - approximately 28C. The hedgerow of the second site has several bushes of Large-sepalled Hawthorn, presumably planted by the Highways Agency after the A47 Castor by-pass was constructed. 

This non-native hawthorn has large, bright red berries with upright sepals and is becoming increasingly frequent in England as a result of such planting. It also happily hybridises with our native species causing much taxonomic confusion. Our flora is changing nearly as rapidly as our invertebrate fauna, but mostly as a result of 'conservation' and landscape planting, together with some species that have escaped from gardens.