Soft Shield-fern

Fourteen of us met for the first SLFG meeting of the year at Bourne Woods. We walked swiftly through the southern part of the wood to record in monads TF0721 and TF0821, where many species had not been recorded since the late 1980's, including common taxa such as Hazel! We strayed slightly into adjacent monads for one or two interesting species.

Overall we recorded just over 150 taxa. It was definitely a good day for ferns - the highlight was finding a steep-sided ditch along the edge of a ride which supported good populations of Soft Shield-fern and Hart's-tongue, both of which are new for the wood. Soft-shield Fern is a candidate Rare Plant Register species, and there is only one other recent record from TF02. We also found several stands of Scaly Male-fern, Narrow-leaved Buckler-fern and Lady Fern.

Other species of note included Wood Vetch, several patches of Wood-sorrel, a ride with Tormentil and Betony, a few plants of Hairy Woodrush  and a lovely group of flowering Early Purple-orchid including a white-flowered form with no spots on the leaves.

It was great to welcome two new members to the group, as well as seeing plenty of familiar faces. Hopefully, our remaining trips will be favoured with such good weather and good plants - and we've decided that in future cake is essential!