#NewYearPlantHunt

New Year's Day we were up and out nice and early (well early'ish) for the New Year Plant Hunt. It's an annual event organised by BSBI to record as many wild plants in flower as possible over the New Year period. This helps collect data from all over the country that can then be analysed to see how our wild plants are responding to changes in weather patterns.

We decided to walk to Pyrtle Spring so that we could hunt for wild flowers on the way (and because it was a year to the day since we first visited there last year).

We had to walk along the edge of two fields to get to the spring, then hunted

all around the edge of the spring and in the bottom of the spring (as it

currently has no water in it)

It's been so mild so far this winter that we were hoping to find at least a few plants in flower. Unfortunately it was a really cold morning, our first for ages, and the wind was causing all our eyes to water which made hunting even more tricky! We didn't do too badly though and managed to find 15 plants in flower.

Celandine

Dog violet

Buttercup

Cow parsley

Daisy

Dandelion

Red dead nettle

White dead nettle

Sow thistle

Hazel catkins

Meadow grass (I think)

Groundsel

Rape (I'm not sure whether this one counts as

it was growing on the edge of a field that was

planted with oil seed rape last summer)

Wood avens (maybe) - just about still in flower with one petal

hanging on!

The leaves of what I think is wood avens

Hedge mustard (maybe)

Leaves of what I think is hedge mustard

We'll send our finds into BSBI and I might just ask them to check some of the Id's I'm not too sure about!)