New Year Plant Hunt 2024
On a dry, overcast and blustery morning, a group of six (later joined by another) met at Shide to walk northwards along the side of the River Medina in search of plants in flower at the turn of the year. This is the 13th nationwide New Year Plant Hunt organised by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. The lists of plants seen are analysed to help our understanding of how the changing climate is affecting wild and naturalised plants.
We discovered our first three species in flower – Lesser Celandine, Annual Meadow Grass and Petty Spurge – before we left the car park and by the time we had walked along Shide Path, we had added another six species to our list, including Pineappleweed, Shepherd’s Purse and Red Deadnettle.
Crossing the river via a footbridge, we saw Winter Heliotrope at the top of the bank. It has a group of pale pink flowers, looking like miniature shaving brushes on top of a sturdy stalk and large rounded leaves. Turning along Connie’s Way, to Pan Mill Meadows, we found a dark purple flower of Common Dog-violet nestling underneath a mass of heart-shaped leaves. It turned out to be the first of many and was declared the ‘flower of the day’.
On the riverbank below the gardens of Medina Avenue were two naturalised plants (originally planted in gardens, but now quite happily growing ‘wild’), Castor-oil Plant and Snowflake. Despite searches of Ivy-covered tree trunks, there were no flowers left but plenty of fruits developing, which will be a good food source for wildlife in the coming weeks. Other highlights along the path included a tree tump covered in fungus, a pair of Mallard surfing down the weirs and a flock of Long-tailed Tits overhead in the tree canopy.
The most surprising find was Meadowsweet in flower – only a few flowers open, but it still counts! Our final finds, on the way back to Shide, were Greater Periwinkle, Hazel and Green Field-speedwell bringing our total to 24. The list was added to the website during the afternoon and we entered the national ‘league table’ at 12th=. At this point less than 200 lists had been submitted, with an average score of 9.7. By Saturday evening 282 lists were in, with an average score of 10.7 and we had slipped to lower than 20th in the league- see the full results here (see Pan Mill Meadows).
Top left: Lesser Celandine Bottom; left: White deadnettle;
Centre: Daisy; Top right: Smooth Sow-thistle; Bottom right: Cock’s-foot grass.
Top left: Red Campion; Bottom Left: Common Dog-violet;
Top Right: Greater Periwinkle; Bottom Right: Groundsel.
Meadowsweet, with close-up of open flower.