Email from friendsofscp@outlook.com to Rich Murphy, Tree and Woodland Officer.
Hello Rich,
Is it vandals or deer that have damaged this tree so badly? We suspect deer but it would be unusual at this time of year when there is so much new grass around. We defer to your expertise.
FoSCP
Common spotted orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii, in the woods around the edge of Village Green
Ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) growing next to the little tributary stream, between the Decorated Bridge and the Dog Pond.
Continue reading “Ragged robin”
This year, the annual competition to send in the first picture of our common spotted orchids has been won by Sarah Gould.
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It’s June and we are nearly half way through 2020. Here is the round dozen of species that have been identified in the park for the first time this year.
Continue reading “Half time score”
A picture from seven year old Amelia Newblé of the four-leafed clover she found in the park. Thank you Amelia.
Our fields are beautiful at the moment: full of yellow buttercups.
The park’s yellow iris are in flower, always worth a visit.
This is ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), a little blue flower so common as to be almost invisible. It grows all over the park and flowers at any time of the year.
Continue reading “Ground Ivy”
Our brilliant resident photographer is back. Here is a gallery of pictures he took this week down among the park’s lush greenery.
Header picture: Buttercups in the Race and Sheep Field, by DKG.
The park’s red campion grows up through tall vegetation at the edges of the fields and beneath the hedges. If you find it, take photographs and send them to us, please.
Bugle (Ajuga reptans) photographed this week in the park’s copses.
Continue reading “Bugle”
These are the flowers of an oak tree. Oaks are monoecious; they have male flowers and female flowers on the same tree.
Continue reading “Oak flowers”
Germander speedwell (Veronica Chamaedrys) in the hedge in Brunts Field.
Pictures by Suzanne Humphries
It’s not an instruction to keep your coat on until June; it’s telling you that you can take your cardigan off once the may is in blossom, which has been known to happen as early as April.
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The horse chestnut tree near the park’s main entrance gate is in flower.
Last week, Ian Bushell found and photographed bush vetch (Vicia sepium) at Fiveways, near the picnic place. It is quite a common plant in the park but, for some unspecified reason, it had not previously been put on our species list.
Continue reading “Another new species”
By Ian Bushell
For the last couple of Sundays, I have been looking for Spanish squill among the bluebells. I have gone early and used the allotment entrance to the park.
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Wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides) photographed in the park by Clive Knight.
Header picture (CC0) pixabay.com
Our native species of bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) is threatened by the spread of Spanish squill (Hyacinthoides hispanica), a similar species imported into our gardens from southern Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The wild garlic is just coming into flower.
Field or hedge maple (Acer campestre) photographed yesterday at the top of Simpson’s Field.
This is wild arum (Arum maculatum) growing in the copse at the top of Brunt’s Field.
Continue reading “Wild arum”
By Ian Bushell
Southwick Country Park has a number of veteran oaks and ten ancient oaks. There are no hard and fast rules about when and why an oak tree becomes classified as veteran or ancient; in different environments and soils oaks grow at different rates and girth is only an indicator. Here the underlying Oxford clay provides an excellent medium and the trees are large and shapely.
Continue reading “The Park’s Veteran Oaks”
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 