Fantastic Flora

Linda Robinson, the VC65 Botany recorder has visited Foxglove for several days to record the plant species on the reserve.  She has recorded over 390 species!  We would like to thank her for all her hard work.  (She would love to make it 400!)

So this blog is celebrating our fantastic flora!

Grass of Parnassus, which is flowering a little later this year is just beginning to burst bud.

Fleabane is very hard to miss in the Scrapes with its bright yellow flowers.  This plant provides bees, butterflies and hoverflies with nectar and pollen.

Red Bartsia is a semi parasitic plant and often overlooked.  It is now found in several places across the reserve.

 Another semi-parasitic plant is Eyebright seen growing on the moor and along path edges.

Water Figwort has a square winged stem and although the flowers are small the dark red colour stands out. If you look closely at the flower spike you will see flowers and seed heads.

Many people see Greater Willowherb as a weed, but weeds are only plants that grow where we do not want them to.  It is showing its beautiful pink flowers around the Voley Ponds.

Last but not least the spores on the ferns are beginning to mature.