Settle Wildflowers - Day 82 - White 18 - Giggleswick Station (today)

It is sunny this morning Fri 25 Sept at 9am so I set off for Giggleswick Station. It had been such a brilliant place on Sun 30 Aug. It is cold and windy.  I put on leggings under thick tracksuit bottoms, and on top of my light fleece and ski jacket I wear my waterproof jacket and my all year Christmas woolly hat .   Cheating,  I drive to the station.

There is still a good selection, but I have to search much harder.

Two flowers I have hoped to find are not there. Matricaria revutita (?) sp  is dead. 

Arenaria serpyllifolia -Thyme-leaved Sandwort leaves are present but no flowers.

However I was able to photograph:

1. Goose-grass - Galium aparine - really common

2. White Clover - Trifolium repens

3. Lesser Swinecress Coronopus didymus (aka Lepidium didymus)

1. Goosegrass - really common

 

2. White Clover - Trifolium repens

   

3. Lesser Swinecress Coronopus didymus (aka Lepidium didymus)

I was pleased to find this. It does have white petals - though they are minute.

from https://www.brc.ac.uk/:-

C. didymus reached Britain in the early 18th century, being recorded from the wild by 1778. It is now frequent in urban and industrial areas, and is still spreading into rural areas where it is widespread but scattered.

World Distribution
A widespread alien in W. Europe, N. America and the S. hemisphere; origin uncertain, often cited as S. America.

I checked on the BSBI website and it has not been recorded in SD86 (our 10km square) since before 1969.

It is very similar to its sister plant Coronopus squamatus.

Like its sister C squamatus,. it grows in disturbed ground and in gateways.

We found some Coronopus squamatus last week in Norton le Clay.

Coronopus squamatus is very similar but its fruits are much more warty.

All the leaves on C didymus have a tiny bristle at the tip. It is supposed to smell foetid.

In C squamatus, may of the leaf do not have a bristle at the tip, and the plants smells of cress but not foetid.

Matricaria recutita  30 Aug 2020

View west from Giggleswick Station - You can see the road I took towards Cockett Moss on 30 August. 

See the glacial overflow channel with conifers on one side

 After Giggleswick Station the Line goes uphill to the highest point on the Giggleswick to Carnforth line about 1 mile away - the Line follows the lowest point between the Forest of Bowland in the SW and and the Limestone Hills of the Dales in the NE.

Interesting that enough soil has accumulated near the traffic island for more Reflexed Saltmarsh Grass Puccinellia distans to grow

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