Our community meadow (Focus - July)

The community meadow just behind the Nadder Centre is full of flowers this summer. After several years of careful ragwort removal, followed by taking an annual hay cut, the grass has become less dominant allowing other flowering plants to flourish. As well as the striking clumps of white ox-eye daisy, during a walk through the meadow you should be able to find knapweed, wild carrot, buttercups, clovers, and several members of the dandelion family, including goat’s beard and daintier ones such as cat’s-ears, hawkbits and hawkweeds. These can be tricky to identify accurately but the variety is what is so attractive.

Contributing to the decline in the vigour of the grasses is the yellow rattle, a plant that is a semi-parasite of grasses, feeding off the nutrients in their roots, suppressing their growth. Unsurprisingly, the flowers are yellow, but the other part of the name is derived from the papery brown calyx which creates a small bladder in which the seed ripens. When several on one stem are ripe, they will rattle in the wind and multiple plants can set up a dry rustling in the breeze. This species has spread rapidly across the meadow and is now prolific in places.

While taking the hay cut aims to reduce the fertility of the meadow, acting against this is the spread of the clumps of sainfoin. Like other members of the pea family, this plant, with bright magenta flowers, fixes nitrogen in its roots, which penetrate deep and bring up nutrients from the subsoil.

Although far less numerous, another unusual plant found scattered throughout the field is the common broomrape. Broomrapes are a group of striking, poker-shaped, parasitic plants that lack chlorophyll, so they are never green. There are nine native species in Britain, each generally associated with distinct species or groups of plants. Looking superficially like a faded, dried out orchid, their flower stems can remain in place through the winter, after shedding their dust like seed. If this seed lands close to a suitable host, it germinates in response to chemicals in the soil produced by that plant. It then grows towards and attaches to the host, from which it takes sufficient sustenance to produce a new flower. In the case of the common broomrape, these flowers can be quite variable but are generally between a brownish red and a creamy yellow in colour. It is most often associated with members of the pea family or wild carrot. While the latter is present in the field, it is most likely associated with the prolific red clover or sainfoin, both of which are flourishing there.

The flora of the meadow is visibly very dynamic as varied species increase or decline. However, the diversity of flowering species appears to be increasing all the time, to the benefit of the numerous insects, including the common grassland butterflies. Look out for Meadow Browns, Ringlets and Marbled Whites, all of which can be seen there in scores on a good day.

​Andrew Graham