During the last week of October Eileen and I visited the coastal village of Kessingland to search for and record the flowering plants. We are members of the Wild Flower Society. (WFS) which holds a last day hunt for flowering plants on the 31st of each October. It is not really a competition with prizes but a fun way to look for and add these late flowering plants to our diaries which are submitted annually which lists all flowering plants seen that year.
Our visit was to recce out sites to revisit at the end of the month and to add more to my Kessingland North tetrad. Our first stop was to see a few pink flowers of the Himalayan Giant, Bramble. Rubus armeniacus. That grows on the west side of Green lane in the village.
Once on the beach we started to walk north where we found Blue Fleabane Erigeron acer both in flower and fruit, followed by Shasta Daisy Leucanthemum x silybum. That grows on the cliff side and has been recorded there since 1977. A relatively new plants growing there, well since the 1963 national flora atlas was the Mile a minute or Russian Vine Fallopia Baldschuanica. Most records are in the south east of the UK with a scattering of records in the north. It is a pretty late flowering plants with great swathes of white blooms soon covering hedges and trees by habitation. Due to the nature of beach flora the species are very small and often prostrate. These small plants can confuse the beginner as the books will sometimes give plant heights but this is only plants that are seen under normal circumstances.
Two such flowers we saw were again both in fruit and flower. The first which often needs fruits for confident identification was Annual wall Rocket. Diplotaxis tenuifolia. Growing only a few inches above the sand. Next was a small Mouse-ear Hawkweed Pilosella officinarum. A common enough plant that has these furry white under-leaves. The flowers normally reach 12” but these flowers were only 3” tall. It was a pleasant walk and we found plenty to keep us occupied, even a few continental Blackbirds, Dunnock,s and Robins were seen.
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