Brownfield

Brownfield sites often have very high biodiversity; a 2 x  2m quadrat recorded from this area supported 40 different plant species, including two which are listed as Vulnerable in the UK Red List. Wall Bedstraw is a very tiny plant of harsh environments that's invisible at this scale, but Basil-thyme, which has purple flowers with a characteristic white blotch on the lower petal, is much more obvious. The high density of flowers has some similarity to the machair of western Scotland, which is perhaps unsurprising as both have developed on nutrient-poor, free-draining soils and are managed by annual mowing. The abundance of flowers is of high value for invertebrates, particularly bees, and is of particularly importance within the fens, which are largely managed for intensive agriculture, with large areas lacking any sort of flowers.