Field Eryngo

Field Eryngo is a prickly member of the Carrot family, which is native to Central and Southern Europe. Today I met up with my fellow BSBI Recorder to visit a splendid plant of this species growing on the edge of the A1 near Grantham (see extra) on a very ordinary looking piece of verge with lorries thundering past. There are scattered records from southern England, but this is the furthest north it's ever been found. It's interesting to ponder how it arrived - possibly a seed carried by a transcontinental lorry? A European tourist taking a break in the nearby layby, with a seed on his boot? However it arrived, it's certainly doing very well this year.