Cloudage

Pete and I had an afternoon trip to Donington in Lincolnshire to verify the identity of a hawthorn with black haws that had recently been discovered by a local botanist. The afternoon was forecast to be dry but just as we arrived at the site the heavens opened, so Pete leaped quickly out of the car and grabbed a couple of specimens for me to identify later. The mystery plant proved to be Five-seeded Hawthorn Crataegus pentagyna, an eastern European species that must have somehow infiltrated the nursery stock. There are only a few other records in the Uk and this is the first in Lincolnshire - no doubt there'll be more!

We then went on to do some botanical recording round Donington  town centre and racked up a very respectable couple of hundred species. We avoided the rain, though the sky was full of spectacular shower clouds - one of the advantages of the fens is that you can really appreciate them. Our final discovery of the say was a newly created park named after the explorer Matthew Flinders, who was born in the town. This had been designed in consultation with the loclal community and was a really lovely multipurpose open space - formal sitting areas with a wide array of interesting trees, an interesting playground and a wildlife area with a ditch, species-rich grassland and pollard willows. A real asset for the community and obviously loved and cared for.