Hybrid Pansy

I made an early morning visit to one of the Nature Recovery projects on an area of road side grassland at Glinton, to see if the Bee Orchid population had survived the latest round of mowing. Thankfully Peterbrough City Council had reminded the contractors not to mow their main area and most had survived - the first few were coming into flower.


The afternoon was spent at the King's Dyke NR Bioblitz. The flowers were looking wonderful, with populations of many of the key species higher than I've seen previously. The Early Marsh-orchids were at their peak, significantly later than normal - I counted well over 150 in several different locations on the site. I was pleased to add a couple of species to the plant list for this very well-recorded reserve - single plants of Downy Oat-grass, a quality indicator of calcareous grassland and Viola x contempta, the hybrid between the very common Field Pansy and the much rare Wild Pansy.