Slender bedstraw

This very delicate and scarce member of the bedstraw family, Galium pumilum, is just coming into flower. I rediscovered a fairly extensive colony near the nature reserve a few years ago and the owner of the land allows us to graze it carefully to look after the plant. It had been thought to be extinct in the county before I found it, the previous record being in 1897 by the great botanist George Claridge Druce. Since we've been looking after the south-facing slope where it grows it has spread very nicely and as the same cattle grazing the slope also graze part of the nature reserve, we hope it will eventually spread there, helping to secure its long-term survival.