Chiltern gentian success!

While recording my butterfly transect this morning I came across the first Chiltern gentian to show up in the chalk scrapes we excavated three years ago. After excavation, the nature reserve volunteers hand-collected seed from around the reserve and scattered it in the scrapes. This gentian is the 107th species of flowering plant to appear from a mixture of germination of the seedbank in the soil, natural colonisation and plants introduced through our seed sowing. Prior to our work, this field grew a monoculture of wheat or perenial rye grass for over 60 years. The message is, grassland restoration works - we can (to some extent) turn the clock back.