Pepper Saxifrage

Pepper Saxifrage

Silaum silaus

 

 

Five years on with our meadow project and we discovered this wildflower in our recent survey. As we received a grant working with the Herefordshire Meadows Group, I have to undertake ten quadrat surveys in the meadow each Summer and record the results. It is now five years since we restored this area to a wildflower meadow and two members from Herefordshire Meadows came to make the surveys. It felt a little like having Head Teacher and their Deputy for the day!! The site we have sown with wildflowers has always been grassland, I have checked old maps and the surrounding area was all woodland except for this field. Before we were able to acquire it, the field was used for grazing and had been fertilised for years with chicken manure. In preparation for the meadow restoration, we have worked tirelessly to reduce the fertility. Three years into this project I was very heartened by the appearance of several Early Purple Orchids, perhaps these seeds have lain dormant in this soil for many years and with suitable conditions will now flourish.

My tutors were pleased to hear about the orchids but during the surveys they found the plant illustrated above, Pepper Saxifrage. This caused much more excitement and I was asked to take its co-ordinates for the County Recorder, as it is an indicator of unimproved meadowland. A member of the Carrot family, it is not the most exciting plant to look at, like a small cow parsley with yellow flowers, growing up to 60 cm.

Every year the number of different flower and grass species increases and I spend hours watching the huge variety of butterflies, moths and dragonflies that it attracts, as well as the bees and bumblebees, and the ever increasing hare population and different birdlife, including numerous song thrushes, goldfinches, yellow wagtails and even a skylark this year!

Candida Hopkinson