We knew before we left our respective homes that we were in for a bit of a wet day, but despite that ten of us assembled in the small car park at the NNR for the start of the field trip, led by Peter Tipping.  Despite the wet conditions on arrival, requiring us all to start off in full waterproof gear, a group photo was thought in order; just as the camera came out there was an almightly flash, immediately followed by an almighty crash of thunder, it caught us by surprise and filled us with foreboding but it was the last we had!

From the car park we proceeded through dripping woodland, but much cheered by a lovely stand of Herb Paris (Paris quadrifolia) with some flowers still extant and some fruits forming.  Passing through lovely limestone woodland we saw many local specialities but eventually arrived at a series of more-open areas of limestone pavement.

After finding a great many limestone treasures in amongst the grykes we proceeded across rather more vegetated rocky areas, finding treasures like fruiting patches of Spring Cinquefoil and much Mountain Melick, amongst many others, all on the way to the glory of Gait Barrows!

The magnificent flowers of the Lady's Slipper seemed quite impervious to the wet conditions and despite many having already faded there were still plenty in good flowering condition.

Peter Gateley

On Saturday 21st June we met at the Ivy Green car Park, just off Chorlton Green, from where local (and very expert) expert David Bishop led us into the variety of open spaces in the floodplain of the River Mersey

The timing of the walk was ideal for grasses flowering and we were able to inspect and compare a wide range of native grass species, looking their best.  However we also enjoyed the vegetation of spring flowering plants, two notable northern species being Bistort and Sweet Cicely

There were also some good stands of various water plants including some of the less usual ones such as Greater Spearwort and Flowering Rush.  There was also the opportunity to look at both Watercress and Fool's Watercress (picured below), the former being a crucifer with a head of four-petalled white flowers and the latter an umbellifer, flowering in the nodes of the sprawling plant.

The walk was further diversified by areas of woodland and hedgerow, with a few species that we don't commonly occur across in Merseyside, such as Wood Stitchwort and White Bryony.  The stitchwort had mainly finished flowering but from the dead heads it could be seen that the April/May display must have been pretty good.  The bryony is the only native member of the cucumber family and the typical tendrils could be clearly seen.

Formerly much of the floodplain was managed as seasonal meadow, but very little of this rich grassland habitat now remains.  David is well versed in the local history of the area and was able to tell us about the former meadow lands and showed us a small surving patch that still retains a population of Greater Burnet, which used to be a widespread feature of the valley meadows.  We also saw extensive areas of poorly managed (over-grazed in the recent past) grassland but moves are afoot to improve grassland management to restore the traditional meadow habitat and management to the Mersey valley.

Many thanks to David for guiding us around this varied and interesting area, well worth a visit!

Peter Gateley