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Sunday, November 18, 2018

Mission accomplished

There are still useful botanical searches to do at this time of year, as I explained to the landowner when asking permission to go on his land (he wondered why I wasn't interested in his Hay meadow orchids - which I will be next summer).

Our target, Rough Horsetail, is wintergreen and a Rare Plant Register plant for the county. It was last seen at this site in 1992; we have a new site discovered in 2017 below Pen y Fan. There is one more potential site for re-finding it - last seen there in 1985.

It was a lovely day for a walk up Cusop Dingle, just the other side of the Welsh Border, for the walk up to the farm entrance, which immediately crosses the Dulas Brook and thus got us back into Wales.

We enjoyed discussing and recognising some of the varied leaves on the banks alongside the farm track - plenty more to record when we return in the summer! The woodland around a tributary of the Dulas was easy to access and not too bad to get through. We found what we were looking for after a few hundred yards of roughish woodland dingle walk along the stream:
Our new BSBI Welsh Officer, Barbara, photographing the Rough Horsetail after crossing the stream to see it closer. We soon found other clumps on the side we had started on.

This picture of the Dulas Brook in Cusop Dingle was taken some time go:

It was nice to see this flowering in November under the trees.
Wild Angelica, Llysiau’r angel or Angelica sylvestris

And here is the target plant:
Rough Horsetail, Marchrawnen y gaeaf or Equisetum hyemale

We returned via Offa's Dyke Path and noted more Hawthorns on that route with mistletoe than I had seen before.

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