Cadnam Flower Walk - Royal Pennies and Bane of Fleas

Highlights – Small Fleabane, Pennyroyal, Chamomile, Trifid Bur-marigold.

This walk took us around the quiet country lanes and a heathy common, just north of Cadnam.
It wasn’t long after we set off that we saw Small Fleabane growing in short grazed grassland by the roadside. This is a very rare plant nationwide and is now virtually confined to the New Forest.
A little further along the lane and the verges widened out to a fairly large area of short grazed grassland. Here Small Fleabane was fairly common and Chamomile, another New Forest speciality, was abundant. At one or two places the ground was a little lower, probably where old ditches were. Here the ground is a little damper and we found Pennyroyal, which is also almost confined to the New Forest, Trifid Bur-marigold, an uncommon plant of pond edges and several of the more common species such as Water Pepper, Silverweed, Lesser Spearwort, Redshank and Creeping Yellow-cress, a small yellow flowered crucifer! At one point we found the three rarities (Chamomile, Small Fleabane and Pennyroyal) all growing and flowering within inches of each other.
We soon turned off the lane and walked across Cadnam Common. At first this was grassy with much Lesser Hawkbit, Tormentil and Self-heal and one white-flowered Marsh Thistle. Soon we came to a much damper spot with Marsh Pennywort, Cross-leaved Heath, Bog Myrtle, Marsh St. John’s-wort and the two commoner species of Sundew, Oblong-leaved and Common Sundew.
On the more heathy areas the vista was wonderful as the Heather was just coming out into flower giving that wonderful purple haze, so familiar in autumn on the Forest. At one point we found another plant, Marsh Club-moss. This is not a flowering plant and looks like a small fuzzy Pine sapling. Not much to look at, but a very rare plant of wet heathy areas in southern UK.
Altogether a very enjoyable walk in a part of the New Forest that is not well visited, making it quiet and relaxing to wander around. We were lucky with the weather too. We had a few spots of rain, while Totton, 5 miles away, had a torrential downpour and flooding !!!