Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.

Some of the group on a seat at the top of the meadow.  Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.

Another day with some bright and often sunny weather, much appreciated amid a particularly rainy month!  This time the Orpington Field Club were looking around Darrick Wood and its adjoining meadow areas.  I have been to these meadows twice before; once on an invertebrates study day, and once to look for butterflies.  This time we spent most of the time in the woods.

Near the start of the walk, we passed a small open area which had been the site of an airplane crash and had been saturated with aviation fuel.  We suspect that when this site was recovered, it must have been seeded with wild flowers, because there were specimens here that did not appear anywhere else in the area.  For example:

False Oxlip, Primula x polyantha, a hybrid of Primrose and Cowslip. Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.

This is rather pretty, but also large and showy.  Also unusually large is this:

Salad Burnet, Sanguisorba minor.  Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.

Whenever I have seen Salad Burnet before, it has been a few scrappy leaves at ground level on a chalk bank.  Some of these were a couple of feet high.  The normal plant is the subspecies minor, but this does not seem at all minor.   There were other, smaller wildflowers on this patch too, but looking at these suggests that someone has sown showy versions of the usual chalk flora.

Some parts of the wood were full of Cuckooflower, sometimes called Lady's-smock.

Cuckooflower, Cardamine pratensis.  Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.

Delicate pink-tipped buds and clusters of white flowers.  Also in the woods, this Male Fern was unfolding fresh green fronds:

Male Fern, Dryopteris filix-mas.  Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.

And there were two or three specimens of Early Purple Orchid.  One had a feeble flower head; this one looked much more healthy, but is still in bud.

Early Purple Orchid, Orchis mascula.  Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.

Out of the wood, there was a large specimen of Alexanders in a hedgerow.  This was an unusual sight.  It's common enough in Kent, but only by the coast and along roadsides, where it will get some salt.

Alexanders, Smyrnium olusatrum.  Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.

Alexanders is quite edible.  The book says the leaves smell of celery when crushed, but this one had a much sweeter scent.

Moving back towards the start, there were some Field Maples in flower.

Field Maple, Acer campestre.  Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.

This is a medium-sized tree with delicate leaves.  I posted some Field Maple flowers at a later stage of development in May last year.

The last photo for today is a bracket fungus, Dryad's Saddle.  This looks fresh and alive.  I saw older specimens towards the end of last year that looked quite different; they had lost their scales and were spongy and weak in rainy conditions.

Dryad's Saddle, Polyporus squamosus.  Darrick Wood, 21 April 2012.