Flora survey on the Common

Members of Scaynes Hill Sustainability Group were joined on Thursday evening by wildflower meadow expert Margaret Pilkington to explore what plants are currently growing on our Common. The Common has the designation of a Site of Nature Conservation Importance (SNCI) for its valuable grassland habitats. At the northern end of the Common is an important area of acid grassland. This habitat is nationally threatened and plants that are tolerant of lime-poor soils grow there such as Devlls-bit Scabious, Heath Bedstraw and Tormentil. The event had had to be postponed from the original date earlier in the month due to the heat on what had turned out to be the hottest day on record. However, Thursday evening was ideal – warm sunny spells – but the Common was looking extremely dry with little greenery or flowers due to the exceptionally dry and hot weather for the last few weeks. This made identification of species particularly difficult.

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We decided to look at a series of locations along the Common starting at the more species rich north end. Margaret showed us how to peg out a 2m x 2m square on the ground with coloured twine to define each area (quadrat) that we would examine. We then started to spot and identify as many species as we could within the quadrat, starting at the edges and working towards the middle. Once a species was identified its abundance within the quadrat was assessed and scored to give it a number on the Domin scale between 1 and 10 (1 being 1-2 specimens and 10 being 90%-100% coverage of the area). Margaret helped us with identification of several different grasses and other wildflowers. We then had some discussion over the abundance score to be given. Approached in this structured way the task soon seemed a lot less daunting than it first appeared.

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Proceeding in this way we managed to examine 3 quadrats. In order to know exactly where they were located for future reference we kept them on a line between the bench at the north end of the Common and the church spire, measuring the distance of each one from the bench. It was interesting to see how the flora in each quadrat was rather different and how it varied from one location to another. In all we identified over 20 different species, including Devils-bit Scabious and Tormentil. Sadly the Heath Bedstraw that had been so abundant earlier in the year was not seen. A record of this sort will enable us to see the diversity of plants on the Common and how they fare in the future . The Common is owned by Lindfield Rural Parish Council who are undertaking to manage it as a natural wildflower meadow by cutting once (or possible twice) a year and removing the cuttings to maintain the nutrient poor status of the soil.

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