US social scientist Kenneth Boulding : ‘If you believe exponential growth can go on in a finite world, you are either a madman or an economist’.

Sunday, 26 September 2010

26/9/10: Crouch End turns up 'new' Impatiens

Another Mark Spencer-led LNHS meeting to record less intensively botanised parts of the capital. Quite a large group of people met at Highgate station, some of whom were on a 'breakaway' trip to look for fungi.


View from a small park off Shepherd's Hill, Highgate, looking north. Alexandra Palace in the distance on the right.

The park looked like it had had a couple of patches sown with a meadow mix of some sort, as Meadow Cranesbill (Geranium pratense) and other unexpected species were present.

I didn't keep a full set of the day's records myself, instead contributing to the filling in of a pre-prepared tick-box list of species.

Notable was the finding of escaped Impatiens balfourii (a Himalayan annual variously known as Balfour's Touch-me-not, Poor Man's Orchid, and Kashmir Balsam), which Mark said was a new record for Middlesex.

A few of us stayed on in the rain to have a quick look at a coppiced area in Highgate Wood, where Himalayan Honeysuckle (Leycesteria formosana) was a non-native occurrence, and Broad-leaved Helleborine was seen.

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