Member’s evening (via Zoom)
Wednesday 19th January 2022
Three members of our group gave short presentations on a range of topics: Mavis Midgley on Halkyn Mountain, a talk and quiz by Brigid Kelsey on "Chinese" Wilson - the Plant Hunter and finally, Neil Barrett and Ian Dyson showed a selection of superb photographs from last year’s BBG Llandudno holiday.
Mavis was one of two members of the Halkyn Mountain Nature Conservation Group who produced ‘A Guide to the Wildflowers of Halkyn Mountain’ booklet last year. The group was formed in 2018 to record species including the small pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly. Halkyn Mountain runs parallel to the North Wales Express-way in Flintshire and is designated for its calaminarian grassland and population of great crested newts. Mavis described how the flower species had been chosen, including common plants including spring sandwort and rare plants such as mountain everlasting to encourage people to appreciate the local area. The booklet is written in both English and Welsh.
Brigid visited Ernest Wilson’s garden in Chipping Campden in the New Year and told us about his plant hunting trips to China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan and mentioned just a few of the 1200 plants he introduced to the UK, some of which are planted in the garden. Then we had a short quiz comprising of ten of photos of plants in the garden to identify.
Ian and Neil showed us some photos of the BBG trip to North Wales in June last year with just a selection of some plants they saw such as mountain sorrel and both mossy saxifrage and alpine saxifrage at Cwm Idwal, Portland Spurge and Sea Holly at Talacre Warren. Some of Neil’s highlights were the spotted rock rose at Porth Diana on Anglesey and orchids at Cors Goch, a fen fed by lime-rich springs.
It was really good to see friends for the first meeting of the year, which is usually an indoor meeting at Shipley Baptist Church. Sixteen participants attended the zoom meeting. Hopefully we’ll see each other in person in February!
Text by Kay