Local botanist John Swindells writes:
Every year the Wild Flower Society encourages its members to take part in a Spring Week Hunt for wild plants in flower during the first week of March. This year I achieved my best total in 20 years – 98 species – partly because I spent more time looking but also, I suspect, because of the mild, albeit very wet, winter. Of these, 87 were from Tower Hamlets (with the other 11 from nearby Newham or Waltham Forest). My best scores, as you might expect were from Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, Mile End Park and Mudchhute, though the base of street trees, amenity grassland on estates, front areas of terraced houses and the towpath of the Regent’s Canal also proved to be good hunting grounds.
Notable plants I might mention are the Wood Anemones and Wild Daffodils in the Cemetery Park, Lesser Celandines by Mile End Lock where I look for them every year, Musk Stork’s-bill in Mile End Park, and the Mudchute speciality, Large-flowered Nipplewort, which in recent years has been flowering more-or-less all year round.
Header photo: Wild Daffodils. All photos by John Archer – click to enlarge
Wood Anemones
Lesser Celandine
Musk Stork’s-bill
Large-flowered Nipplewort
