Reculver is a grassy clifftop on the North Kent Coast just a few miles East of Herne Bay. I went for a lovely walk there in July with my big camera amongst swathes of rippling wild carrot and swooping sand martins.
There are some steps up the cliff from the seafront with views back to Herne Bay.
I hadn’t seen tansy in the wild before but spotted it as a Tanacetum after drying some bunches from a florist for work at daisyshop.co.uk a few years back.
The pea family is massive but I was determined to break the back of the vetches, so when I got home I sat down with my copy of Rose and soon realised it was easier than I thought, because only one of the vetches had mutiple yellow flowers combined with long pointy leaves (sorry but I’m not a botanist). And the great thing about hi-res pics is you can zoom in on parts of the plant for ID from your armchair.
I haven’t positively identified hogweed before but I think this must be it – it certainly isn’t cow parsley, giant hogweed or wild carrot!
You can still follow a lane around the outside of the fort where the wall still stands. In this more sheltered area I found some hedgerow plants.
On my way back down to the seafront for part two of my walk, I took a last couple of pics.
I think the moth must be a Six spot burnet moth rather than the cinnabar which one might expect to find on ragwort.
Seed heads are not my strong point so if you think I’m wrong about the I.D. (or any others) do get in touch!
See my next post for a map and Part 2 of my walkAMP, in which I visited the wildflowers in the grassy seaside area known as Herne Bay Downs.
Read more about identifying alexanders, carrot, vetches, buddleja and clover.
Thanks for the beautiful pictures and informative post! I’m due to have a herb walk there with fellow herbalists and this has given me a good idea of what we may find. Many thanks – I’d say you were spot on with your i.d too!!
beautiful!