A Bit of Bank Holiday Botanising... Mousetail

I took a quick jaunt out into Somerset this morning to look for a plant that I've never seen before, the diminutive Mousetail (Myosurus minimus). It's one of those plants that is becoming rarer in much of the UK due to all the usual reasons. As it's a plant which favours areas that have been flooded during the winter I had a hunch that this would be a good year for them on the Somerset Levels. It appears I was right. Well, in the area I looked today at least.

Mousetail habitat, King's Sedgemoor.

Very diminutive and looking a lot like grass if one doen't look closely.

It was surprisingly abundant in this gateway.

Small individual plants on patches of mud like this, is what I expected to see...

 

..but there were lots of dense clumps of it.

A really bizarre flower and I reckon you don't need me to

 explain to you why it's called the Mousetail!

 I love the fact that a water droplet has formed a mirror in this photo.

How cool is that!

This afternoon I went to see if I could find any Early Purple Orchids on patch. I hadn't seen any in one of the usual places for a couple of years after the ditches had been re-dug and all the spoil piled up on top of them. But after an extensive search I'm pleased to say I found four..which is a whole lot better than none.

I also saw this male Orange Tip

I've got a few more things lined up waiting to go on here (Not including a Great Spotted B******d! Sadly) so I'll have to 'get me finger out' this week!