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April 2022 April 2022
and fragrant flowers, usually blue-violet or the churchyard the buttercups will have a wonderful flowering year. Much of this
white. The sweet violet has a long history of buttercup land is shared with the dandelions, which are impressive in their own
use. Apparently, the ancient Britons used it right.
for cosmetics, the ancient Greeks used it to
make perfume and the Romans to make Is it obvious that most of the flowers mentioned so far have yellow flowering heads
wine! There are some on the banks and which is all they have in common. For example there is very little else in common
grass areas at Snow Hill. as the colour, for example how can you compare a celandine and a dandelion,
but why do the majority of early flowering plants have yellow heads?
The generally more common dog violet is
similarly low growing, it has bluish-purple Lets move on to a more complicated
flower petals, heart-shaped leaves and is number of plants that are found on the
unscented. roadside verges and hedges of our
countryside. I am going to cheat slightly and

use somebody else’s’ work. So we turn to a
The Tale of the Robin and the Beetle book, “A Natural History of the Hedgerow” by
John Wright. He quotes the following,
Tony Bates, who takes a lot of wildlife concerning a sixty metre length of a
photographs, says that a couple of hedgerow, that he and a botanists friend,
days ago he found an unusual beetle investigated, where they found ninety-nine
that he did not recognise in his species of plant. This included 4 ferns,14
conservatory. It was not moving much grasses, rushes and sedges, 5 shrubs, 10 trees
so he set up to take a close-up and 66 other plants.
photograph of it. The door was open
and he had just taken the picture when Then later in the book he writes about the
his sharp eyed ‘pet’ robin flew in and numerous lichens, mosses, liverworts, ferns
ate the beetle! He sent the picture to a and fungi, that are always present in
naturalist friend who knows his beetles hedgerow. Later still he mentions all the
(there are many of them) and he animals, birds and insects and how all these
identified it as Oedemora femoralis. Apparently this beetle is quite rare with few different species are inter related and
recordings in Dorset, perhaps Dorset robins are partial to them. dependent on each other. We live in a
wonderful world and our own county of

Dorset has some of the most intriguing, beautiful, diverse and natural
Coppicing on Kite Hill environments to be found in the country.
John Sweeney has been following the tradition of hazel coppicing on Kite Hill for We must remember other environments throughout the world and in particularly
the past few years. You may have seen the results of his hard work near to the old those of Ukraine, where so many war torn environments and their human
woodsman’s / shepherd’s hut by the main path through the wood. inhabitants are in great peril. May we pray for all inhabitants there, who are
suffering from the effects of this warfare.
Coppicing is the woodland management technique of repeatedly felling trees at
the base (or stool), and allowing them to regrow. This provides a sustainable MAY GOD BLESS THEM ALL!
supply of timber. The practice can be dated back to the Stone Age by the
discovery in Somerset of Neolithic wooden track ways constructed entirely from Ted Cox
coppiced material. As well as producing a timber crop, coppicing offers wildlife
benefits, as greater amounts of light can reach the ground following cutting. This
allows a range of other species to grow there, especially wild flowers that would
be shaded out by a dense tree canopy. The coppiced material can have a
number of uses including for charcoal, fence posts, hurdles, thatching spars, bean
poles etc.

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