Looking for Juniper, Ploughman's-spikenard and Autumn Gentian: Juniper found. 06.09.26

On Sundays I can inly visit my monad for a short time. The first 77 bus arrives at the Devil's Dyke at 10.18 and I have to get the 12.00 back, because Sunday afternoons I care for my mum. Therefore I have to plan my times well. I used the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland's Distribution Database to identify things which I had not seen in the monad before.

On the way to the Juniper, I saw these plants in flower:

Centaurea debeauxii Chalk Knapweed iRecorded

Achillea millefolium Yarrow, abundant

Jacobaea erucifolia Hoary Ragwort

Hypochaeris radicata Common Cat's-Ear

Leontodon saxatilis Lesser Hawkbit, abundant

Ononis spinosa Spiny Restharrow

Succisa pratensis Devil's-bit Scabious, abundant

Juniperus communis Common Juniper iRecorded

When I see Juniper now I try to find Juniper Shield bugs using the beat and collection tray method: tray held beneath a tree or bush while the branches above are sharply tapped, as demonstrated to me by Graham Lyons

I would strongly recommend Graeme Lyon's Blog: The Lyons Share

But out dropped a Dolycoris baccarum Hairy Shield Bug, not a Juniper Shield Bug. iRecorded. I carefully replaced the bug back in the Juniper once I had photographed it for my iRecord upload.

I then walked down the steep slope of the Dyke to get to the location where Ploughman's-spikenard was recorded. I saw a Clouded Yellow, Colias croceus butterfly. I saw another four; its been a very good year for migratory Clouded Yellows on the South Downs

I also saw lots more Devil's-bit Scabious.

When I reached the site of the Ploughman's-spikenard, I couldn't find it. I didn't then have the time to look for the Autumn Gentian as I had to walk back quickly to get the 2 bus!

Walking back to the bus stop takes you through the monad due south to TQ2611, TQ2610, where I saw 

Red Star-thistle, Centaurea calcitrapa, a very rare archeophyte on the Sussex Rare Plant Register.  Archaeophytes are non-native (alien) taxa that were introduced by humans, either intentionally or unintentionally, and became naturalised in Britain and Ireland between the start of the Neolithic period and AD1500. Archaeophytes - Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland TQ 26252 10936 64 meters south of Monad

A biennial herb of waste ground, field edges, horse paddocks, refuse tips, gravel-pits and tracksides in dry grassland, and on banks on well-drained sandy, gravelly or light chalky soils. In Sussex it can be locally abundant, forming extensive dense patches (Sussex Botanical Recording Society, 2018). ... There is a single archaeological record of this species from a Roman site, and it was recorded in the historic period by 1597. It is sometimes regarded as native in Sussex on dry chalky banks, where it grows in habitats similar to those near the Somme Estuary in northern France Centaurea calcitrapa L. in BSBI Online Plant Atlas 2020

A little further up the slope I saw Platydracus stercorarius, no common species name but a dung rove beetle. A "lifer" for me. iRecorded

There was lots of Dung around as there were lots of cows conservation grazing