"November, I think, is the only month without a flower of its own..... It would be interesting to keep a record of how many plants one could find actually in flower this month; I have never done so, but I would hazard a guess that I could, in my own district, and given an average season, gather the following...." Jocelyn Brooke wrote in The Flower in Season (1953), and proceeded to list 28 species.
We took up this challenge this year, and readily admit that this is not an "average season". We are also aware that we are fortunate to have a varied locality to call upon, giving up a good range of habitat-specific species. Competition was provided by Steve Gale on his Uber-patch on the Surrey Downs who coincidentally decided to tally his own findings this November.
And further impetus was provided by the Wild Flower Society's Autumn Week Hunt which is for plants found in flower during the last seven days of October.
Our total in the first six days is an astonishing 170 flowering species. Habitats covered includes sandy arable at Woodnesborough, chalk grassland at Dover and Hawkshill, the dikes of Sandwich and Worth, and the beach, streets and allotments of Walmer.
As a footnote, I found a reference online to Jocelyn Brooke's obituary in the Kentish Express. What a short note for such a widely-embraced man.
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