This is the second missing blog – meet last Thursday’s adventure….
From one extreme to the other – from the open hills on Tuesday where you could see for miles, back to the enclosed hollows of the fens on Thursday, where all views were lost by the enclosure of 6 feet tall Reeds on all sides. This was a visit to Hummelknowes Moss.
Hummelknowes Moss – 23 August 2012 (Copyright Carol Jones)
Hummelknowes Moss is a basin fen situated within the undulating topography that is so typical of Scottish Borders. This topography hides so many of these little basin fens; that many are almost invisible from any distance, hidden as they are amongst the crinkles of the hills.
As for Hummelknowes Moss, in its prime it would have shown a number of distinctive communities that had formed almost in distinctive zones, varying on management, substrate, water chemistry and depth, to mention just a few of the factors that can influence the development of the flora. Unfortunately due to the spread and growth of Reeds on this site, the variation is being lost and the open wilderness enclosed by walls of Reed.
Spreading Reeds over a Rich Fen Community – 23 August 2012 (Copyright Carol Jones)
In places the Reeds are still thin enough to allow the original communities to remain, such as the rich fen vegetation to the north, where Long-stalked Yellow Sedge and Lesser Tussock Sedge form carpets over a rich Brown Moss carpet. Highlighted at this stage in the summer, by the odd remaining pink flower of the Marsh Lousewort and the new mauve of the Devil’s-bit Scabious.
Walls of Reeds – 23 August 2012 (Copyright Carol Jones)
To the south where the Reeds are thicker, the communities have almost been lost. The Reeds have shaded and out competed almost everything, only suddenly while hacking through this jungle, the odd sight comes to surprise. Suddenly there will be a huge Greater Tussock Sedge, that has failed to be over come, but is tightly surrounded. Or an odd white flowered plant, that still defies accurate identification, that keeps heading towards Enchanter’s Nightshade, a plant of woodlands, but then maybe dense stands of Reeds where the ground is drier, emulates such woodland habitats.
lostnaturalist 