TENDRING Wildflower Group is in its third summer of weekly surveys.

The weather delayed starting until late April when we visited Great Holland churchyard, the adjoining fields and wood.

Here in its most easterly UK location is old coppiced small-leaved lime, a native not to be confused with the planted hybrid.

Both produce an under-bark or bast that was formerly important for rope-making and the wood highly prized by carvers.

We were intrigued by some trunks encircled by small holes, mostly calloused over. Such “tree tattooing” is more familiar in the USA as the work of sapsuckers – woodpecker cousins.

On field edges corn gromwell, a scarce arable weed confused us until we learned that in an odd reversal it is now grown as a pharmaceutical crop.

A visit to Wrabness was mainly to admire carpets of white ramsons garlic and the woodland goldilocks buttercup overlooking the river adjacent to Stour Wood. We also passed Grayson Perry’s odd stage set-like green and brown tiled house.

The next week Brightlingsea churchyard was our starting-point before the mowing season intervened. The lighter soil rewarded us with, among others, aromatic lesser calamint, corn salad, two sandworts and hispid blue bugloss. Sand martins perching on wires near the quarry were a bonus.

More acid soils also attracted us to Ardleigh where Springhead Meadow, near the beginning of Salary Brook, has sparse lichen heath vegetation with grey reindeer moss. Nearby a gravelly knoll harboured tiny low-growing forget-me-nots, storksbill, birdsfoot, lesser cudweed, creeping St John’s wort and knotted clover.

We returned to Brightlingsea twice more to explore the coastal grazing marshes, a now much diminished habitat. An appreciation of the variety of grasses just coming into flower in centuries-old pastures stretched our identification skills.

The going is uneven with anthills and undulating low-ways – relics of medieval meandering saltmarsh creeks before the seawall kept tidal waters out. Straighter reed-lined drainage ditches divide up the fresh-marsh.

Bob Seago’s image is of yellow birdsfoot trefoil in front of a characteristic wind and animal-trimmed wild rose that brightened up the prevailing green.

A large, rare surviving pollard elm with a 14 foot girth – spotted nearby as we left – has defied all the ravages of Dutch elm disease.

Finally in this mid-term report, a clump of knee-high spotted orchids was the highlight of our visit to a small Thorpe farm.

For your diary: Sunday, July 1, 10.30am-4pm – open small wildlife town garden, 55 Station Street, Walton, in aid of Essex Wildlife Trust.