Wood Anemone flowering
Spring is coming along in leaps and bounds at the moment at Belfairs. Seemingly overnight, a plethora of wildflowers have appeared. One species that is putting on a really great show at the moment is the Wood Anemone. This lovely, early spring flower is a member of the Buttercup family. It grows well in dappled sunlight, so the coppiced woodland habitat here at Belfairs is ideal. It spreads mainly through underground stems called rhizomes. This makes it particularly vulnerable to trampling; perhaps why the more disturbed areas of Belfairs don’t contain this wonderful plant, and one of the reasons that we use hedging to restrict access to our coppice coupes. This spreading via rhizomes is rather a slow process however, so wood anemones are often a sign that a woodland is ancient. The large carpets of anemones that we have in some areas here at Belfairs may well have been spreading for centuries.