Last year Bill Murray organised a walk from Belstone led by Andrew Terry and accompanied by other botanists, Endymion Beer, Hilary Marshall and Janet Wellingham. The walk followed a similar path to that taken on a botanical walk 100 years before.
Tim Sandles of the website Legendary Dartmoor set the ball rolling when in July 2021 he posted an item on Facebook that gave details of a walk that took place in 1905 in the Belstone/Cosdon Beacon area, recording plants that were found along the route. The map and photograph of the plants found on the 1905 walk can be found by searching on the Legendary Dartmoor Facebook page for 10 July 2021. https://www.facebook.com/106472496118936/posts/pfbid026kSq5ecasCuvc8JXvH4FEZUkKijqA8HQwKj1FqRp4ZTVv6p5hqbcVXt7hYK5qutXl/?app=fbl
Somewhat belatedly, I am posting details of the walk as it appeared in our newsletter back in October 2022. Scroll down to pages 3 and 4 for the plant species. Here is the newsletter article in full Botanical Walk PDFs
Here is Chris Walpole’s description of the walk appears on the Belstone Village Hall website. https://belstonevillage.net/belstone-blog/belstone-botanical-walk/
Chris Chapman took a photo of Cross-Leaved Heath and below a photo of Sundew. Thanks to the Belstone Village website for the photos.
Despite Belstone common being quite closely grazed in parts over the years, everyone was heartened at the diversity of species found.
