Dene Park starts to look a little autumnal

Its a little while since I've visited Dene Park, and the leaves of the trees and some of the bracken are now starting to turn just a little, reminding us of the rapidly shortening days and the onset of autumn.

As I arrived in the car park several dragonflies were circling the gravelled area, possibly male brown hawkers, Aeshna grandis. Too fast to take photos I'm afraid.

As I got into the wood, there was some bird song, including magpies and the fine hooting of a Brown Owl
The number of plants in flower is gradually decreasing, but to compensate a late burst of Eyebright, Euphrasia, flowers have appeared in the verges and open patches, I didn't even know it grew here at Dene Park! Its official flowering season is July to September, so this should be the last flush of flowering.

The leaves are a glossy oval in overall shape, hairless above, but they are so very deeply cut- toothed, so that you almost lose the oval in the pattern of dentations. The stems and sometimes the leaves are purplish.

The flowers are really wonderfully coloured, with their pure white backgrounds, splashed with clear purple lines and yellow flushes seen here on the lower lips. The stamens or inner floral tube can only just be seen, a counterpointed very dark violet against the pale throats of the flowers.

The flower form is pretty fantastic as well, with the upper lip twice bi-lobed and upturned, and the lower lip projecting much further out and widely tri-lobed, each lobe of the lower lip also clearly divided into two, giving an overall appearance rather like an orchid!

Here is a flower from Polhill Bank yesterday to compare, in particular to note the obvious projection of the inner floral tube:

There are about 21 currently recognised species in the genus in the UK, with 60+ hybrids, and they are almost impossible to separate, so Francis Rose describes only Euphrasia nemorosa, as a typical species. It could well have been a different species that I was looking at today on the wet clay of the woodland in the Low Weald and perhaps yet another that I was looking at yesterday on the shallow and skeletal chalk soils at Polhill Bank.

Euphrasia is used by herbalists in poultices and teas to treat eye complaints, and is reputed to have a range of other medicinal properties as well. Its therefore definitely "a sight for sore eyes"!

The other new plant I saw today was Goldenrod, Solidago virgaurea, I usually only see Canadian Goldenrod, Solidago canadensis, a much bigger and overall very different plant. Francis Rose has Goldenrod as growing in dry woods, so it is therefore a bit confusing to find it in Dene Park, but there was no doubt that this is what it was. I'll try to remember to get a photo next time!

The first fungi of the autumn season have started to appear, and here is one I found just on the side of the path,

while this is a whitish bracket, porose on the underside, on a dead branch just off the path in the scrambles area

As I completed the circuit more patrolling hawker dragonflies, probably either Southern or Migrant Hawkers but including a low-flying one along the last uphill section of the path that looked completely black at first (and also second!) glance. I've absolutely no idea what it could have been - but what a great walk it turned out to be, in what seemed at first to be not very promising conditions!