Last week I went to visit my friend Owen the botanist and stay with him for a couple of days. He was surveying Wicken Fen and asked if i'd like to go too. In return for going with him on the survey he said he'd help me try and find the Fen Dandelion Taraxacum palustre which is found on the site. As this isn't a common dandelion I was very keen to go and see if we could find some.
The day of surveying was on a part of the fen that hasn't had anyone on it for 100 years (who'd have thought there was such a place in UK?) and we could only get there by boat. It was an amazing place - all overgrown with dense scrub and towering reeds - and although I got bitten, stung (by the stingless fen nettle), scratched, bruised and burned it was an incredible adventure to go to such a place.
After returning from surveying 'compartment one' we tried to find a Fen Dandelion. The image above shows the meadow we had to search. The two dots on the image are Owen and Peter helping me look. After inspecting the ground for ages we only found one dandelion on the whole meadow and it wasn't even a fen dandelion. Boooo!
As it goes it is a rubbish time of the year to look - with it flowering in early spring and dying back. I was hoping it would at least keep its leaves though, but it wasn't to be.
Never mind - i'll just have to visit again next spring. And i did have a great time going to a place nobody has been for 100 years (and probably won't go again for another 10). Thanks to Owen, Peter, James and Tim.
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