{"id":1076,"date":"2013-05-23T21:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T21:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2014-06-30T20:29:12","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T20:29:12","slug":"grasslands-of-the-mendips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/?p=1076","title":{"rendered":"Grasslands of the Mendips"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" width=\"600\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"600\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"White Rock-Rose on Brean Down\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"White Rock-Rose on Brean Down\" src=\"http:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/P1000788_thumb.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/>                     <\/p>\n<p>White Rock Rose on Brean Down. <\/p>\n<p>Restricted to the the limestone grasslands of the Devon and Somerset coast it was surprising to see how abundant this nationally rare plant is on the south facing slopes of Brean Down. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"600\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Cowslips at Black Rock, Cheddar\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Cowslips at Black Rock, Cheddar\" src=\"http:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/DSC_5377_thumb.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" \/>          <br \/>Cowslips just above Cheddar Gorge.          <\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately although the Cheddar Pinks were just coming into bud like most other plants they\u2019d been set back a good 3 or 4 weeks by the cold Spring<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"600\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Early Purple Orchids at Black Rock, Cheddar\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Early Purple Orchids at Black Rock, Cheddar\" src=\"http:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/DSC_5393_thumb.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" \/>          <br \/>Early Purple Orchids and Dandelion clocks again just above Cheddar Gorge          <\/p>\n<p>The sheer diversity of plants in the grassland and woods above Cheddar is exceptional. Considering the number of visitors to the gorge it always seems bizarre that the surrounding area is so quiet. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" width=\"600\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"300\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Early Purple Orchid\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Early Purple Orchid\" src=\"http:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/P1000603_thumb.jpg\" width=\"290\" height=\"435\" \/>          <br \/>Early Purple Orchid \u2013 note spotted leaves.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"300\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Early Purple Orchid flowers\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Early Purple Orchid flowers\" src=\"http:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/P1000604_thumb.jpg\" width=\"290\" height=\"435\" \/>          <br \/>Close up of the flowers and the long spurs. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" width=\"622\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" width=\"620\">Referred to as &quot;long purple&quot; by Gertrude in Shakespeare&#8217;s Hamlet. Gertrude: &quot;Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, that liberal shepards give a grosser name&quot;. It is said that witches used tubers of this orchid in love potions.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#160; White Rock Rose on Brean Down. Restricted to the the limestone grasslands of the Devon and Somerset coast it was surprising to see how abundant this nationally rare plant is on the south facing slopes of Brean Down. Cowslips just above Cheddar Gorge. Unfortunately <span class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"more-link btn btn-transparent\" href=\"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/?p=1076\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[325,326,20,153,322,186,416,324],"class_list":["post-1076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flora","tag-black-rock","tag-brean-down","tag-cheddar","tag-cowslip","tag-dandelion-clocks","tag-early-purple-orchid","tag-may","tag-white-rock-rose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1077,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions\/1077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}