I'd been working in Blandford all day, which meant that the drive home took me passed Martin Down NNR, which I feel I've been neglecting this year. It's Devil's Bit Scabious season - just when you think the summer is over, and the glorious flowery colour is fading to dried husks of a myriad of many-shaped seedheads, up pops this spectacle.
It's purply-blue cluster of flowers is usually found on unimproved grassland, sometimes in the wetter patches in fens, other time on drier, chalk banks. Many species depend on it - for a late-season nectar source, as well as a food plant for the caterpillars of the marsh fritillary butterfly (another rarity). Oh, and it's so named because of the very short rootstock, allegedly bitten off in a devilish plot - who comes up with these things?!
The peak of the flowering season for this species is in September, so get out there while you can and see this last reminder of summer before autumn really takes hold.
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