Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes August 6

IT was called the picnic thistle. Generations of families taking to the hills on Sunday afternoon for a summer picnic on the Downs made contact.

Nowadays it only has one English name, all that is allowed in the books apart from the Latin name of course. So stemless thistle describes that other notable feature of this queer little plant of the chalk and limestone hills.

Because it has no stem you can hardly notice this snake in the grass. Not till you sit down to take your ease after that long struggle up the slopes laden with lemonade, cold meats, bread, butter, lettuce, radishes, scones and jam, and a big heavy thermos of tea.

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In olden days that would have been replaced by a nickel-plated spirit stove and a large bottle of water with several pinches of tea screwed up in a corner of newspaper. Somebody else would be carrying the china mugs and saucers.

By the 1930s they would have been replaced by little lightweight mugs with handles together with plates and a small jug for the milk brought along in a nickel-plated copper milk can.

The children would have been entrusted with the table cloth that would be laid out across the grass. Others might have to carry a new-fangled folding camp stool for father to sit on. Most people however liked just to sit on the grass, then after the picnic to lie flat out and snooze the afternoon away.

Those in the know would scan the ancient downland turf of Sussex, Kent or Hampshire with care before lowering their posteriors.

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Back to pre-war days one could have included Norfolk and Cambridge in the counties where Circium acaulon could be encountered. Those counties no longer have any downland.

My father actually ploughed up the last known piece in 1944 at Stiffkey Hall Hills.

As a tot I too sat on this plant and made a screech like a scalded cat. The prickles are like little pins. Usually the palm of your hand finds these first of all as you lower your body. If the buttocks hit the ground first the unexpected pain is quite real. You never make that mistake twice.

Nine species of thistle inhabit Sussex, together with various hybrids. It grows along the full length of the Downs, sometimes in patches a metre square but usually in singles, and well scattered, so watch your rear.

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