The SVA’s Knapp Nature Reserve is flourishing. A group of expert botanists and lichenologists from the Devonshire Association visited recently and recorded over 200 different flowering plants, plus a lichen that has only been recorded in Devon twice before. Although there was a rich diversity, the botanists cautioned that perhaps we need to look at our management programme.

Apart from the woodland and a pond, the Knapp has three distinct areas of grassland, a pasture and two meadows. In all three, the wild flowers are left to grow through the summer so they have time to set seed, an extended version of No Mow May.

The Peasland Knapp pasture is too steep and too bumpy to be mown and has been kept under control with sheep grazing for a period each autumn. Apart from the myriad of grasshoppers and crickets that enjoy the area, the grassland is dotted with a variety of wild flowers. One thing that impressed the botanists was finding three different species of Cinquefoil living side by side on the tops of the many ant hills that can make walking on the steep slope quite tricky.

The two meadows are both managed by cutting and clearing the hay in late summer, but they are very different. Most of the meadow area has only been managed in this way and is slowly building up a diverse range of wild flowers including a large population of the insect friendly Corky-fruited Water Dropwort. Part of the eastern meadow that backs onto the cemetery is very different. It had the topsoil scraped away and the exposed subsoil sown with wild flower seeds more than 20 years ago. This means the area has many more wild flower species but this raised a debate with the botanists.

EDDC, who used to own the Knapp, were ahead of the times, now the practice of sowing wild flower meadows is becoming quite the thing because people like instant results. The difficulty is that people don’t usually have control of what is in the seed mix and the botanists noted that several of the wild flowers in the meadow would not be natural residents on Sidmouth’s soil. Although they are very attractive to us, as they are out of place, they are less valuable to local populations of insects and other wildlife.

The discussion was actually started before we reached the Knapp. The group met in the car park of Knowle where the Devon County Council flood alleviation engineering work is nearly complete. An area next to the car park was the dumping ground for tons of extracted soil and this has been sown with a wild flower seed mix and is a riot of colour The botanists were not impressed, they pointed out that many of these plants will wither away and will not be flowering next year. They said DCC would have been better to just leave the bare soil and let nature takes its course. The local population of plants would colonise if left to themselves. The trouble is that would take a long time for a balance to be achieved and the intervening years would probably bring complaints from people who might not appreciate the process.

The SVA will need to have a long think about what they want to achieve in the Knapp Nature Reserve and it might involve letting nature takes its course even if this will take longer than the short cut offered by introducing more wild flower seeds from elsewhere.

As for the rare lichen, most people would not notice or be impressed by Lecanora sarcopidoides. It looks like a thin crust of tiny grey specks on the back of the wooden seats, not much to look at but something will feed on it and who knows how important a player it is in the web of our nature.