The not-so-common Common Comfrey

We thought today was going to be the last in this round of survey of the fenland farm, but just as we finished I received an email notifying me that we'd been sent the wrong boundary - and there were some extra areas to look at. Because of the error we'd been merrily surveying land where we had no access permission - fortunately we didn't meet any angry landowners!

Most of today's area was either ditches or in arable cultivation. But we found plenty of the rare fenland subspecies of Common Comfrey, which is shorter than usual and has smaller flowers. This subspecies occurs in central and Eastern Europe, extending to Belgium and the Netherlands. In the UK it seems to largely be restricted to the fenland of eastern England, but recently has been found in similar habitat in the Somerset Levels.