I wasn’t expecting to discover any new flora during my East Sussex trip, especially in mid October, so finding two new plant species was an unexpected highlight. This is the first, Clustered bellflower (Campanula glomerata).

I was alerted to the possibility of seeing these flowers through a social media post a fortnight before my trip by a birder from the local area, though I wasn’t sure if they would still be in bloom, nor how easy they would be to find. I was also a little concerned by what I read about the flower in my Flora Britannica:

Its bunches of trumpet-shaped violet-blue flowers on shortish stems persist until quite late in the summer – which makes its flowering period overlap with that of the autumn gentian. It should perhaps be called ‘fool’s gentian’ from the number of occasions on which the two species are confused.

Having never seen Clustered bellflower or Autumn gentian before, I could turn out to be the fool!

Fortunately for me, the plant was easily found, growing in the short turf in several of the more sheltered places along the chalk cliff tops, though these specimens appear more stunted than is usual, perhaps because of the dry summer. And, as you can see from my photos, it was still in bloom. And, even better, its downy leaves meant it was reasonably easy to distinguish from Autumn gentian.