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Cuddington Meadows
Cuddington Meadows is a 1.4 hectare Local Nature Reserve and Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, Grade I, in Belmont in the London Borough of Sutton. It is owned by Sutton Council and managed by the council together with Sutton Nature Conservation Volunteers. The site was shown as two enclosures on the open Banstead Downs on an early nineteenth-century map, and it was later part of Walnut Tree Farm, which became Cuddington Hospital in 1897. The hospital closed in 1984, and in the late 1990s the land was transferred to Sutton Council to be managed for nature conservation. It is mainly chalk grassland with some scrub. Its most important feature is a variety of unusual flowering plants, including greater knapweed, lady's bedstraw and field scabious. Sixteen species of butterflies have been recorded, such as the rare small blue and green hairstreak The green hairstreak (''Callophrys rubi'') is a small butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. Etymology The genus name ...
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Cuddington Meadows 1
Cuddington is the name of several places in the United Kingdom: *Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, a village and civil parish *Cuddington, Eddisbury, near Northwich, Cheshire, a village and civil parish * Cuddington, Malpas, a civil parish near Malpas, Cheshire, containing the village of Cuddington Heath *Cuddington, a former name of Kiddington, Oxfordshire *Cuddington, Surrey Cuddington was a village in Surrey which was demolished to make way for Henry VIII's Nonsuch Palace near Cheam. Cuddington lay within the Copthorne hundred. There remains a small rise of land to mark the northern side of the old Cuddington parish ..., a village demolished to make room for Henry VIII's Nonsuch Palace See also * Coddington (other) {{geodis ...
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Site Of Nature Conservation Interest
Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI), Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) and regionally important geological site (RIGS) are designations used by local authorities in the United Kingdom for sites of substantive local nature conservation and geological value. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has recommended the generic term 'local site', which is divided into 'local wildlife site' and 'local geological site'. There are approximately 35,000 local sites, and according to the former Minister for Biodiversity, Jim Knight, they make a vital contribution to delivering the UK and Local Biodiversity Action Plans and the Geodiversity Action Plan, as well as maintaining local natural character and distinctiveness. Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and local nature reserves (LNRs) have statutory protection, but they are only intended to cover a representative selection of sites, and Local sites are intended to provide comprehensive cov ...
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Belmont, Sutton
Belmont is a village in the London Borough of Sutton, in South London, England. It is located off the A217 road and near to Banstead Downs in Surrey. It is a suburban development situated 10.8 miles (17.4 km) south-southwest of Charing Cross. History Belmont did not exist until the late 19th century.Sparkes, Roland (2009) ''Belmont: A Century Ago''. Belmont railway station (Sutton), Belmont railway station opened in May 1865 and was originally called 'California Station', named after the California Arms public house on the opposite side of Brighton Road which was built by John Gibbons in approximately 1858. The station was renamed 'Belmont' in 1875, and the name was attached to the village that emerged subsequently. The original pub was heavily damaged by German bombing in the Second World War. The new building, built on the site in 1955, was known as "The California" later changed to 'The Belmont', but in 2014, under new management, reverted to its original name of 'The Ca ...
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London Borough Of Sutton
The London Borough of Sutton () is a London borough in south-west London, England and forms part of Outer London. It covers an area of and is the 80th largest local authority in England by population. It borders the London Borough of Croydon to the east, the London Borough of Merton to the north and the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames to the north-west; it also borders the Surrey boroughs of Epsom and Ewell and Reigate and Banstead to the west and south respectively. The local authority is Sutton London Borough Council. Its principal town is the eponymous Sutton. The Borough has some of the schools with the best results in the country. A Trust for London and New Policy Institute report noted that Sutton had the highest rate in London of pupils achieving 5 A* – C GCSEs. In December 2014 Sutton was described by a senior Government official as the most "normal place in Britain". In connection with this, the leader of Sutton Council described the borough as "quietly brillia ...
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Chalk Grassland
Calcareous grassland (or alkaline grassland) is an ecosystem associated with thin basic soil, such as that on chalk and limestone downland. Plants on calcareous grassland are typically short and hardy, and include grasses and herbs such as clover. Calcareous grassland is an important habitat for insects, particularly butterflies and ants, and is kept at a plagioclimax by grazing animals, usually sheep and sometimes cattle. Rabbits used to play a part but due to the onset of myxomatosis their numbers decreased so dramatically that they no longer have much of a grazing effect. There are large areas of calcareous grassland in northwestern Europe, particularly areas of southern England, such as Salisbury Plain and the North and South Downs. The machair forms a different kind of calcareous grassland, where fertile low-lying plains are formed on ground that is calcium-rich due to shell sand (pulverised sea shells). See also * Alvar * Chalk heath * Edaphic * Gypcrust * Gypsum ...
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Shrubland
Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It may be the mature vegetation type in a particular region and remain stable over time, or a transitional community that occurs temporarily as the result of a disturbance, such as fire. A stable state may be maintained by regular natural disturbance such as fire or browsing. Shrubland may be unsuitable for human habitation because of the danger of fire. The term was coined in 1903. Shrubland species generally show a wide range of adaptations to fire, such as heavy seed production, lignotubers, and fire-induced germination. Botanical structural form In botany and ecology a shrub is defined as a much-branched woody plant less than 8 m high and usually with many stems. Tall shrubs are mostly 2–8 m high, small shrubs 1–2 m high and su ...
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Greater Knapweed
''Centaurea scabiosa'', or greater knapweed, is a perennial plant of the genus ''Centaurea''. It is native to Europe and bears purple flower heads. Greater knapweed is found growing in dry grasslands, hedgerows and cliffs on lime-rich soil. Upright branched stems terminate in single thistle-like flowerheads, each having an outer ring of extended, purple-pink "ragged" bracts which form a crown around the central flowers. The plant has deeply dissected leaves which form a clump at the base. This species is very valuable to bees. It is also a magnet for many species of butterfly. Among them is the marbled white. This is the only known food plant for caterpillars of the Coleophoridae case-bearer moth '' Coleophora didymella''. ''Centaurea scabiosa'' has been used in traditional herbal healing as either a vulnerary or an emollient. The plant is sometimes confused with devils-bit scabious, however the leaves on this plant are arranged alternately, whereas in devils-bit they are opp ...
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Lady's Bedstraw
''Galium verum'' (lady's bedstraw or yellow bedstraw) is a herbaceous perennial plant of the family Rubiaceae. It is widespread across most of Europe, North Africa, and temperate Asia from Israel, Lebanon and Turkey to Japan and Kamchatka. It is naturalized in Tasmania, New Zealand, Canada, and the northern half of the United States. It is considered a noxious weed in some places. ''Galium verum'' is a low scrambling plant, with the stems growing to long, frequently rooting where they touch the ground. The leaves are long and broad, shiny dark green, hairy underneath, borne in whorls of 8–12. The flowers are in diameter, yellow, and produced in dense clusters. This species is sometimes confused with ''Galium odoratum'', a species with traditional culinary uses. Uses In medieval Europe, the dried plants were used to stuff mattresses, as the coumarin scent of the plants acts as a flea repellant. The flowers were also used to coagulate milk in cheese manufacture (which gives ...
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Field Scabious
''Knautia arvensis'', commonly known as field scabious, is a herbaceous perennial species of flowering plant in the honeysuckle family Caprifoliaceae. Description It is a perennial plant that grows between . It prefers grassy places and dry soils, avoiding heavy soils, and flowers between July and September. The flowers are borne on inflorescences in the form of heads; each head contains many small florets. The head is flatter than in similar species, such as devil's bit scabious (''Succisa pratensis'') and small scabious (''Scabiosa columbaria''). There are 4 stamens in each floret, and 1 notched long stigma. The fruit is nut like, cylindrical and hairy, in size. It has a tap root. The stem has long stiff hairs angled downwards. The leaves form a basal rosette, are paired on the stem, the lowest typically long, spear shaped, whereas the upper are smaller. There are no stipules. Ecology It is occasionally used by the marsh fritillary as a foodplant instead of its usual ...
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Small Blue
The small blue (''Cupido minimus'') is a Palearctic butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. Despite its common name, it is not particularly blue. The male has some bluish suffusion at the base of its upper wings but is mostly dark brown like the female. The species can live in colonies of up to several hundred and in its caterpillar stage is cannibalistic. Description Small blue males are dark brown with a scattering of bright blue scales that speckle their wings. Females lack this blue speckling. Both males and females exhibit the characteristic silver underside with black spots. The male has a bluish tint at the base of its wings similar to the upper side. Their wingspan can fall anywhere from 16-27mm, but males tend to be the smaller sex. Small blues are often confused with the female Osiris Blue, whose coloring is similar to that of the male small blue. Geographic range ''C. minimus'' is found in Europe, Asia Minor, Transcaucasia, Tian-Shan, western Siberia, central Siberia ...
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Green Hairstreak
The green hairstreak (''Callophrys rubi'') is a small butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. Etymology The genus name '' Callophrys'' is a Greek word meaning "beautiful eyebrows", while the species Latin name ''rubi'' derives from ''Rubus'' (bramble), one of the host plants. Subspecies *''Callophrys rubi rubi'' Europe, Caucasus, Kopet Dag *''Callophrys rubi fervida'' Staudinger, 1901 Iberian Peninsula, Morocco, Asia Minor *''Callophrys rubi borealis'' Krulikovsky, 1890 Urals *''Callophrys rubi sibirica'' Heyne, 895/small> Tien-Shan, Altai, Siberia, Transbaikalia, Far East, Amur, Ussuri and Sakhalin."''Callophrys'' Billberg, 1820"
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms''


Description

''Callophrys rubi'' has a ...
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