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St Boniface Down
St Boniface Down is a chalk down near Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight, England. Its summit, , is the highest point on the island, with views stretching from Beachy Head to the east, Portsmouth to the north and the Isle of Portland to the west. It is north of the town. There is reputed to be a wishing well on its southern slope, which requires the wisher to climb up from the south without looking back. In 1545, a French invasion force attempted this against a force of the Isle of Wight Militia commanded by Sir John Fyssher – which allegedly included several women archers- and were routed. In 1940, the radar station was bombed by Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, which is reconstructed in the film "The Battle of Britain". The top is surmounted by a round barrow. At the eastern foot of the down, on the A3055 road between Bonchurch and Luccombe, a path descends into Bonchurch Landslips via a scenic rock cleft, the Devil's Chimney. Wildlife St Boniface Down is home to the largest c ...
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Marilyn (hill)
This is a list of Marilyn hills and mountains in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland, Ireland by height. Lists of mountains and hills in the British Isles#Marilyns, Marilyns are defined as peaks with a topographic prominence, prominence of or more, regardless of height or any other merit (e.g. topographic isolation, as used in Lists of mountains and hills in the British Isles#Munros, Munros). Thus, Marilyns can be mountains, with a height above , or relatively small hills. there were 2,011 recorded Marilyns. Definition The Marilyn classification was created by Alan Dawson in his 1992 book ''The Relative Hills of Britain''. The name Marilyn was coined by Dawson as a punning contrast to the ''Munro'' classification of Scottish mountains above , but which has no explicit prominence threshold, being homophonous with (Marilyn) ''Marilyn Monroe, Monroe''. The list of Marilyns was extended to Ireland by Clem Clements. Marilyn was the first of several subsequen ...
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Luccombe, Isle Of Wight
Luccombe is a hamlet a short distance south of Shanklin, on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, England. There is some indication of Bronze Age settlements on the top of the nearby hill of Luccombe Down. The Luccombe area features spectacular cliffs and scenery. It is a popular site for hang gliding and paragliding if there is an easterly wind of around 12 mph and it is low water, and on good days flights to Sandown and back can be achieved. Luccombe forms the east end of the Ventnor Undercliff region, which extends for 12 kilometers from Blackgang to Luccombe, also encompassing the town of Ventnor and the villages of Bonchurch, St Lawrence, and Niton. There is some concern that the Ventnor Undercliff area is experiencing substantial coastal erosion.''EUROSION C ...
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Vaccinium Myrtillus
''Vaccinium myrtillus'' or European blueberry is a holarctic species of shrub with edible fruit of blue color, known by the common names bilberry, blaeberry, wimberry, and whortleberry. It is more precisely called common bilberry or blue whortleberry to distinguish it from other ''Vaccinium'' relatives. Description ''Vaccinium myrtillus'' is a small deciduous shrub that grows tall. It has light green leaves that turn red in autumn and are simple and alternate in arrangement. Leaves are long and ovate to lanceolate or broadly elliptic in shape. Common names Regional names include blaeberry (Scotland), urts or hurts (Cornwall and Devon), hurtleberry, citing Wiersema, J. H. & B. León (1999), ''World economic plants: a standard reference'', and Huxley, A., ed. (1992), ''The new Royal Horticultural Society dictionary of gardening'' myrtleberry, wimberry, whinberry, winberry,Henley, JonBilberries: the true taste of northern England The Guardian, Monday 9 June 2008 and fraughan. ...
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Agrostis Curtisii
''Agrostis curtisii'', the bristle bent, is a species of grass in the family Poaceae native to Eurasia. It is densely tufted, with hair like leaves and stems that grow up to 60 cm. Its spikelets are yellow-green in colour, and its lemmas are awned. The ligule is pointed. It has no rhizomes or stolons. Bristle bent flowers in the UK from June until July and is found typically on dry heaths and moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ....Grasses of The British Isles By Tom Cope & Alan Gray, 2009 Botanical Society of the British Isles, References curtisii {{Pooideae-stub ...
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Molinia Caerulea
''Molinia caerulea'', known by the common name purple moor-grass, is a species of grass that is native to Europe, west Asia, and north Africa. It grows in locations from the lowlands up to in the Alps. Like most grasses, it grows best in acid soils, ideally pH values of between 3.5 and 5, however, it can continue to live under more extreme conditions, sometimes to as low as 2. It is common on moist heathland, bogs and moorland throughout Britain and Ireland. Introduced populations exist in northeastern and northwestern North America. The specific epithet ''caerulea'' means "deep blue" and refers to the purple spikelets. Description ''Molinia caerulea'' is a herbaceous perennial bunchgrass (tussock-forming), growing up to tall (taller when sheltered by gorse and heather), with many closely packed stems. The leaves are coarse, green, taper to a point, long, flat and sometimes slightly hairy on top. Due to the dense tussock it is very resistant to heath fires. Its ligule is ...
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Erica Cinerea
''Erica cinerea'', the bell heather, is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae, native to western and central Europe. The plant provides a great deal of nectar for pollinators. It was rated in the top 5 for most nectar production (nectar per unit cover per year) in a UK plants survey conducted by the AgriLand project which is supported by the UK Insect Pollinators Initiative. Description It is a low, spreading shrub growing to tall, with fine needle-like leaves long arranged in whorls of three. The flowers are bell-shaped, purple (rarely white), long, produced in mid- to late summer. The flowers are dry, similar in texture to the strawflower. The Latin specific epithet ''cinerea'' means "ash coloured". Distribution ''Erica cinerea'' is native to the west of Europe, where it is most abundant in Britain and Ireland, France, northern Spain and southern Norway. It also occurs in the Faroe Islands, Belgium, Germany, north-western Italy, and the Netherlands. ...
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Calluna Vulgaris
''Calluna vulgaris'', common heather, ling, or simply heather, is the sole species in the genus ''Calluna'' in the flowering plant family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing evergreen shrub growing to tall, or rarely to and taller, and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade. It is the dominant plant in most heathland and moorland in Europe, and in some bog vegetation and acidic pine and oak woodland. It is tolerant of grazing and regenerates following occasional burning, and is often managed in nature reserves and grouse moors by sheep or cattle grazing, and also by light burning. ''Calluna'' was separated from the closely related genus ''Erica'' by Richard Anthony Salisbury, who devised the generic name ''Calluna'' probably from the Ancient Greek (), "beautify, sweep clean", in reference to its traditional use in besoms. The specific epithet ''vulgaris'' is Latin for 'common'. ''Calluna'' is differentiated from ...
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Ulex Europaeus
''Ulex europaeus'', the gorse, common gorse, furze or whin, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to the British Isles and Western Europe. Description Growing to tall, it is an evergreen shrub. The young stems are green, with the shoots and leaves modified into green spines, long. Young seedlings produce normal leaves for the first few months; these are trifoliate, resembling a small clover leaf. The solitary flowers are yellow, long, with the pea-flower structure typical of the Fabaceae; they are produced throughout the year, but mainly over a long period in spring. They are coconut-scented. The fruit is a legume (pod) long, dark purplish-brown, partly enclosed by the pale brown remnants of the flower; the pod contains 2–3 small blackish, shiny, hard seeds, which are ejected when the pod splits open in hot weather. Seeds remain viable for 30 years. Like many species of gorse, it is often a fire-climax plant, which readily catches fire but re-g ...
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Site Of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man. SSSI/ASSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in the United Kingdom are based upon them, including national nature reserves, Ramsar sites, Special Protection Areas, and Special Areas of Conservation. The acronym "SSSI" is often pronounced "triple-S I". Selection and conservation Sites notified for their biological interest are known as Biological SSSIs (or ASSIs), and those notified for geological or physiographic interest are Geological SSSIs (or ASSIs). Sites may be divided into management units, with some areas including units that are noted for both biological and geological interest. Biological Biological SSSI/ASSIs may ...
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Heath
A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler and damper climate. Heaths are widespread worldwide but are fast disappearing and considered a rare habitat in Europe. They form extensive and highly diverse communities across Australia in humid and sub-humid areas where fire regimes with recurring burning are required for the maintenance of the heathlands.Specht, R.L. 'Heathlands' in 'Australian Vegetation' R.H. Groves ed. Cambridge University Press 1988 Even more diverse though less widespread heath communities occur in Southern Africa. Extensive heath communities can also be found in the Texas chaparral, New Caledonia, central Chile, and along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to these extensive heath areas, the vegetation type is also found in scattered locations acro ...
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Acid Grassland
Acid grassland is a nutrient-poor habitat characterised by grassy tussocks and bare ground. Habitat The vegetation is dominated by grasses and herbaceous plants, growing on soils deficient in lime (calcium). These may be found on acid sedimentary rock such as sandstone; acid igneous rock such as granite; and fluvial or glacial deposits such as sand and gravel. Typical plants of lowland acid grassland in Britain include common bent grass, ''Agrostis capillaris'', wavy hair-grass, ''Deschampsia flexuosa'', bristle bent grass, '' Agrostis curtisii'', tormentil, ''Potentilla erecta'', and flowers such as sheep's sorrel, '' Rumex acetosella'' and heath bedstraw, '' Galium saxatile''. In Britain In Britain, under 30,000 hectares of lowland acid grassland remain, often on common land and nature reserves. It is considered a nationally important habitat; areas are found in London on freely-draining sandy and gravelly soils. 271 Sites of Special Scientific Interest have been notified with ...
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Tettigonia Viridissima
''Tettigonia viridissima'', the great green bush-cricket, is a large species of bush-cricket belonging to the subfamily Tettigoniinae. Distribution and habitat This species can be encountered in most of Europe, in the eastern Palearctic realm, in the Near East, and in North Africa, especially in meadows, grasslands, prairies and occasionally in gardens at an elevation up to above sea level. Description The adult males grow up to long, while females reach . This insect is most often completely green (but there are specimens completely yellowish or with yellow legs), excluding a rust-colored band on top of the body. The organ of the stridulation of the males is generally brown. ''Tettigonia viridissima'' is distinguished by its very long and thin antennae, which can sometimes reach up to three times the length of the body, thus differentiating them from grasshoppers, which always carry short antennae. It could be confused with '' Tettigonia cantans'', whose wings are a centi ...
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