Flora of Ashdown Forest - Botanical Society of the British Isles

Viola pa/ustris in an open alder coppice with about 50% canopy cover where some coppice stools were about 2.5 metresdiameter at the base. The fern was growing out in the open and had many healthy, fertile fronds.To those more used to seeing the plant in rocky woods, slopes and mountains in the north and west of Britain, thishabitat in wet alder flushes may be a bit surprising but all the Sussex localities are the same, and it may be the onlysituation in which it can survive the summer droughts in the south-east. Jermy et al. (1978) note it prefers humid bankswhere moving water can flush through its root system.Beech fern is yet another species more widely distributed on acidic substrates in the north and west (where it can befrequent), but very rare in the Weald, and not found elsewhere in the south-east. The other Sussex colony at Worth Foresthas not been refound recently (the woodland was coppiced, the ground Flora became over-grown with brambles and thefern disappeared), and now it is otherwise only known in the Weald near Haslemere, in Surrey.It is locally frequent on the continent where climate and substrates are suitable particularly in the mountains, althoughrare in the warm and dry lowlands in the west. Also found in Asia and North America.33~:!?