Greater Water Parsnip

Found on the Romney Marsh. Surveys found a total of 1,450 plants at 129 sites along the northern fringes of the Marsh. Good populations of the plant still exist on the Royal Military Canal and in many drainage ditches feeding into it.

The figures show 53% of recorded sites were on arable ditches, 26% were ditches on grazing marsh and 19% were ditches running through both arable and pasture land. Grazing marsh ditches generally supported larger colonies of the plant than those on arable land.

Only 6.4% of plants occurred in ditches managed for land drainage purposes by the Environment Agency and the Internal Drainage Board. The majority of plants being found in ditches maintained by private landowners.

 In 2001 the survey was extended to the Rother valley, Hexden wet levels and the Small Hythe area.

A further 16 sites and 250 plants were recorded, all in privately maintained ditches, and evenly distributed between arable land and grazing marsh.