Yellow Rattle is a meadow-making wildflower, join Prospects to help us collect seeds for our various meadow projects, and you can take some home to start your own meadow!

This inconspicuous little yellow flower has a dark secret: it starts off its life as a parasite! When a seed germinates, it attaches to the roots of a nearby grass or legume (e.g. White Clover) and begins sucking away nutrients to start growing. As sinister as it sounds, this actually helps make grasslands become more diverse as it reduces the thickness of the grass sward, meaning more light can get to slower-growing wildflowers trying to establish. Once Yellow Rattle has put out its own leaves, it also starts producing nutrients for itself, making it a hemi-parasite (meaning half parasitic.)

Find us in Pleck Meadow from 6pm to collect your own!

Join us for our Hyndburn’s Nature Reserves project! There will be weekly conservation volunteers sessions at Peel Park and the Coppice Local Nature Reserve, every Monday from 10am – 1pm. Come along to learn new skills, meet people, keep fit and help wildlife!

To express your interest or find out more, email robert.gabryszak@prospectsfoundation.org.uk, telephone 01254 230348 or call into the Prospects office at 54 Broadway, Accrington