In April 2018 the Royal Mail produced the Reintroduced Species collection of stamps to celebrate the successful reintroduction of various flora and fauna to the UK – including the osprey, Eurasian beaver, pool frog, sand lizard, large-blue butterfly and stinking hawk’s-beard (using images from the Rye Harbour population).
After becoming extinct in Britain in the 1980s, this dandelion-like plant was included in English Nature’s Species Recovery Programme and re-introduced to Dungeness in 1992. There it thrived at first but disappeared again after 10 years. By then, Rye Harbour Nature Reserve had been selected for another experimental planting, initially with only 37 plants. This time, with the help of rabbit-proof fencing, the species spread and flourished and by 2010 more than 3,000 separate plants had been counted. It flowers from mid June to mid July.
Photo: Rye Harbour Nature Reserve