A rare plant not seen on an Oxfordshire common for the last 30 years could be about to make a come- back.

West Oxfordshire District Council has given English Nature the go-ahead to carry out work on Langel Common, Witney, to allow the return of an endangered waterside plant, the creeping marsh- wort.

The plant can only currently be found at two sites in the UK - on Oxford's Port Meadow and at nearby Binsey - and was last seen on Langel Common in the early 1970s. The Rare Plants Group of the Ashmolean Natural History Society of Oxfordshire will carry out work in the next few weeks on behalf of English Nature to restore the plant's natural habitat on a small part of the common.

The delicate, white flowered plant used to grow in the flower meadow on the common next to the path to Cogges, but it needs wetter conditions and shorter grass than is there now.

A dip in the ground will be created to provide an area which will flood in winter and be dry in summer. Marshwort seeds are thought to be still in the topsoil - and will germinate again once conditions are favourable.

Dr Camilla Lambrick, chairman of the rare plants group, said: "The creeping marshwort is endangered in Europe and was only found at one site in the UK - on Port Meadow in Oxford - until last year when it appeared at Binsey following habitat restoration.

"Now there is a real chance it could return to Witney after an absence of nearly 30 years."

Story date: Saturday 04 September

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