Edford Woods and Meadows is a 54.3 hectare

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

 (134.1 acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, between Nettlebridge, Holcombe

Holcombe, Somerset

Holcombe is a small village and civil parish in the Mendip local government district of Somerset, England. The parish contains the hamlets of Barlake and Edford...

 and Stoke St Michael

Stoke St Michael

Stoke St Michael is a village and civil parish on the Mendip Hills north east of Shepton Mallet, and west of Frome, in the Mendip district of Somerset, England.-History:...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, notified in 1957.

This site is important for the occurrence of a wide range of types of semi-natural ancient woodland

Ancient woodland

Ancient woodland is a term used in the United Kingdom to refer specifically to woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England and Wales . Before those dates, planting of new woodland was uncommon, so a wood present in 1600 was likely to have developed naturally...

 and for unimproved meadows and pastures of a type which is now uncommon in Britain.

The forests in Edford Wood are dominated by Ash and Alder

Alder

Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...

 trees, with Pendunculate Oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

 and Sessile Oak growing there as well. Hazel

Hazel

The hazels are a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate northern hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae, though some botanists split the hazels into a separate family Corylaceae.They have simple, rounded leaves with double-serrate margins...

 and other plants form a lush and varied undergrowth, with different species living in the moist soil of the valley floor rather than in the drier soil further up the hill sides. The rare herb monk's hood

Aconitum

Aconitum , known as aconite, monkshood, wolfsbane, leopard's bane, women's bane, Devil's helmet or blue rocket, is a genus of over 250 species of flowering plants belonging to the buttercup family .-Overview:These herbaceous perennial plants are chiefly natives of the mountainous parts of the...

grows in abundance in the region.