Eyebright identified

Eyebright first appeared on the site in 2013 - two years after we instituted a meadows management regime. At the time I struggled to get a firm ID of the species even with some expert help but there are around 20 species and 70 hybrids of Eyebright so that is not surprising. This year the single small patch in one field has turned into five patches spread around three fields. Whilst having a further go at an identification I noticed that the tiny patch of three plants to be found in our South field was different to the others. It had a feature that they didn't which was hairs on the undersides of the leaves. In addition the flowers were bigger (10 to 11mm rather than 8 to 9mm) and the plants were unbranched whereas others had multiple branches. (Photo above) I set out again to try and identify the Eyebrights on site. In the end I came to the conclusion that the plants in the South field were Euphrasia montana (aka Euphrasia officinalis ssp monticola). This seemed unlikely as the only recent record in Monmouthshire is from 1997 between Pontypool and Abergavenny. However an Eyebright expert at the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland has agreed with my identification and so I can formally add this to my species list. He was not able to come to a firm conclusion on my other Eyebrights as I had not collected all the evidence necessary to make a determination but the range of suspects is narrowing and they may well be a hybrid species. I am hopeful of nailing the other Eyebrights next year.