Stowell Meadow is a 2.8 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...

 (6.9 acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest near Tatworth

Tatworth

Tatworth is a village south of Chard in the South Somerset district of the county of Somerset, England. It is part of the Tatworth and Forton civil parish....

 in 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 1987.

Stowell Meadow supports a nationally rare type of traditionally managed wet neutral grassland

Grassland

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...

. 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...

woodland and plant communities typical of marshy grassland are also present. 90 species of plant have been recorded to date, several of which have a local distribution in Somerset. A number of nationally scarce species of beetle have already
been recorded.