The richest areas are dominated by upright brome and fine-leaved grasses such as sheep's fescue and crested hair-grass.

In 2008 there was yellow rattle, three orchid species, common and latticed heath moths and grizzled skipper butterfly as well as glowworms,[9] but the area is deteriorating and is in unfavourable condition, due to lack of grazing.

This second trackway's sides retain good chalk grassland flora, with horseshoe vetch, orchids and harebell, and overhanging wayfaring tree and old man's beard (wild clematis).

[10] This area spans the parishes of Upper Beeding and Fulking and at its centre is Edburton Hill (TQ 237 110), which still has evidence of the banks of a Motte and Bailey castle, built by a Norman overlord.

These were Truleigh, Aburton (spelt the way old Sussex folk pronounced Edburton), Paythorne and Perching, and each had its chunk of Down pasture on the greensand arable under the Downs, their sticky wooded patch of Gault clay beyond, and more pasture on the fertile lower greensand to the north.

And the spire of Hurstpierpoint church and the glaring white cottages of Nep Town, Henfield, mark the extension of the lower greensand ridge to the north.

Devil's Dyke (area eight) itself is also in unfavourable but recovering condition, but is geologically important as an example of Pleistocene erosion of a dry chalk valley.

There are anthills, cattle terracettes and some years dark green fritillary, the rare silver-spotted skipper butterfly and a big populations of glowworm.

South of the dew ponds the plateau descends by a staircase of medieval strip lynchets to the combe of sheltered Saddlescombe.

There are at least twenty ancient woodland indicator species including wych elm, maple and even midland hawthorn (usually found on the Weald Clay).

[9] On the west flank of Newtimber Hill (area thirteen), above and below the Saddlescombe Road, are disused braided trackways, that are known locally as the ‘Devil's Stairs’.