BSBI News September 2022

NEWS BSBI September 2022 151

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Botanical news from around England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland Compiled by Pete Stroh 61

Compiled by Clive Stace 81

Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest) on brownfield sites in Scotland Richard Milne 9

Compiled by Chris Preston 73

Adventives and Aliens News 27 Compiled by Matthew Berry 34

COUNTRY ROUNDUPS

Getting to know the common thistles

Mike Crewe 30

Thlaspi alliaceum L. (Garlic Penny-cress) in Combe Valley Countryside Park (v.c. 14) Matthew Berry 42

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ARTICLES

Simpler ways of differentiating Muscari neglectum and M. armeniacum in the field Terry & Helen Moore 45

Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) on Ingleborough: a new perspective

Plant Alert – results from the first three years Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz, Josef Kutlvašr & April Webb 50 Chance hybrids Clive Stace 54

NOTICES

REVIEWS

OBITUARIES

Alex Mills 17

Printed in the UK by Henry Ling Ltd, Dorchester on FSC™ certified paper using ink created with renewable materials.

Cover photo: Yellow Bird’s-nest (Hypopitys monotropa) growing inside a discarded car tyre on a post-industrial site, Kirkintilloch, 29 July 2020 (Michael Philip). See article, p. 9

FROM THE PRESIDENT / EDITORIAL 1

When is the King’s Combe not the Combe of the King? Plants in Dorset place-names

Contributions to a history of BSBI News Part 2. The early years 1972–1977: becoming established Clive Lovatt 25

Howard M. Beck 3

BEGINNER’S CORNER

Atriplex and the annual vegetation of drift lines at Dungeness and Rye Harbour

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS

Steven Heathcote, Kieran Sheehan & Laura Hodgkinson 13

September 2022 No. 151

Including BSBI AGM 2022 announcement, Trustee vacancies, BSBI Forum, BSBI Awards, Plant Atlas 2020 launch plans, upcoming conferences, contents of British & Irish Botany 4.2, panel of VCRs, member notices 55

CONTENTS

exciting and interesting plant finds around the BSBI regions over the last nine months or so.

EDITORIAL

During a very hot period in July people met at Malham Tarn Field Centre, Yorkshire, for the Annual Summer Meeting and we hope to hold a Recorders’ Meeting at another Field Studies Council Centre, Preston Montford, at the end of October.

John john.norton@bsbi.orgNorton

n this issue we have the second part of Clive Lovatt’s look back to the early days of BSBI News, and his obituary appears on p. 78 . Beginner’s Corner returns with a look at thistles, some of which should still be in flower by the time you receive this issue, despite the long drought which has browned off most plants over the past few months (at least in the south and east). Thanks to Mike Crewe for stepping in to write this at the very last minute. Also after an absence in the last issue we have a 12-page Country Reports with details of some of the more

In June I was able to finally met up with some of you at the Welsh AGM and field meeting held in Bangor, and I look forward to seeing more of you at the forthcoming British & Irish Botanical Conference (formerly known as the Annual Exhibition Meeting), being held at the Natural History Museum, London on Saturday 19 November.

FROM THE PRESIDENT

This year’s Presidents’ Prize, awarded jointly by the Wild Flower Society and the BSBI, goes to Dr John Richards for the Field Handbook to British and Irish Dandelions, a best-selling BSBI Handbook, which has been well-used during the spring to encourage us all to go outside early in the year. Mark Lynes produced Handbook No. 24 Alchemilla, Lady’s-mantles of Britain and Ireland to take us into summer. So there is plenty of informative literature to keep you up to date, including the latest online issue of British & Irish Botany.

We congratulate Dr Sandy Knapp, one of our trustees, on being made a Fellow of the Royal

Lynne lynneonmull@btinternet.comFarrell

2 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 FROM THE PRESIDENT / EDITORIAL

Society, and Dr Eric Greenwood on his award of the President’s Medal from the Royal Society of Biology in recognition of his work with his local branch in Lancashire. Congratulations also to Tristan Moss, one of our youngest members, for finding Fen Orchid at Pendine, Carmarthenshire whilst on the annual Glynhir meeting.

Ireland will be holding their AGM and Autumn Meeting at the National Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin, Dublin on 24 September, and Scotland at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh on 5 November. It would be good to join you again at these popular events.

All that remains for me is to wish you all well and happy botanising in 2023, after we have launched the New Atlas at various venues around Britain and Ireland to celebrate all the recording efforts and contributions made by our members this millennium!

I’ve been asked to draw attention to the notice on p. 55, concerning a proposal for a future (modest) increase in membership rates. This will be voted on at the AGM on 17 November and there is a link on that page to more details available on the BSBI website.

This is my last message to you all after serving as your President for three years and handing over to Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington at the AGM on Thursday 17 November 2022. As we have all found, it has been an unusual period in our lives and botany has been a welcome interlude and an aspect we could happily pursue during this time.

I

At 723 metres, Ingleborough, the second highest of the famous hill trilogy of the Yorkshire Dales, has long been recognised to be of national importance for its native flora. This botanical treasure chest is home to many nationally scarce vascular plants, such as Actaea spicata (Baneberry), Potentilla crantzii (Alpine Cinquefoil), Polygonatum odoratum (Angular Solomon’s-seal), Primula farinosa (Bird’s-eye Primrose), Epipactis atrorubens (Dark-red Helleborine), as well as actual rarities like Arenaria norvegica subsp. anglica (English Sandwort – or ‘Yorkshire Sandwort’ as we like to call it) and species of Hieracium (hawkweeds) and Alchemilla (Lady’smantles).Inrecognition of this floral mosaic, the archaeology and its geodiversity, Ingleborough (situated in v.c. 64 – Mid-West Yorkshire) was notified as an SSSI in

Above: Sulber, Ingleborough (v.c. 64), looking east; habitat of Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet). Photographs by the author.

Around Christmas 2019 Colin Newlands, Natural England’s senior reserve manager (now retired) on the Ingleborough reserve, drew my attention to another diminutive but nationally rare plant, Viola

HOWARD M. BECK

A survey conducted on the Ingleborough NNR (May 2020–October 2021)

1955. Almost a decade later in 1962, the purchase by the Nature Conservancy Council of 8.9 ha of land comprising Colt Park Wood established the Ingleborough NNR. Since then land acquisitions by both the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and English Nature (now Natural England) on the north, north-east, east and south-eastern sides of the summit plinth have over the years increased the size of the reserve to 1,024 ha. This represents one fifth of the SSSI total.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 3

Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) on Ingleborough: a new perspective

4 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) showing a plant flower and a dehisced fruit.

Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) on Ingleborough: a new perspective

Viola rupestris was first recognised in Britain from upper Teesdale (v.c. 66, Co. Durham) by James Backhouse in 1862 (Backhouse, 1884), then almost a century later, it was found on Long Fell near Brough (Valentine & Harvey, 1960) and later at Arnside Knott (both in v.c. 69, Westmorland). Although the colony at the latter site was quite small (c. 50 plants), the fact that it was well removed from the two

rupestris (Teesdale Violet). He added, almost wistfully, that it was anyone’s guess quite how widespread the species might prove to be on the reserve, or in what numbers. It was a shortcoming, he went on, that would only be addressed were someone to undertake a comprehensive survey.

V. rupestris is a Eurasiatic species with a widetemperate distribution, extending from Sakhalin in the Russian Far East to western Europe. In Britain the species has a northern montane distribution and so far is found in just four areas of England. It is a long-lived calcicole favouring substrates with a soil pH of more than 6.0. A perennial in nature, it normally flowers in May and is capable of reproducing both vegetatively and by seed. Although nationally rare, since it is not thought to be declining it is currently listed as Least Concern in the England Vascular Plant Red List (Stroh et al., 2014).

other sites held promise of the species being found even further afield. The extensive karst upland of Yorkshire’s Craven District was cited as one possible habitat. And so, it proved when on 25 May 1976 the species was discovered on Ingleborough by BSBI member Jeremy Roberts (Roberts, 1977).

Significant numbers of plants initially were found at 384 metres altitude along the popular Selside to Clapham bridleway some 4 km south-east of the Ingleborough summit. Subsequent searches later revealed a scattered distribution throughout the Moughton Fell (SD788708) area, around the skyline perimeter of Crummackdale, above the southfacing Robin Proctor Scar (SD763697) and the nearby Norber Brow. Small populations were later recorded at Smearsett Scar (SD800678), overlooking the hamlet of Feizor, some 2 km due south of the nearest specimens on the wider Ingleborough massif.

Apart from a smattering of other records added (by Brian Burrows and others) from the Sulber Pasture area between the 1970s and 2019, all V. rupestris records prior to the present survey existed outwith the Ingleborough NNR boundary.

I consulted both Jeremy Roberts and Brian Burrows. The take-home message from these conversations was that, other than records having

Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) on Ingleborough: a new perspective

Sulber was my starting point as this appeared to hold out the best prospects, having as it did the largest area of optimum habitat; other areas were more extensive, but were mainly acid heath with only small outcroppings of the Yoredale Series limestone exposed along the 600 metre contour. Other reserve compartments presented minimal or no suitable habitat and therefore could be either dismissed altogether from the survey or required little investigation. Sulber is an exposed tract presenting a flat to slightly undulating short calcareous grassland with areas of clitter, bankings, shallow screes and calcareous flushes. The compartment also has ‘islands’ of ericaceous ground with Calluna vulgaris (Heather), Potentilla erecta (Tormentil) and Narthecium ossifragum (Bog Asphodel).

I chose to start in the first week in August. Wherever the landscape presented obvious salient features I used these as a mental datum with which to divide the area into smaller, more manageable plots. Failing that, pennants and poles were employed to mark out suitably sized plots. Once each was completed I moved on in a kind of rolling survey. By this means I could obviate duplication or overlooking plants altogether. Locations were logged using a Garmin eTrex 10 or Garmin GPS60 and the results entered into the Natural England floral database.

A plant next to a 5p coin.

During planning, and to gain a sense of the task to come, and so devise the best strategy for conducting the survey, I made tentative visits to the Sulber Pasture (Compartment 34 of the reserve) around May and June 2020. Some initial Viola specimens were found around this time, and Jeremy Roberts later confirmed these to be V. rupestris. Thus, with my ‘eye in’ the survey proper could commence. For this

casual remarks like ‘100+ plants scattered among stony grassland’ or ‘about 12 plants on west side of path,’ neither of them, nor to their knowledge anyone else, had ever made an attempt to establish the full extent of the Ingleborough population. A comprehensive survey was the answer. I had only recently been signed up as a volunteer with Natural England at Colt Park, and since I was looking for a project to get my teeth into, my interest was piqued.

The elements were a dominant factor in conducting the survey. When inclement there was little to prevent the scarifying winds raking the area; in mid-summer, however, with Three Peaks walkers visible at a comfortable remove, only the welcoming refrain of the skylark disturbed the solitude as work progressed. Eighteen expeditions were necessary to complete the investigation of this compartment, which in due course revealed 17,240 plants spread across 2,041 GPS locations.

As autumn was ushered in and plant numbers steadily climbed, it then dawned that the reserve might well be the repository for a very significant population. By late October, the weather, not to mention increasingly tighter Covid-19 restrictions, forced a temporary cessation. By this time the total count had exceeded 20,000 plants.

And so with the seed thus sown, and motivated by Colin’s timely carrot on a stick, I finally picked up the gauntlet. Though there was clear evidence for significant numbers elsewhere on Ingleborough, the rationale for confining the search solely to those parts of the SSSI comprising the reserve was simple. With a total area of over 1,000 hectares this would present challenge enough. Furthermore, once completed the results would furnish Natural England, the Yorkshire Dales National Park, the BSBI and other conservation bodies with a baseline population count to inform any future surveys.

The survey

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 5

Although the published floras state that the species can occur up to 600 metres altitude, all the plants found in the present survey occurred on the Great Scar limestone exposed between the 331 and 414 metre contours. Typically, the population ranged from the scattered and isolated few to colonies of over 100 plants, especially so on Sulber and on The Moor where concentrations proved astonishing.

It was not until May 2021 that surveying restarted, with daily totals ranging from less than one hundred upwards as the remaining compartments of the reserve were systematically investigated. The imperative then was to complete the work by mid-autumn before the onset of the first wintery conditions or my suffering knees gave out altogether. As October came around again the last area was finally in the bag and the total number of plants weighed in at 39,699.

Morphology

Since the majority of flowers are cleistogamous, only about 1% of plants actually produce open blooms in any given year; these generally appearing around May. Those I saw in flower had petals with a background colour of a paler blue-violet than

Though still retaining the oft-quoted garden trowel appearance due to the turned-up margins, leaf blades of more mature plants, rather than having the usual ovate form, were sometimes found to be far more pointed. The leaves can be grey-green or dark green and often red- or dull purple-tinged in more mature plants; the lamina slightly cordate or ± truncate as opposed to being strongly cordate as in V. riviniana (Common Dog-violet).

The Ingleborough population of V. rupestris displays variations in the diagnostic characters, in particular the degree of indumentum. The typical fuzz of short hairs on the peduncles, petioles and capsule was found to vary considerably. On the petioles in particular, it ranged from dense – imparting a grey appearance when viewed with the naked eye – to slightly or totally glabrous from one plant to another, even petiole to petiole on a single rosette. That many Ingleborough plants are largely or completely glabrous is a not widely appreciated fact.

The NNR is composed of 43 compartments. Of these discrete areas V. rupestris was present in only five, all as it happens located to the south-east of the Ingleborough summit plinth (Figure 1). Out of the total plants counted the highest density was found in Compartment 38B (The Moor) with an average 857.7 plants per hectare, the least in Compartment 37B (High Brae) averaging 32 plants per hectare (Table 1). A close examination of the density map will reveal that it does not bear out the averages referred to above. An obvious reason for this is that species density in any compartment is largely determined by habitat. The explanation for the discrepancy, therefore, is that V. rupestris was found – albeit at lower density levels – over most of The Moor, while on large swathes of Sulber and High Brae there are none. Furthermore, V. rupestris on Sulber mostly keeps to the areas frequented by calcicoles such as Primula farinosa, while avoiding large areas dominated by acid heath; the latter obvious on the density map as blanks towards the west and south of Sulber compartment. Likewise, the eastern half of High Brae comprises of terrain wholly unsuited to the species.

in V. riviniana. Also contrary to the latter species, the spur is shorter and conical, with a rounded tip lacking the obvious notch. After the flowering season was over and capsules ripened, the buff colour of the dehisced capsule valves was a feature that often drew my attention among the sward when counting individuals.

The species consists of a non-flowering rosette from which lateral, decumbent flowering/fruiting stems are produced. The latter are often masked by the substrate and difficult to determine. As these ancillary rosettes do not themselves take root they therefore do not become discrete specimens. For this reason I tended to disregard rosettes in close proximity (2–3 cm) as belonging a single plant.

The ecological preference of V. rupestris is for short, open calcareous turf on thin stony soils, especially on the weather-strafed edges of bankings; in areas of accumulated frost-shattered small stones

Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) on Ingleborough: a new perspective

Summary of results

6 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

farinosa, Linum catharticum (Fairy Flax), Carex flacca (Glaucous Sedge), Sesleria caerulea (Blue Moor-grass), Campanula rotundifolia (Harebell) and Thymus drucei (Wild Thyme).

Sulber(34) High(37B)Brae Juniper Gill The(38A)Moor The(38B)Moor Area (ha) 117.5 75.6 11.04 11.9 11.9 Total plants 17,240 2426 1682 8144 10,207 Total locations 2041 425 281 859 1099 Plants as % of NNR total 43.4 6.1 4.2 20.5 25.7 Density per compartment (plants per ha) 146.7 32.1 152.4 684.4 857.7

Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) on Ingleborough: a new perspective

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 7

(clitter) resulting from degradation of the bedrock through winter’s repeated freeze-thaw cycles; on slopes of calcareous glacial drift and also gently inclined fine scree of usually not more than 30 degrees. A smaller number of specimens could be accounted for among block scree and also, but more rarely, on pavements among small amounts of clitter, or where a little turf or humus had accumulated in shallow depressions and fissures on clint tops. The most common associated bedfellows were Viola riviniana, Viola hirta (Hairy Violet), Primula

That there should be such a high density of the species on the limestone plateaux of southeastern Ingleborough comes as no surprise given the equally high incidence of optimum habitat. On these plateaux, as in all three of its other English locations, V. rupestris favours a habitat tending to the more exposed; Sulber, for instance, presents a

Table 1. Total counts of Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) at Ingleborough NNR.

Figure 1. Density of Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) at Ingleborough NNR.

Howard M. Beck

Significant numbers of V. rupestris on Widdybank Fell in Teesdale were lost due to the flooding of Cow Green Reservoir (1967–1971). Seeking some indication of present population for comparison with those found in this survey, a conversation with Martin Furness (Manager of Moorhouse Reserve) advised the best estimate of numbers to be around 10,000 plants, similar to that stated by Scott (2016, p. 150). Similar, best guess figures for the population on Long Fell as I understand it is probably in the hundreds rather than 1000s, while the outlying colony at Arnside Knott had only fifty or so specimens, though some plants have apparently been lost here through under-grazing and the resulting increase in Sesleria caerulea

landscape offering little impediment to the prevailing westerlies.

Conclusions

Backhouse, J. Jr. 1884. Teesdale botany: historical and personal observations. The Naturalist 10–13. Jonsell, B., Nordal I. & Roberts. F.J. 2000. Viola rupestris and its hybrids in Britain, Watsonia 23: 269–278. Roberts, F.J. 1977. Viola rupestris Schmidt and Juncus alpinus Vill. in Mid-W. Yorkshire. Watsonia 11: 385–386. Roberts, F.J. 1998. Viola rupestris/V. riviniana/V. hirta In: T.C.G. Rich & A.C. Jermy (eds), Plant Crib, pp. 109–111. Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI), London. Roberts, F.J. 2013. Identification of Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet). BSBI News 122 29–32. Roberts, F.J. 2020. JR’s Botany Site: www.edencroft2.co.uk Scott, M. (2016). Mountain Flowers. Bloomsbury. Stroh, P.A., Leach, S.J., August, T.A., Walker, K.J., Pearman, D.A., Rumsey, F.J., Harrower, C.A., Fay, M.F., Martin, J.P., Pankhurst, T., Preston, C.D. & Taylor, I. 2014. A Vascular Plant Red List for England. Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, Bristol. Valentine, D.H. & Harvey, M.J. 1961. Viola rupestris Schmidt in Britain. Proceedings of the Botanical Society of the British Isles 4: 429–435.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Andy Hinde and the staff of Natural England at Colt Park for support and loan of a GPS, Clare Langrick and Mark Wills (North & East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre) for production of the map, Edward Easton for forbearance in dealing with the volume of records the survey has furnished for the NE floral database and Jeremy Roberts for initial guidance in identification, for proof-reading the initial draft of this article, and offering useful commentary and constructive criticism.

References

8 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Given the considerable size of the Craven population and the difficulties of determining the hybrid between Viola rupestris and V. riviniana (V. × burnatii) (Jonsell et al., 2000; Roberts, 2020), it is possible that the occasional hybrid might have been mistaken for V. rupestris. However, since the hybrid has a preference for deeper soils, and denser turf, than that tolerated by V. rupestris, it was judged unlikely to occur in the present survey area.

34 Varley Street, Colne, Lancashire, BB8 0RB infinite_blue123@proton.me

Viola rupestris (Teesdale Violet) on Ingleborough: a new perspective

It is now clear from the present investigation, that with a population in excess of 39,000 plants, Ingleborough has emerged as a major population locus for the species, rivalling, if not exceeding, that of Teesdale in importance. How might one account for such an abundant and apparently stable population? Lacking any previous surveys for comparison makes it impossible to equate the large numbers of plants to the changeover to cattle-only grazing; indeed a density of plants far exceeding that on Sulber was recorded on The Moor (Compartments 38A/38B) where sheep have only recently been removed.

However, for a species requiring open areas of bare soil for seedlings to establish it is easy to

see how ground so produced by poaching would benefit population growth. Furthermore, based on the density of plants encountered on the reserve, it is not unreasonable to believe, were one to allow for those populations known – and anticipated – to exist on the wider Ingleborough area but outside the reserve, that another 10,000–30,000 plants could possibly be added.

rownfield sites are increasingly recognised as being important for biodiversity, with much of the countryside being given over to monocultures of crops or conifers, and grazed fields bereft of flowers. Post-industrial ‘waste ground’ can host a wide diversity of plants, generally a mixture of native and naturalised taxa, often supplemented with a few unusual garden escapes or outcasts. The plants and animals that make a life on such sites are part of an ongoing story of how wild species have had to adapt to the presence of human beings. Species that do well here tend to be those favouring disturbed and/or poor soils. Hence it was quite extraordinary to come across a large colony of Britain’s only eukaryotic holoparasite on fungi, Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest), on a brownfield site in Edinburgh, and then to learn that this is not an isolated incident.

B

RICHARD MILNE

(Fife) and near Killiecrankie, both of which have post-1970 records. Since 2010, however, it has been recorded from six other tetrads in the central belt, the northernmost just south of the Kincardine Bridge. The most striking record is from a post-industrial site by Kirkintilloch (v.c. 86, Stirlingshire), communicated to me by Vice-county Recorder Michael Philip after I asked him about the habitats of the species in Lanarkshire. A local artist, Tom Wilson, had been exploring a post-industrial brownfield site near Kirkintilloch. His description of the place closely matches my own site at Moncktonhall: ‘ rubble, building debris, abandoned car parts and tons of fly-tipped rubbish’ (Philip, 2020). Indeed, among the hundreds of flowering spikes of H. monotropa that he found, one large group was growing happily through the

Hypopitys is very rare in Scotland. It has not been recorded north of the central belt this century, though it may still lurk unseen in Tentsmuir Forest

Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest) on brownfield sites in Scotland

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 9

Above: Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest) growing inside a discarded car tyre at Kirkintilloch, July 2020 (v.c. 86). Michael Philip

Michael also told me of another site, a community woodland near Cambuslang, Glasgow, where the species occurs in far smaller numbers. This site is scrub woodland with some introduced pine saplings that could have brought the species with them, hence certainly not an ancient woodland.

Unable to run a residential field course due to Covid restrictions, I took two sets of botany students to explore this site, and conduct mini-projects. This added a few more species to the site: Anthyllis vulneraria subsp. vulneraria var. langei (Kidney Vetch) turned up in large numbers, along with a single plant of Urtica membranacea (Mediterranean Nettle) on dumped soil nearby. On the waste ground site we came across a large patch of Lathyrus nissolia (Grass Vetchling) near a segregating hybrid zone of Linaria purpurea (Purple Toadflax) and L. repens (Pale Toadflax), which like the Urtica was a first for Midlothian. A group of MSc students used the key in Stace (2019) to confirm my ID of Verbascum phlomoides (Orange Mullein), yet another new v.c. record, and with a striking white form among the yellow ones.

Millerhill Bing, Moncktonhall, July 2021. Richard Milne

The discovery of H. monotropa came about in delightfully haphazard fashion. Accompanying me on one these excursions came Vlad Krivtsov, a talented all-round naturalist, and it was he who first saw the Hypopitys when he returned to the site alone after our second field trip, to try and refind a Pyrola minor (Common Wintergreen) population I’d shown

middle of a discarded, partly buried car tyre (see main photograph on previous page and cover image). In total, Tom counted a remarkable 340 flowering spikes (Philip, 2020), making it surely one of the largest populations in Britain, and certainly in Scotland. Sadly, this site has now been developed, although some of the Hypopitys plants were transplanted to a safer spot. Before last year I’d have assumed that such transplants were unlikely to succeed, based on the peculiar needs of the species, but its ability to reach and thrive in brownfield sites suggests that these transplants might have a real chance of success. Time will tell.

10 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

The Midlothian site, at Millerhill Bing, Moncktonhall, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, is part of a botanically remarkable brownfield area, comprising flat post-industrial waste ground and a raised coal bing, formerly connected but now separated by the newly built borders railway line. There is also now a huge waste-processing plant, built at the same time as the railway, around 2013. These developments destroyed two of the most interesting plants on the site – a sizeable population of Galium parisiense (Wall Bedstraw), and the only individual

of Anacamptis pyramidalis (Pyramidal Orchid) ever recorded from Midlothian. Populations of locally rare natives Gentianella amarella (Autumn Gentian) and Clinopodium vulgare (Wild Basil) were also lost. However, the raised bing was largely unaffected, and its dark rocky surface supports large numbers of Linum catharticum (Fairy Flax), Echium vulgare (Viper’sbugloss), Teucrium scorodonia (Wood Sage), Logfia minima (Small Cudweed), Filago germanica (Common Cudweed), Centaurium erythraea (Common Centaury) and Hypericum perforatum Perforate St John’s-wort. Buddleia davidii (Butterfly-bush) is the most common shrub, and locals report that it was actually planted there after the mining was discontinued, to help the area go back to nature. Other well established aliens include Verbascum virgatum (Twiggy Mullein), Hypericum olympicum (Olympic St John’s-wort), Clematis tangutica (Orange-peel Clematis), and Potentilla recta (Sulphur Cinquefoil). Several Lychnis viscaria (Sticky Catchfly) plants also turned up here in 2019, but these have since rapidly dwindled and might have been deliberately introduced.

Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest) on brownfield sites in Scotland

Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest) on brownfield sites in Scotland

Every post-2000 Scottish locality is at least 10 km from its nearest neighbour, and the closest to the Moncktonhall population is 35 km away (near Stoneyburn). The seeds have no special adaptation for dispersal, and the only natural mechanism that is at all plausible might be the feet of birds, but overall, natural dispersal seems very unlikely. The activity

The question of how H. monotropa arrived at all these sites is clearly of interest – Midlothian is a well botanised vice-county, and it seems unlikely that long-lived populations of this striking plant could have remained undetected in those fragments of

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 11

him earlier. He noticed the yellow stems just starting to emerge, but was not familiar with the species and hence did not know what they were. So it wasn’t until I accompanied him and his MSc students to the site later on that it was identified, with a jolt of shock and joy. It was a thriving population, over 100 stems in all, more than I’d ever seen elsewhere, yet still many fewer than at Kirkintilloch. They grow on a thick gravelly substrate topped with moss and leaf litter, among young birch and willow trees. Pyrola minor occurs in large quantities nearby in the same woods, though curiously the patches of these do not seem to overlap. There are some flowering spikes of H. monotropa that rise from right beside the slowly eroding concrete frames of access shafts to underground tunnels, emphasising the mix here of the wild and artificial (see photo, next page). Based on my photos, Fred Rumsey confirmed the plants to be the commoner subspecies hypophegea Stace (2019), in common with other UK plant guides, states that H. monotropa mostly occurs in beech or pine woods (or dunes), so its presence among willow and birch is in itself unusual, whereas at Cambuslang the main tree seems to be Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna); at Kirkintilloch it is Goat Willow (Salix caprea). Of course, from the plant’s perspective, it is not the tree but the presence of a suitable fungus that determines where it can grow. Fred Rumsey reports one site at Hawley in secondary woodland and a few cases of it turning up in disused quarries. This pattern of occurrence recalls certain orchids like Dactylorhiza fuchsia (Common Spotted-orchid), D. purpurella (Northern Marsh-orchid) (both present at Moncktonhall) and Ophrys apifera (Bee Orchid) (which coincidentally appeared on a redeveloped landfill site in Lanarkshire at around the same time, new for the vice-county). It may be no coincidence that orchids also parasitise fungi, at least when young, and the effect of human disturbance on fungal populations might be key to all these occurrences.

Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest) at Millerhill Bing (Midlothian, v.c. 83), growing in leaf litter, 26 August 2021. Richard Milne

ancient woodland that remain, especially given the tendency of its fruiting stems to remain as jet black sentinels marking the spot all the way through to the next flowering season. That said, a team of ecologists apparently missed it completely when surveying the site in autumn 2021. Still, on balance it is likely a recent arrival here, and perhaps also in some of its other central belt sites.

associated with railway and building construction around 2013 might have brought in the seed, but if so the species has expanded remarkably quickly. Alternatively, seed could have been inadvertently carried to the area by human activity at an earlier date. If the buddleias on the bing were deliberately planted, might some of the trees here have been also, in a bid to propel this stricken site back towards nature? It might explain why there is such an abrupt edge to the birch woodland here. If so, perhaps the Hypopitys plants came in with transplanted young trees, as is suggested for the Cambuslang site. Even so, this begs another question: if the plant is so rare in Scotland, how did it get among the source trees? Could the species be a lot commoner than we think, but like certain orchids lurk unseen in the soil underground, not flowering until conditions are right? Much remains to be understood here.

Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest) on brownfield sites in Scotland

future.Some might argue that the biodiversity of a particular brownfield site is expendable, because any species that can establish on such disturbed sites should therefore be able to establish easily enough on other similar sites in the future. Yet older brownfield sites can be home to rare species with specific requirements, as these Scottish Hypopitys populations have shown. We may learn from the Kirkintilloch site whether transplantation for conservation is a viable option for this species, and it is to be hoped that these remarkable populations will be conserved. Among other things, it brings with it a welcome ray of hope that even rare and specialist species may sometimes find ways to make new homes in landscapes that have been dramatically altered by human activity.

Hypopitys monotropa growing beside a concrete slab at Millerhill Bing, 9 July 2022. Richard Milne

show them the plant. They were very responsive, and assured me it would be safe for the foreseeable

12 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Thanks are due to Michael Philip and Fred Rumsey for discussions and information about the plants, and especially to Michael for filling me in on the remarkable Lanarkshire site, correcting a few errors in an earlier draft and supplying the photograph.

References

Acknowledgements

Philip, M. 2020. Lanarkshire Botany Newsletter, 2020 Summary, November 2020. Stace, C.A. 2019. New Flora of the British Isles (4th edn). C & M Floristics, Middlewood Green, Suffolk.

Dr Richard Milne

Without doubt, this large population of a rare native species brings an unusual but compelling conservation case for this site. The population narrowly escaped disaster at the start of 2022, after some of the young woodland around them was felled as part of plan to build a pipeline. Miraculously, the epicentre of the population was left standing, and I was able to speak to the workers on site and

Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences, School of Biology, University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JH

R.Milne@ed.ac.uk

The crest of the shingle beach provides protection for various infrastructure facilities inland and, as such, is subject to management measures by the Environment Agency that maintain a certain level of protection from flooding by the sea. The regular management of the beach profile can alter the end position of the drift lines so there is an annual monitoring of the vegetation completed on behalf of the Environment Agency to ensure there

of Dungeness by Ferry et al. (1990) as their ‘C1’ vegetation, comprising ‘scattered to dense plants of Babington’s Orache Atriplex glabriuscula’. AVDL is recognised an Annex 1 habitat in the Habitats Directive, and despite its paucity of species, is a qualifying interest feature of the Dungeness Special Area of Conservation, where it occurs along much of the shingle beach.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 13

STEVEN HEATHCOTE, KIERAN SHEEHAN & LAURA HODGKINSON

The annual vegetation of drift lines (AVDL) was noted in the seminal text on the vegetation

Atriplex and the annual vegetation of drift lines at Dungeness and Rye Harbour

This article is intended to present the botanical picture of the vegetation of the drift line at Dungeness and Rye Harbour beach. Here nutrientrich drift is washed up annually on 15 km of shingle beaches, sufficiently far above the reach of high energy tides for vegetation to develop, but in which only two species are consistently able to grow and seed set. The recent BSBI News article by Phil Smith highlighted the richness of the drift line vegetation of the Sefton Coast (Smith, 2022). We had been preparing this article at the time and enjoyed the contrast of the species rich drift on the sands of Ainsdale compared to the species poor shingle drift line we present here. This article is based on the results of three years of annual monitoring completed by the authors (2019–21), supplemented with data produced by the long history of interest in the vegetation at Dungeness, the largest shingle structure in Europe.

Annual vegetation of drift lines comprising scattered plants of Babington’s Orache on the beach in front of the Dungeness lighthouse. Photographs by Steven Heathcote

is no long-term decline in this vegetation type. This monitoring, comprising 15.4 km of the beach at Dungeness between Jury’s Gap (TQ99261798) and the town of Lydd-on-Sea (TR09441839), and the control site of Rye Harbour beach (TQ91861612 to TQ95011797), has been ongoing since 2003 and provides a long-term insight into the distribution, dynamics and composition of this vegetation. The survey is contained within the hectads TQ91 and TR01.

Despite the presence of both species in some areas of strandline, checking of over 50 specimens has failed to identify the uncommon hybrid between A. prostrata and A. glabriuscula, which is unknown from the two hectads. However, in 2021 John Akeroyd was able to confirm the hybrid Atriplex × taschereaui (A glabriuscula × longipes) from the Dungeness beach near Jury’s Gap. This hybrid is known from Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, where the DDb contains records of it as part of the strandline from 2003. It has not been previously recorded from Dungeness.

Given the definitive statements on the presence of only A. glabriuscula on previous occasions, it seems likely that A. prostrata is either not present every year, which would fit with the known variability of drift line composition, or else is a recent addition to the drift line in this area. Both would be ecologically interesting and, given the lack of clear definition from old reports, the best test will be to see if A. prostrata is consistently present in future years.

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Another Atriplex which occurs very occasionally on the drift line at Dungeness is A. laciniata (Frosted Orache). This was recorded by the authors in one year out of three at Jury’s Gap, with additional records in the DDb from drift line around the boat mooring area on the south-eastern corner of Dungeness in 2017 and at Jury’s Gap in 2014. Atriplex laciniata is more common on the drift line of the neighbouring sandy beach of Camber Sands that lies between the shingle of Rye Harbour and Dungeness.

Species composition

Atriplex and the annual vegetation of drift lines at Dungeness and Rye Harbour

At Dungeness the AVDL is a very species poor vegetation type, formed mainly of Atriplex glabriuscula (Babington’s Orache). This was the only species reported in Ferry, Lodge & Waters’ (1990) definitive account of the vegetation of Dungeness, and a similar situation was noted on two 2017 visits by the BSBI Atriplex referee John Akeroyd (pers. comm.). Atriplex glabriuscula is the only species referred to in the Dungeness Special Area of Conservation (SAC) supplementary advice on conservation objectives (Natural England, 2019), which draws together information from a range of sources. Atriplex glabriuscula seems uniquely well-adapted to survive the conditions of the strandline on shingle beaches; there is little doubt that it is the primary species in this community, and the most consistently successful.

It is difficult to find previous confirmed reports of other oraches at Dungeness, although there is reference to an unnamed hybrid recorded in 2018 (Jacobs, 2018). The BSBI DDb contains just over 80 records of A. prostrata (Spear-leaved Orache) for the relevant hectads, but none of these records has a grid reference or comment that suggest they are from the drift line. Monitoring in 2019–2021 has allowed the authors the opportunity to make a detailed examination of the Atriplex species present in the drift line community. Our observations showed that both A glabriuscula and A prostrata are present. This was confirmed by John Akeroyd from photos of a range of material. Atriplex glabriuscula is the most common species, representing 81% of Atriplex records (199 of 234) from the 2021 annual monitoring, the remainder being A. prostrata

Occasionally, other species occur along the drift line. Tripleurospermum maritimum (Sea Mayweed) and Galium aparine (Cleavers) are the only two recorded on more than one occasion in the previous three years, both occurring on <5% of the strandline. Beta vulgaris var. maritima (Sea Beet) was noted on one occasion and is much more common amongst the pioneer perennial vegetation. In 2018 some Cakile maritima (Sea Rocket) was recorded in the AVDL where some sand accumulation amongst the shingle was noted, but this species has not been seen in subsequent years.

Atriplex hybrids

Glaucium flavum (Yellow Horned-poppy) and Lathyrus japonicus (Sea Pea) occur in these pioneer stands as the shingle becomes increasingly stable, alongside the distinctive glaucous leaves of Crambe maritima and scattered Crithmum maritimum (Rock Samphire).

AVDL also occurs behind the main beach crest in areas where large waves have broken over it, creating overwash zones. In places these are marked by characteristic fans of shingle, that vary in size; small ones a few square metres in area just over the crests to others nearly half a hectare in area stretching from the crests down to, and occasionally covering, the

Atriplex and the annual vegetation of drift lines at Dungeness and Rye Harbour

Transitions to perennial vegetation

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Sometimes pioneer perennial species are found amongst the drift, presumably where the shingle has remained sufficiently stable for long enough. Most commonly this is Crambe maritima (Sea Kale) which forms the distinctive first line of perennial vegetation. This ‘C2’ vegetation (also referred to as pioneer perennial vegetation) of Ferry et al. (1990) is considered to represent Annex 1 Perennial Vegetation of Shingle Banks (PVSB). The diversity of species rapidly increases (from two to more than ten) as the vegetation transitions to better developed pioneer PVSB. Notable coastal species including

Beach profiles and the locations of drift

Atriplex longipes (Long-stalked Orache) is not known from either site, but the hybrids are well-known to occur in the absence of this parent (Stace et al., 2015). This specimen occurred on the landward side of the main crest, in an area where the sea has washed over the main crest (see ‘overwash zones’ below) close to the line of perennial vegetation in conditions that are likely to be less severe than the true strandline.

The AVDL develops along the strandline, and the plants are often seen emerging from amongst the drift. In undisturbed sections of the beach, it often forms just below the highest beach crest, typically on the seaward side, and sometimes on lower ridges near the top of the beach where there is net accretion. This can lead to the appearance of up to three distinctive lines of AVDL, a feature noted on the drift lines at Sefton (Smith, 2022).

Transition to pioneer perennial vegetation is marked by a zone of Crambe maritima (Sea Kale).

Jacobs 2018. Denge beach reprofiling – vegetation monitoring study 2018. Denge Beach management. Unpublished report for the Environment Agency. Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., London.

Steven LauraKieransteven.heathcote@gmail.comHeathcoteSheehanHodgkinson

Ferry, B., Lodge, N. & Waters, S. 1990. Dungeness: a vegetation survey of a shingle beach. Research Report No. 26. English Nature, Peterborough.

We are grateful to Dr John Akeroyd for reviewing photographs of the plants and commenting on a draft of this article, and to Geoffrey Kitchener for providing access to the DDb records. We are also grateful to the Environment Agency for funding and facilitating the work. We are grateful to Elizabeth Cooke for commenting on a draft of this article. Fieldwork was completed as part of the authors’ work at JBA Consulting.

Although species poor, the drift lines at Dungeness and Rye Harbour are dynamic and important habitats. Atriplex glabriuscula is the main species in this habitat, but the relatively extensive presence of a

References

Acknowledgements

A band of AVDL on a beach ridge at the southeastern beach corner with the distinctive Dungeness boats in the background.

Atriplex on the landward side of the main beach crest where breaking waves have thrown and washed material from the seaward side. Note the vehicle tracks on the right hand side of the image which are impinging on the AVDL.

Atriplex and the annual vegetation of drift lines at Dungeness and Rye Harbour

second species of Atriplex raises interesting questions regarding permanent versus dynamic changes in this vegetation, and the importance of long-term monitoring of sufficient intensity to understand the inter-factorial relationships that lead to the observed changes in the species composition.

Natural England 2019. European Site Conservation Objectives: Supplementary Advice on Conserving and Restoring Site Features. Dungeness Special Area of Conservation (SAC). Site Code: UK0013059. Natural England, Peterborough. Smith, P.H. 2022. Exceptional diversity of strandline plants at Ainsdale-on-Sea, Merseyside. BSBI News 149: 3–11. Stace, C.A., Preston, D.C. & Pearman, D.A. 2015. Hybrid Flora of the British Isles. Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, Bristol.

Summary

16 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

PVSB. In these places the conditions are perhaps more stable, and a denser cover of AVDL species can develop earlier in the year.

2 No relation (as far as I’m aware).

I will explore which plants crop up before considering why these names might have been chosen and what they can tell us about the county’s flora.1

ALEX MILLS

Above: Acer campestre (Field Maple) which can be traced in at least four Dorset place-names. Photographs by the author.

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Here I will take a look at plants in the placenames of Dorset. Dorset is a county famed for some outstanding place-names, often inducing giggles from those with frivolous, childish minds (me): Piddletrenthide, Scratchy Bottom, Shitterton, etc.

Where do you live? Why is it called that? Placenames are so familiar that we frequently give them no more than passing thought. But what we choose to name places important to us – our landscapes, our settlements, our homes – tells us stories about our environments and about ourselves. They reflect the world; they reflect us. We might even suggest that names make a place a place. The town or hill or wood would, of course, exist without a name that humans have decided upon. But it would not be somewhere we could communicate about. Across cultures, space and time, humans have named places after features of the natural world. This offers opportunities to investigate both what past landscapes were like and the form that our relationship with the world around us has taken.

I have used Dorset Place-Names: Their Origins and Meanings (Mills, 1986)2 as the source material, with some additions from The Landscape of Place-names (Gelling & Cole, 2014). I collated the names, dates of first record, locations and meanings for places which contained elements from the botanical world and explored the data. Where multiple places are named in relation to each other (such as East Holme and West Holme) or from the same topographical

When is the King’s Combe not the Combe of the King? Plants in Dorset place-names

1 The survey covers the county of Dorset, encompassing v.c. 9 (Dorset) and parts of v.c. 11(South Hampshire).

Methodology

Hordeum vulgare (Six-rowed Barley) 3

Corylus avellana (Hazel) 2 (or 3)

Table 1. Totals of plant taxa found in Dorset place-names.

Arctium sp. (burdock) 1

feature (such as Iwerne Minster, Iwerne Courtney, etc., all named after the River Iwerne) they have been counted as only one occurrence.

18 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Plants in Dorset place-names

Isatis tinctoria (Woad) 2

Quercus sp. (oak) 11

Tilia sp. (lime) 1

Tanacetum vulgare (Tansy) 1

Malus sp. (apple) 1

Urtica dioica (Common Nettle) 1

Linum usitatissimum (Flax) 2

A total of 135 names with elements potentially derived from plants was found (Figure 1). Depending upon interpretation about 41 taxa can be inferred from the names (Table 1)3. The vast majority of the names are Old English in origin (c. 700–1200 CE), as is the case across England (Gelling & Cole, 2014).

Juncaceae (rushes) 1

Often there can be no hope of resolving the plant’s identity without further information emerging. This is the case for Bothenwood, where the first element is judged by Mills to be the Old English (OE) word bothen which may refer to Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus), Darnel (Lolium temulentum), or Thyme (Thymus sp.)

Mentha sp. (mint) 2

In some instances it is possible to assign a species to the place-names, such as with Hazelbury Bryan, first recorded as ‘Hasebere’ in 1201 meaning ‘Hazel wood’ and deriving from the OE haesel and bearu. In other cases we can only give a genus or a family. So when an oak is the source (from the OE ac) we cannot be sure to which member of Quercus this refers. Elsewhere we must cast our name-net more widely. For example, the probable candidate when ‘thorn’ (from the OE thorn) is used is a hawthorn (Crataegus sp.), and sometimes the element is clearly from the OE haeg-thorn, such as Haythorn (Heythorne, earliest date 1551). But usually other spiky trees cannot be ruled out, notably Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa).

Prunus sp. (cherry, plum) 2

Acer campestre (Field Maple) 4

fern, ?Pteridium aquilinum (Bracken) 6

Cytisus scoparius (Broom) 4

Taxus baccata (Yew) 4

Hedera helix (Ivy) 1

Ulex sp. (gorse) 2

Ulmus glabra (Wych Elm) 1

Allium ursinum (Ramsons) 2

Pisum sativum (Garden Pea) 1

Ulmus sp. (elm) 1

Plant taxon No. of namesplace-

Teucrium chamaedrys (Wall Germander) 1

Pinus sylvestris (Scots Pine) 1

Rumex sp. (dock) 1

Erica sp./Calluna vulgaris (heaths, Heather) 3

Crataegus sp./Prunus spinosa (hawthorn sp./Blackthorn) 16

Poaceae (including Common Reed, Phragmites australis) 5

Fraxinus excelsior (Ash) 14

Triticum aestivum (Bread Wheat) 4

Results

Salix sp. (willow) 3

A few have their roots in Celtic languages predating this period. Deciding what plant is referred to is not always simple. This is partly owing to uncertainties over past plant names. Investigating plants in medieval manuscripts Hunt (1989) found over 1800 names used for what was judged to be 600 species.

Fagus sylvatica (Beech) 2

Plant taxon No. of namesplace-

Ilex aquifolium (Holly) 8

3 Some of these assignations are debatable, as Mills makes clear in his book.

Total taxa: 41 Total names:place-135

Nasturtium officinale (Water-cress) 2

Alnus glutinosa (Alder) 4

Salvia rosmarinus (Rosemary) / Lolium temulentum (Darnel) / Thymus sp. (thyme) (see text) 1

Buxus sempervirens (Box) 1

Pyrus sp. (pear) 6

Sambucus nigra (Elder) 2

Fabaceae, ?Vicia faba (Broad Bean) 4

The immediate answer ‘because they’re big’ is probably correct, at least in part. Trees are noticeable and notable. They are also long-lived, providing a consistent place-marker. Trees could form a focal point for communities, such as meeting places for hundreds, the administrative unit for local governance in the early medieval period (Baker & Brookes, 2015). You say to a group ‘Meet me at the great, old Germander Speedwell’ and you should be prepared to be lonely. Tell them to see you ‘at the great, old oak’ and you may have company.

The longevity of trees and place-names is also demonstrated by the collection of ‘Iwernes’. These are supposed to derive from the Celtic name for the river (Iwerne), thought to mean ‘Yew river’. If you wanted a species that could provide a constant marker through time, the long-lived Yew is a good bet.

Plants in Dorset place-names

Of the c. 41 taxa inferred 20 are trees/shrubs, finding spots in 77 names (57% of the total). The

Figure 1. Map showing plant toponym distribution in Dorset.

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Further, the species of fern is not made clear in the five names, such as Farnham in north Dorset (first recorded 1086), which derive from OE fearn Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), a prominent feature of Dorset’s heaths (attested to by Thomas Hardy’s Egdon), is most likely having often simply been called ‘fern’ in the past. Take, for instance, Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal entry (11 October 1800): ‘The colours of the mountains soft, and rich with orange fern’. Sometimes I have inferred from names such as Hethfelton the presence of Erica species and Calluna vulgaris. The distinction between cases where a taxon is referred to explicitly (e.g. Hazelbury Bryan) and more conjectural deductions (e.g. Hethfelton) should be kept in mind.

Discussion

What do these names tell us about Dorset’s flora, land and people? Certain important plants or groups of plants emerge: trees, crops and food plants; medicinal plants; and general landscape or habitat descriptors. Some intriguing outliers are also found. All selected plants were useful, either materially or by providing a sense of place.

Why are trees so prevalent?

most commonly referred to is the unspecific ‘thorn’ found in 16 names, making it the most frequent plant of any sort. Indeed, second position (Ash – 14), third (oaks – 11), and fourth (Holly – 8) also go to trees/shrubs. It is only in fifth spot that plants of the nontree/shrub flavour get a look-in: a three-way tie between bean (probably Broad Bean Vicia faba), fern (probably P aquilinum), and, not wanting that fifth spot to be totally tree free, pear (Pyrus sp.).

Trees and shrubs were also useful. Incredibly so. They provided fuel (e.g. Hazel and Gorse4), building materials (e.g. oaks), food and drink for humans and livestock (e.g. the orchard trees apples, pears, and plums, as well as species such Holly and Ash for animal fodder or ’tree-hay’ [see Peterken, 2017]), and medicine (e.g. Elder). These factors will

Trees

4 The two names – Furzehill and Furzey Island – derived from OE fyrs meaning furze/gorse seem particularly relevant to Dorset, calling to mind the furze-cutters of Hardy’s Egdon.

Four names contain an element referring to Wheat (Triticum aestivum), drawn from the OE hwaete This dietary staple is unsurprisingly prevalent, its ubiquity perhaps combatting the lack of distinctiveness of naming places after this crop. How do you tell one Wheat-filled combe from another? Additional familiar crops include Pea (Pisum sativum) and Barley (Hordeum vulgare) (Table 1).

Seven of the 41 taxa are crops. Others may be placed into a broader group of cultivated plants or other plants important for food and drink, although with less certainty and dependent on interpretation of the potential uses of a species. For example, Hazel may at different times have been planted, favoured through management, coppiced, or harvested for its nuts.

Crops, food, and drink

20 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Plants in Dorset place-names

Figure 3. Tree/shrub and woodland toponym distribution.

There is a dearth of tree toponyms on the Isle of Purbeck (Figure 2). This may reflect its open landscapes, with calcareous grassland and heathland dominating. However, these habitats are not totally treeless and trees which do get a foothold in such spots may be more distinctive and more likely to be useful placemarkers than a tree in a wellwooded area. Further, Purbeck is not and was not without woodland or woodland-related names, even if particular species are not assignable. Common elements such as hyrst, bearu, or leah all reference woodland. Bushey (Burshawe in 1299) comes from the OE bur (cottage) and sceaga (small wood or copse). And when names broadly indicating woodland are mapped alongside tree/shrub toponyms this putative relationship between Purbeck and paucity of trees disappears (Figure 3).

Figure 2. Tree/shrub toponym distribution.

be discussed further below. Cradle to coffin, trees gave much of what life required. Furthermore, as historians such as Hooke (2010) have explored, trees played central roles in people’s cultural and spiritual lives. From the sacred cedars of Gilgamesh and Yggdrasill to ‘faery-thorns’ and churchyard Yews, folklore and religious beliefs have frequently centred upon trees. And, as a modern-day example of this, think of the enthusiastic revivals of Wassail ceremonies. Our lived experiences intertwine with trees.

Plant Place-name

Foods bleed into medicines. Although there is no evidence for the quotation often attributed to Hippocrates ‘Let food be thy medicine’ it seems that such a principle was followed in early medieval societies (Witkamp & van Norren, 2018). Indeed, it can sometimes seem that any plant you care to mention was put to some healing use. Thirty-nine of the 41 taxa considered here have had medicinal uses.

Limbury 1288

Lyndone 1332

Additionally, Cultivated Flax Linum usitatissimum is present in two names (from lin the OE for Flax), with a third possible dependent upon interpretation (Table 2). Mills (1986) offers the OE lin or lind (the linden or lime Tilia sp.) for Lymburgh’s Farm, originally ‘Linberg’. Whilst seeds of this plant recently have seen increased popularity as a health food, its primary use in the medieval period was to provide fibre for fabrics. Flax has been an important crop in Dorset, especially in the west (Beaminster Museum, 2015) (Table 2).

The oldest known Old English medical texts are from the 800s CE, with the Lacnunga and Leechbooks most prominent. They make for compelling reading. In the Leechbooks we find cures such as ‘A drink for swelling: work wild celery, betony, rue, sedge, garden radish, greater burdock and marshmallow in ale’ (I.39.28). A fairly reasonable recipe. The treatment directly after this, however, is more striking for the modern reader: ‘Again for swelling, at the beginning take a hazel or elder stick, write your name on it, cut three scarifications [on the patient], fill the name with the blood, throw [the stick] over the shoulder or between the thighs into running water and stand over the man, strike the scarifications and do all of that silently’ (I.39.29). Quite apart from anything else I wonder how on earth this could be done silently?

Lime Lymburgh’s Farm

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 21

Linberg 1244

Table 2. Some examples of Dorset place-names derived from plant names.

Woad Waddon, Friar Waddon, Little Waddon Wadone 1086

Wild Garlic (Ramsons), and burdock. Foraged and famine foods would, at times, have been crucial.

Flax Linton Hill

Wheat Watcombe Bottom Whetecombe 891

Earliest date

Medicine

And we can, more playfully, consider the clothing use of Burdock, taking Chaucer’s ‘The Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue’ in The Canterbury Tales as our source: ‘A clote-leef he hadde under his hood / For swoot, and for to keep his heed from heete’ (ll. 23–25).6 The burdock leaf (‘clote-leef’) forms a nifty bit of headwear for keeping cool. Perhaps Clatcombe Farm (earliest record 1614) was the place to go for herbaceous hats?

In addition to the crops, foods which could potentially be gathered from the wild for consumption are prevalent – for example, nettles,

Woad Waddon Hill Waddon 1461

Earliest form

5 And see evidence in that highly-accurate docu-drama Braveheart

Wheat Whatley Farm

Flax Limbury Farm

Wheat Whatcombe Watecumbe 1288

Hwatelegh 1250

6 prologue-and-talehttps://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/canons-yeomans-

Wheat Whatcombe Down Whatecome 1340

Less well-known and non-food crops are also present. Take, for instance, Woad (Isatis tinctoria), OE wad (Table 2). This was a dye plant for fabrics and, indeed, humans. In Gallico Commentarii de Bello Gallico (58–49 BCE), we find Caesar writing of the Woad-daubed British warriors.5 Other dye plants found include Alder, Blackthorn, Ivy and Gorse.

Although it can be fun to focus on past medicine’s more outlandish elements there is growing evidence behind the efficacy of certain plant medicines. Until the last one hundred years or so, humans were almost utterly reliant upon plants for medicine. Even today c. 75% of medicines are derived from, or were

Plants in Dorset place-names

A view of Kingcombe

22 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

There is currently just one site in Britain at which T chamaedrys is believed to be native: Cuckmere Haven, East Sussex (Rumsey, 2018). These plants can be distinguished from naturalised specimens by the characteristics of their hairs. Records from elsewhere are thought to be garden escapes. The first record of T chamaedrys growing in the wild is from Winchelsea Castle’s walls in Sussex by J. Sherard. We don’t know the exact year for this but Sherard died in 1738 (Pearman, 2017). The early date for Kingcombe’s name, and the fact that this plant was chosen as being such an important feature of the place that it become known by it, offers the provocative, if faint, possibility of T chamaedrys growing wild and native in a west Dorset combe. The BSBI database holds a handful of records for T chamaedrys in v.c. 9, none thought to be native.

originally, plants. The well-known example of willow bark and aspirin is far from the only case. Take, for instance, research into the anti-inflammatory properties of Rosemary (Borges et al., 2019). There is interest in what past practices may teach us today (Watkins et al., 2011).

Amongst the frequent names and species there are a few intriguing outliers.

Perhaps the most puzzling name is Kingcombe. This, initally, appears straightforward and not related to plants: the combe of the King. However, unlike places such as Kingston (in Corfe Castle), royalty seems not to feature in Kingcombe. Looking at the first known rendering – ‘Chimedecome’ in the Domesday Book (1086) – led Mills (1986) to posit OE cymed as the qualifying element. This name for Wall Germander (Teucrium chamaedrys) appears in the aforementioned Leechbook Wall Germander was used medicinally and would likely have been cultivated in gardens, especially monasteries. But, as Voigts (1971) laments, details about early medieval monastic gardens in England are much poorer than from other European countries and, as far as I am aware, there was no monastery in Kingcombe’s vicinity. It may have grown in another, non-monastic garden. But there is also the tantalising possibility that the cymed grew in the wild.

Rampisham

Plants in Dorset place-names

It may well not be possible to resolve Kingcombe’s etymology. Even if Wall Germander was found and that Wall Germander had hairs which suggest the plants were native, doubt would remain. Decisions around plant species’ and populations’ native statuses are always about balancing evidence, making informed judgements. And place-name etymology frequently is fraught. The word cymed has also been translated as Caraway (Carum carvi) in some Old English texts. So, even though Mills (1986) settled upon T chamaedrys for Kingcombe, we cannot even be confident in that C carvi, a Critically Endangered archaeophyte, would, however, be a similarly intriguing alternative. But let us not get carried away with too many interesting plants in too short a space.

Kingcombe

Wild Garlic or Ramsons (Allium ursinum) was not a plant I expected to come across in place-names, perhaps foolishly. It is after all a distinctive plant, its pungent aroma and dense colonies defining characters of many woodlands in spring. There are two potential names from the OE hramsa : Rampisham (first recorded 1086) and Rempstone Hall (first recorded 1280). Another option discussed would be OE ramm meaning a ram. A ursinum grows in the two places today, with recent records

Unexpected names

from Rampisham Meadows, Rampisham Wood and Rempstone Woods. These place-names may push back our knowledge of these colonies many hundreds of years.

Place-names as biological records

Many place-names describe landscape or habitat characteristics. They fit the broad ‘topographical’ category of place-names, the most abundant of the four types of element found in Cox’s place-name survey (1976). Aligned to this are instances where

7 Facilitating the wonderful phrase ‘bixen box’, meaning ‘a box made from box wood’.

Do these place-names represent biological records? Although a teasing question there is some validity in further consideration. For modern, high-quality biological records the ‘Who’, ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘When’ criteria are desirable. How do place-names stand-up to such inquisitions? ‘What’ can certainly be fulfilled, with differing degrees of accuracy and confidence. In terms of ‘Where’ we might not have GPS but it is possible the places themselves are locations and grid references (to a degree of precision deemed appropriate, e.g. four figures?) can be assigned. ‘When’ is trickier. First recorded uses of names exist but the closeness of these to the first actual use of the name and/or the existence of the plant is less certain. However, not all historical biological records have precise dates and encountering a ‘pre-1845’ or similar is not unknown. ‘Who’ seems insurmountable. Aside from hypothetical instances of a landowner chronicling that they decided to call such a place such a name, how on earth does one decide who might be initially responsible?

First appearing in Domesday (1086), Bexington appears to mean ‘farm where the Box ( Buxus sempervirens ) grows’, from the OE byxen / bixen , an adjective found in tenth century glossary attributed to Aelfric.7 Box place-names are a bit of a conundrum. The most famous is Box Hill in Surrey, one of the very few sites where Box is considered to be native. Its long history of cultivation – since at least the Roman period – somewhat blurs matters. The Bexingtons (East and West) do not match the character of the native sites, although unlike some other places Coates (1999) discusses, are calcareous. There is, to my knowledge, no Box growing at the Bexingtons or records suggesting former prominence. The presence of Roman activity in the area makes former cultivation a possibility. We cannot be certain – again, that is part of the fun.

There is the possibility of using a suite of habitat/ landscape place-names to build a picture of that habitat/landscape in a region, as seen in Falk (2009) or Rackham (1986) and indicated in Figure 3 which illustrates woodland toponyms in the survey area. More statistically rigorous studies such as Fagundez & Izco (2015) have used place-names to explore habitat and land-use change.

Landscape/habitat

However,rush).most topographical names suggest too broad a sweep of species to have been included here. ‘Heath’ is one that I judged to allow us to fairly positively infer Heather or Erica species, and instances of names derived from OE filethe (hay), gaers (grass), lisc and hreod (both meaning reed) have been grouped under the bracket of Poaceae. We may even be able more confidently to assign P australis to the reed names, such as Radipole.

Pinsford is posited as containing the OE pin, meaning pine. However, the early date of its first record (1160) precludes it being a plantation and native, wild Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris is thought to have disappeared from Dorset long before. It is perhaps sensible to go with the alternative suggestions that it may be from the OE pinn (pin or peg) or from a personal name (Pinna). Still it is diverting to consider the slim possibility that this species survived as an overlooked native, as has recently been argued to be the case in parts of Ireland (Roche et al., 2018).

Plants in Dorset place-names

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 23

Bexington

Pinsford

particular plants may be chosen because they are a defining feature of the land. Examples of this include Darknoll Farm (from OE docce meaning dock), the frequent fern names and Rushmore (from OE rysc meaning

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Alex altmills1@gmail.comMills

Coates, R. 1999. Box in English place-names. English Studies 80: Cox,2–45.B.1976. The place-names of the earliest English records. Journal of the English Place-Name Society 8: 1975–1976.

With caveats in mind, there is a case for arguing that records such as the following may have legitimacy: Ilex aquifolium ; East Holme, Dorset (SY896859); pre-1086.

References

Baker, J. & Brookes, S. 2015. Identifying outdoor assembly sites in early medieval England. Journal of Field Archaeology 40 (1): 3–21.

Thanks to Robin Walls for taking the time to offer some very useful comments on an earlier draft. Remaining errors or eccentricities are my own.

Beaminster Museum 2015. Hanging by a Thread: Our Flax and Hemp Heritage. Barnes Publishers. Borges, R., Ortiz, B., Pereira, A.C.M., Keita, H., & Carvalho, J.C.T. 2019. Rosmarinus officinalis essential oil: a review of its phytochemistry, anti-inflammatory activity, and mechanisms of action involved. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 229: 29–45.

Pearman, D. 2017. The Discovery of the Native Flora of Britain & Ireland. Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, Bristol. Peterken, G. 2017. Recognising wood-meadows in Britain? British Wildlife 28: 155–165. Rackham, O. 1986. The History of the Countryside. J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London. Roche, J., Mitchell, F., Waldren, S. & Stefanini, B. 2018. Palaeoecological evidence for survival of Scots Pine through the Late Holocene in western Ireland: implications for ecological management. Forests 9: 350. Rumsey, F. 2018. The status of Teucrium chamaedrys (Wall Germander) in the British Isles. BSBI News 137: 20–23. Voigts, L. 1979. Anglo-Saxon plant remedies and the AngloSaxons. Isis 70 (2): 250–268. Watkins, F., Pendry, B., Corcoran, O & Sanchez-Medina, A., 2011. Anglo Saxon pharmacopoeia revisited: a potential treasure in drug discovery. Drug Discovery Today 16: 23–24, Witkamp,1069–1075.R.F.& van Norren, K. 2018. Let thy food be thy medicine… when possible. European Journal of Pharmacology 836: 102–114.

Plants in Dorset place-names

Plants provide not just the background for but the substance of so many of our places and, indeed, so much of our lives. The study of toponyms is one way we may rediscover this connection. We can enter a world of maps and trees, books and leaves, routes and roots.

The plants of Dorset place-names are nearly always common and familiar, those most closely connected with human lives. People ultimately relied on the world around them for … well, everything, as we do today. The networks were more immediate in the past and people’s experience of their flora on a day-to-day basis would have been deep.

Gelling, M. 2010. Signposts to the Past: Place-Names and the History of England. Phillimore, Chichester. Gelling, M. & Cole, A. 2014. The Landscape of Place-Names Shaun Tyas, Donnington. Hooke, D. 1989. Pre-Conquest woodland: its distribution and usage. Agricultural History Review 37: 113–129. Hooke, D. 2010. Trees in Anglo-Saxon England: Literature, Lore and Landscape. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge. Hooke, D. 2011. The woodland landscape of early Medieval England. In: N. Higham & M. Ryan (eds) Place-Names, Language and the Anglo-Saxon Landscape, vol. 10, pp. 143–74. Boydell & Brewer.

Jones, R. 2016. Responding to Modern Flooding: Old English Place-Names as a Repository of Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Journal of Ecological Anthropology, 18, 1. Mills, A.D. 1986. Dorset Place-Names: Their Origins and Meanings Roy Gasson Associates, Wimborne.

Chaucer, G. The Canterbury Tales pages/canons-yeomans-prologue-and-talehttps://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/

Fagundez, J. & Izco, J. 2015. Spatial analysis of heath toponymy in relation to present-day heathland distribution. International Journal of Geographical Information Science. 10.1080/13658816.2015.1017729.

This is a cursory glance so far. I am widening the source-scope, consulting, for example, medieval charters. Research suggests place-name studies can contribute to understanding of past distributions of habitats and biodiversity or ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge’ (Jones, 2016). These would be productive areas to explore.

Doyle, C.T. 2017. Anglo-Saxon Medicine and Disease: A Semantic Approach. PhD Thesis. https://doi.org/10.17863/ CAM.14430

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Falk, S. 2009. Warwickshire’s Wildflowers . Brewin Books, Gelling,Redditch.M.2002. The landscape of Beowulf. Anglo-Saxon England 31: 7–11.

Part 2.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 25

CLIVE LOVATT

More or less running in parallel, Proceedings of the Botanical Society of the British Isles began in April 1954 and after increasing to a larger format, came to an end in May 1969. Essentially it was a journal to which a general member, not working in academia or a museum could expect to contribute. Thus by comparison in 1967 there were papers on Teesdale plants, changes in the Flora of Leicestershire, keynote presentations, notes and keys from the Flora-writer’s conference, and Personalia and Notices to Members, a several page section that was more or less unchanged in style and content from when it had appeared in the Year Book (1949–1953). This would often include requests for information or samples for scientific study or to assist Flora writers.

Council voted to merge the two publications (hiving off Abstracts ), but the amateurs and professionals had different views and the continuing editors of Watsonia were resistant to reducing the professional impact of their journal. As David

In his outstanding account of 150 years of BSBI’s history, David Allen (The Botanists, 1986) wrote that in 1967, a change of printers (from the generous and almost in-house Buncle & Co. Ltd to a more commercial press) and the burgeoning of the annual Abstracts from Literature relating to the Vascular plants of the British Isles (47 pages when last issued in the Proceedings

In

and 68 pages when first appearing as a separate publication in May 1971) were putting pressure on the Society’s finances.

An early Watsonia cover from 1967, a few years prior to the start of BSBI News.

Contributions to a history of BSBI News.

Contributions to a history of BSBI News Part 2. The early years 1972–1977: becoming established

the years before BSBI News was launched the Society had two scientific journals. Watsonia ran from January 1949 to August 2010 and in 1967 had papers on Trifolium occidentale, British aquatic Myosotis, radiate Senecio vulgaris, Irish Sisyrinchium and cleistogamy in Spartina, as well as an important nomenclatural update for the forthcoming Critical Supplement to the Atlas of the British Flora (1968).

Allen explained, ‘The existence of just the one, forbiddingly learned main periodical hardly served as an inducement, moreover, to the less learned majority who needed to be recruited as members. Three years later, therefore, in 1972, BSBI News was started to help redress the balance’.

Forming as it does a manifesto for the next 50 years and more, it is quoted here in full.

In her article in BSBI News 100, BSBI News 100 not out! Mary Briggs (who was Hon. Secretary from the time of the second issue in July 1972) explained that after Proceedings was discontinued, ‘for some years notes and notices for meetings and BSBI affairs were printed on loose sheets of paper and mailed with Watsonia, etc.’ She continued, ‘The sheets were not numbered and mostly undated, easily mislaid and it would now be difficult to trace a complete set (even in BSBI Archives?)’. This was exactly what Clive Stace found recently when he was trying to establish what the BSBI publications archive was missing, and he asked David Pearman who asked me to help, and the two Clive’s compared notes.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man

In the first issue (January 1970) the Horticultural Adviser to the Ministry of Transport wrote with his regret that access to motorway verges for botanical survey was prohibited by law but he offered to suggest similar places beside trunk roads. Of particular interest here is the unsigned lead note in the July 1971 issue, headed ‘the future of the Newsletter’.

In BSBI News 100, Mary Briggs explained that ‘In 1971, David McClintock, President at the time, had the vision and determination to initiate a news journal for the Society, although at the time the need for this was not unanimously agreed’.

26 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

In the first article in the first issue of BSBI News, a long President’s introduction, McClintock started by comparing BSBI and the Wild Flower Society. ‘The WFS has done sterling work … but the great National Society is the B.S.B.I., and the B.S.B.I. only’. He pointed out that the annual sale of the two main wild flower books of the day (one of which he had co-authored) was 15,000, and that RSPB membership had doubled in three years to over 70,000, whilst BSBI membership was static at 1,700. ‘Birds are not forty times as popular as wild flowers’, he felt. The membership ratio is now more like 400 times in RSPB’s favour.

This is the last issue of the newsletter in this form. In future B.S.B.I. News will be sent out at the same time as the regular notices of meetings etc., [with] the first issue in January 1972. This will be a handy-sized publication of several pages giving more, and more topical, news of British plants and people connected with them. It is hoped that members will contribute items on activities, discoveries, personalities, or other information of general concern. Its precise contents have not yet been fully settled and will in any event be influenced by members’ wishes and contributions. Its object, however, will be more fully explained in the first issue, is to interest a wider range of people and so increase membership, and so benefit everyone. The editor is Mr JE Elsley, the botanist at the RHS gardens at Wisley, who has a good knowledge of wild plants as well as garden ones. He will welcome suggestions and contributions.

Between the demise of the Proceedings (last issue May 1969) and the launch of BSBI News (January 1972), there were four members’ newssheets issued, evidently accompanying four of the five issues of Watsonia published in that period. (We doubt if Personalia would have been issued with Watsonia for December 1969 as well as in January 1970.) First, there was an undated double sided foolscap sheet headed Personalia and Notices to Members, issued with Watsonia in January 1970 according to the copy provided by Clive Stace. Then, there were three issues of the A4 Newsletter which I found in my own collection, dated July 1970 (2 pages), March 1971 (2 pages) and July 1971 (4 pages, on two loose sheets).

David McClintock was blunt and to the point, particularly in the way that he dealt with the loss of Proceedings. Even if it saved money, it resulted in ‘an impression that the Society was above the level of the ordinary wild flowerer’, who then comprised threequarters of the membership. Meanwhile Watsonia

Contributions to a history of BSBI News.

The missing links: ‘Personalia and Notices to Members’ and the ‘Newsletter’

Part 2.

Introduction of line drawings

Almost three years later, there was a response on the subject of popular articles in Watsonia, by one of its editorial panel. ‘From time-to-time voices are raised complaining of the scarcity in Watsonia of articles of a more popular nature. This is a matter which the editors regret as much as the general reader. It is certainly not a question of editorial policy, but it is due purely and simply to a lack of such papers’ (BSBI News 8, November 1974).

• The Editor wants news of people, when they join, when they move, get new jobs, marry, breed, get ill or well, go to interesting places, what they discover or think or seek, and so on. He also wants shorter notes of all sorts.

• Watsonia … will include the more enduring material but the information in the Newsletters [sic] will not be ephemeral, and members should keep them for reference. It is intended to publish an index at intervals.

McClintock concluded his analysis of the situation: ‘only by increasing membership can the Society afford to give members the services and information they need … it must either dwindle to a largely professional membership … or expand to fill its role of fully representing British field botany’. Introducing BSBI News, he stated, ‘It is to assist with this latter aspect that this new publication has been started’. Laid out point by point, verbatim, it is quite clear that he well understood the vacuum that BSBI News should fill.

Accordingly it is difficult not to suspect that he might have modelled BSBI News on the other society’s publication, the Wild Flower Magazine. This goes back to the late 1890s and originally had six issues a year, but there were three in McClintock’s time. The January–April 1971 issue, no 360, has 40 printed pages and together with their usual branch and meeting reports, there are six pages of book reviews by McClintock, and there is an announcement of a joint BSBI/WFS meeting in Guernsey, to be led by him. Even though it did not first appear until the ninth issue of BSBI News in November 1974, BSBI’s long-running Adventive News had its roots in the Wild Flower Magazine: McClintock wrote the annual WFS Exotics column for 1959 to 1974 inclusive.

• The precise contents will depend in large measure on the wishes and contributions of members.

In the second issue of BSBI News in July 1972, McClintock begins his President’s introduction, ‘The contents of BSBI News No. 1 seem to have met with general approval’. In the fifth issue (May 1973), before handing over to Max Walters, he writes about how a record increase in membership occurred (in 1972) after three years of decline and an increase in subscriptions. The retiring editor offered his thanks, ‘I must mention Mr. David McClintock, whose enthusiasm must be seen to be believed’. Whatever hesitancy within the Society there may have been, McClintock must have felt thoroughly vindicated.

News. Part 2.

The next advance was in issue 9 (March 1975) which is the first to have a line drawing of an alien plant on the cover (see Figure 2 in Part 1 of this article in the last issue). This practice persisted as the norm for 30 years, after which colour photographs were used. Kenneth Beckett (the second editor), explained that an accurate line drawing was often needed to to a history of BSBI

• Members should feel that here is the place where they can see their contributions quickly in print, voice opinions and be in contact with what is going on.

McClintock, who later (1997–2000) uniquely became its President too, considered the Wild Flower Society was ‘in no way BSBI’s rival’ adding that ‘I have long been proud to be associated with it’. He then noted that ‘the publications of nearly all societies such as ours … are their main means of contact with all their members’.

might ‘look fine to the expert but may scare lesser mortals’ and ‘the illusion of excessive learnedness has prevailed and has undoubtedly hampered the growth of the Society’.

• We will be able to get news [sic] out much more rapidly with the quicker and cheaper printing method.

Contributions

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 27

28 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

issues also give updates on the progress of the Wild Plants Protection Bill, later passed as the Conservation of Wild Creatures and Wild Plants Act 1975 . This subject deserves a fuller account, but I will only mention (again) the disquieting public exchange between a mildmannered Bristolian and the might of the Conservation Committee about whether BSBI’s poster of ‘twenty species of very rare British plants as a contribution towards their conservation’ should be destroyed or reprinted (Issue 7, May 1974).

In the words of Kenneth Beckett, in the 9th issue (November 1974):

In issue 10 (September 1975), which reverted to the initial unillustrated style, Beckett admitted that ‘a front cover drawing will not be a regular feature’ but suggested that it might appear with alternate issues. Now, he was explicit that ‘ideally illustrations

Figure 1. Issue 12 (February 1976) showing an illustration of Stachys annua (Annual Yellow-woundwort) by Rosemary Wise. This style of cover (invariably depicting less familiar aliens) continued until issue 100 in September 2005, after which colour photographs were used.

clinch an identification, though he left it unstated that for native plants such drawings were already available, so he would have had alien plants in mind. Accordingly he took a proposal to the Publications Committee ‘to include a line drawing in News from time to time’. WFS had already been doing this since 1973 for Dr J.L. Mason’s Illustrated Catalogue of Bird Seed Aliens

The1971.early

Contributions

to a history of BSBI News. Part 2.

A frequent lament of honorary editors … is the difficulty of obtaining suitable articles. One can cajole or exhort members in an endeavour to extract suitable prose and finally write half of it oneself rather than admit defeat … Imagine my surprise and pleasure when taking over News to find a regular supply of items steadily coming in without any sort of prompting. Long may it continue.

should be of critical plants or little-known adventives’. Issue 11 (November 1975) has a drawing, but it is inside, though it could perfectly well have replaced the contents on the cover. The editor now specifically sought ‘further examples of [drawings of] our adventive plants’. From issue 12 (February 1976) the style became fixed (Figure 1), though there was no explanation given how this came about.

The first issue (January 1972) has a letter about some interesting adventives on the family farm of Lady Anne Brewis and how a ‘stinker’ of a botanist committed trespass and dug up some on two occasions: she called the note ‘a shoddy code of conduct’, in reference to the origin of the adventives from ‘shoddy’ and the official Code of Conduct that had been issued with Watsonia in July

Settling in: the first few issues of BSBI News

John Norton (Editor)

This seems an appropriate place to mention that anyone thinking of submitting an article should first read the guidelines linked on the BSBI News website (under ‘Submit an article’): bsbi.org/bsbi-news, or contact me for advice on subject matter, length, layout and illustrations, etc. For authors of longer, more technical articles (with tables, figures, maps and long reference lists) I can send more detailed instructions. Also please get in touch if you intend to produce maps for publication from the BSBI maps website (database.bsbi.org/maps).

Clive Lovatt was the Vice-county Recorder for West Gloucestershire (v.c. 34) and the Administrative Officer of the Society between 2011 and 2016. He submitted these two articles shortly before he died earlier this year. His obituary is included in this issue (p. 78). It is hoped to publish a full list of the print publications in the BSBI Archive (and those being sought) in a future issue of BSBI News. See Clive Stace’s note in the last issue (No. 150, April 2022, p. 76). Electronic versions of BSBI News, Watsonia, the Proceedings and some other publications are available in the BSBI publications archive: bsbi.org/ publications/archive

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 29

In issue 14 of December 1976 the new editor Edgar Wiggins pleaded that ‘it would be unfortunate if “BSBI News” were to become the monopoly of a small coterie of dedicated specialists’; as if as a warning, for he continued, ‘Fortunately there is no sign of this happening at present’. Thus Wiggins kept the ‘low profile’ and avoided ‘the brickbats that might be aimed at him’ and changed little except for giving us more News

David E. Allen, in his ever-readable history of our society, The Botanists (1986), later concluded of BSBI News that ‘this periodical has turned out to be extremely popular’.

no grounds for such a conflict: as Tim Rich says in BSBI News 149 (January 2022) ‘there are currently no taxonomists specialising in the British flora employed in any of our museums or universities’. We occupy a common ground as equals, neither knowing nor caring what the day job of our botanical colleagues might be.

Conclusions: over and out

Dedication

Clive Lovatt

With issue 14 of December 1976 Kenneth Beckett retired, due to increasing commitments in horticultural journalism, remarking: I am pleased to have been associated with these early years of News. Its beginnings with John Elsey were hesitant and there was a not inconsiderable amount of quiet opposition to the whole project from some of the more professional and elder members. Hopefully the years have proved them wrong and members in general now find News an outlet for comment and a vehicle for information exchange hitherto missing in the B.S.B.I. organisation. May it long continue and go from strength to strength.

For the late Mary Briggs, who wrote BSBI News 100 not out! in issue 100 (September 2005), and left me the difficult to obtain first issue, and to David Allen who continuously encouraged and inspired my interest in the history of the BSBI and of the history of botany, and of course still does.

Dick David’s masterful Presidential address in 1980 (Watsonia 13: 173–179) entitled ‘Gentlemen and Players’, takes up the matter of internal differences within the Society, at a time when amateurs and professionals still used to alternate as President. ‘Are gentlemen and players still playing in the same match?’, he asked, eventually concluding ‘Not only are gentlemen and players still in the same game –they are on the same side’.

Contributions to a history of BSBI News. Part 2.

In my own case, in September 1984 after advising the Nature Conservancy Council’s Deputy Regional Officer F. Russell Gomm that I was abandoning teaching biology and taking up accountancy, he wished me ‘good luck’ and added, ‘I have no doubt that natural history will continue as one of your main interests and that you will be known as one of the “amateurs” that knows far more than the “professionals”’. In time of course there could be

The character suite

Cirsium or Carduus?

This article looks at the commoner species of true thistle, in the genera Cirsium and Carduus, which gives us a manageable eight species to consider. These are typically upright plants with a basal rosette of spiny leaves giving rise to densely spiny (and often downy/woolly) stems and rich, reddishpurple flowers carried in a cluster at the tips of the main stem or its side branches. Apart from Creeping Thistle and Stemless Thistle, which are perennials, all are usually biennial, with the basal leaves produced in the first year and the flowering stems in the second. Most thistles can grow to 1–2 metres in height with the exception of Stemless Thistle, which actually has very short stems, barely as long as its flowerheads. The flowers are followed

BEGINNER’S CORNER

MIKE BEGINNER’SCREWECORNER:

While some characters will be found in more than one species, a suite of characters can be unique to a species and this helps us to identify thistles. For each

The thistles are a group that seem to demand our attention. Often tall and stately, they flower for extended periods over summer and attract a great diversity of insects to their flowers, including some of our most attractive butterflies. They also impose themselves on us with their needle-like spines, which most certainly demand attention! Quite a range of plants find themselves with ‘thistle’ in their name – globe-thistles, sow-thistles, star-thistles – most of which are not particularly closely related to the true thistles, but which are spiny, nevertheless.

Getting to know the common thistles

by seeds that have a feathery ‘parachute’ for wind dispersal called a pappus and which drift across the landscape in late summer.

Getting to know the common thistles

The first port of call in the process of identifying a thistle is narrowing down the choice of which genus it is in. Two features can be used to determine this; in plants already bearing seeds, a close look at the pappus with a hand lens will reveal whether the silky hairs are simple or whether they are feathered, i.e. they have side branches along their length. Simple hairs indicate a Carduus species, while feathered hairs indicate a Cirsium . The second feature is more variable and thus less useful, but involves the phyllaries – the greenish or brownish bracts that surround the outside of the flowerhead in the thistle family. As a general rule of thumb, phyllaries that are pressed tightly against the flowerhead indicates Cirsium, but spiny, outward-spreading phyllaries could indicate either genus.

Left to right: a typical thistle pappus; the feathered pappus of Creeping Thistle (Cirsium arvense); the spiny phyllaries of Spear Thistle (C. vulgare). Photographs by the author.

30 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Mike mikedcrewe@gmail.comCrewe

Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare). Widespread and common throughout British and Ireland. Leaves with long, lanceolate segments, tipped with long, needle-like spines. Stems lightly hairy and with spiny wings, especially in the upper part of the plant. Phyllaries spreading, long and spiny. Flowerheads large, reddish-purple, carried singly or up to three per stem.

Creeping Thistle (Cirsium arvense). Widespread and common throughout Britain and Ireland. The bane of farmers and gardeners; a perennial with far-reaching, creeping roots and thus differing from other thistles by forming persistent colonies of stems with no basal leaf rosettes. Stem leaves greyish-green with undulating margins. Stems smooth and spineless. Phyllaries pressed against the flowerhead with just the pointed tips curving outwards. Flowerheads small, distinctively pale lilac (rarely pink), in small clusters.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 31

species, it pays to look at details of the leaves, stem, and the phyllaries of the flowerheads, with the latter especially giving good clues to the identification. You will find that, while some characters are shared, the combination of these features is different for each species and will provide you with an identification.

BEGINNER’S CORNER: Getting to know the common thistles

Here, we’ll go through each species in turn and look at these features. Note that Woolly and Stemless Thistles are absent from Ireland.

32 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre). Common throughout Britain and Ireland in damp meadows and marshy places. Leaves with more slender segments than those of Spear Thistle and often purple-tinged, especially around their margins. Stems downy and with many spiny wings. Phyllaries pressed against the flowerhead with just the pointed tips curving outwards. Flowerheads small, reddish-purple, carried in many-headed clusters. This species commonly produces plants with white flowers (though they can rarely occur in other species, too).

BEGINNER’S CORNER: Getting to know the common thistles

Woolly Thistle (Cirsium eriophorum). A plant of chalky soils, having its best populations in the Yorkshire Wolds, southward from the eastern Peak District to Cambridgeshire and from the West Midlands south through the Cotswolds to Wiltshire and the Isle of Wight. The ‘Queen of Thistles’, forming a magnificently stately plant. Leaves ladder-like, with long, narrow segments, whitish underneath and tipped with long, needle-like spines. Stems thickly covered in cobweb-like hairs. Phyllaries spreading, with down-curved, spiny tips hidden amongst dense cobwebbing. Flowerheads single, large, reddish-purple, often nodding under their own weight.

Stemless Thistle (Cirsium acaule). Widespread south and east of a line from the Humber to the Severn, but largely absent from Devon and Cornwall and low-lying, alluvial areas such as the Fens, Norfolk Broadland and the Thames Basin. Forms small clusters of basal leaf rosettes in chalk and limestone grassland. Leaves with swept-back segments, rather like a spiny dandelion. May produce short, spineless stems in longer grassland. Phyllaries pressed against the flowerhead. Flowerheads slender, reddish-purple, carried singly.

Slender Thistle (Carduus tenuiflorus). Mostly a coastal species and particularly common on the heavier soils around estuarine habitats. Scattered inland, often where introduced. An annual or biennial, growing to 1m in height but often less. Leaves variable but typically with broader side lobes than those of Spear or Marsh thistles and often becoming grey with mildew later in the season. Stems downy and with several rows of wings bearing long spines. Phyllaries broad-based, tapering to a point and projecting outward for much of their length. Flowerheads small, pale pinkish-purple, carried in tight clusters.

Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans). Widespread but often local on dry, usually calcareous, soil through much of Britain, but absent from the uplands and much of Scotland and Ireland. A greyish-green plant; leaves with short, downy, intricately twisted and spined side lobes. Stems very downy and with spiny wings. Phyllaries strongly recurved, long and spiny and with white cobwebbing. Flowerheads large, reddish-purple, carried singly and distinctively nodding to one side when mature (an alternative name is ‘Nodding Thistle’).

Welted Thistle (Carduus crispus). Widespread throughout much of the country, but largely absent from higher ground; rare in Ireland. Typically a plant of nutrient-enriched substrates, including streamsides, brownfield land and arable field margins. Leaves variable but typically with broader side lobes than those of Spear or Marsh thistles and with spiny margins. Stems downy, with several rows of spiny wings. Phyllaries slender, projecting outward for much of their length. Flowerheads small, reddish-purple, usually clustered.

BEGINNER’S CORNER: Getting to know the common thistles

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 33

We do not wish to be prescriptive; we merely ask that members give some thought to these matters, particularly in light of this recent development. David Pearman has expressed a willingness to receive specimens from members which he would then pass onto the Natural History Museum. The specimens should be well pressed, with full details of date, quantity, collector, habitat, grid reference, locality and any other notes the collector thinks might be relevant. They should also be unmounted. We will gently encourage the retention of material where we judge that it would be good practice, while recognising that in the end it is a matter that must be left to the discretion of individual recorders. Vicecounty Recorders could also have an important role to play and might be particularly well placed to promote the case for making vouchers at the vice-county level, if not also in the collection and forwarding of material.

For an example of how much information an herbarium sheet can provide, see the scanned image on p. 44 of this issue.

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Adventives & Aliens News 27

fter various email communications, David Pearman and I have jointly decided to use this month’s preamble to say something on the important subject of herbarium specimens and alien plant records. As we take advantage of the latest innovations to record plants and make use of that data in the here and now, it is all too easy to lose sight of what future botanists might require from us in the way of evidence for what will by then be historical records. Photographs are very useful and will of course form a part of that evidence but sometimes there is no substitute for actual preserved material, particularly in the case of remarkable records.

34 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Adventives and Aliens News 27

When considering whether to collect material and/or how much to collect, a responsible balance should be struck. The days of collecting vast quantities of material to be shared among many institutions and individuals must firmly remain a thing of the past. On the other hand a specimen should consist of enough material to allow for reliable identification. Eric Clement has commented on the sometimes mistaken practice of collecting too conservatively and thus leaving an inadequate specimen to posterity.

We surmise that one of the reasons for the relative scarcity of modern specimens in existing herbaria, is a perception that they lack the facilities for the accession of new material. Why go through the time-consuming business of preserving specimens when there is nowhere they can be deposited on a permanent basis, accessible to future generations? But this matter has now been discussed with the Natural History Museum, who are keen to host such a scheme. They are looking to put in place a process that would allow new records to be deposited and vouchered there.

What would constitute a remarkable alien plant record? Any definition is bound to be a little arbitrary, but we think any taxon that is new to Britain and Ireland or for which there has been only one previous record would make a good starting point. Then there are hybrids and various critical taxa which are always difficult to name and where taxonomic changes are likely to be of significance. It could also be extended to taxa that are traditionally very rare or which have turned up in what seems to be an unusual habitat, or suspected non-native taxa which have defied identification completely or only been identified to family or genus.

A

Compiled by Matthew Berry Flat 2, Lascelles Mansions, 8–10 Lascelles Terrace, Eastbourne, BN21 4BJ m.berry15100@btinternet.com

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS

V.c. 4 (N. Devon)

Ampelodesmos mauritanicus, Porthilly Cove, East Cornwall (v.c. 2). David Pearman

Adventives & Aliens News 27

Ampelodesmos mauritanicus (Poir.) T. Durand & Schinz (Diss Grass, Rope Grass). Porthilly Cove, Rock (SW93667550), 21/5/2022, D. & A. Pearman, T. Nightingale (det. E.J. Clement): three wellestablished clumps on rocks at base of low cliffs which are densely covered with Hedera hibernica (Atlantic Ivy), Tamarix gallica (Tamarisk) and Prunus spinosa (Blackthorn). The rocks which are above HWMST have only a thin scattering of Crithmum maritimum (Rock Samphire) and Anthyllis vulneraria (Kidney Vetch). Apparently new to Britain and Ireland, this grass is now quite widely available from nurseries and it is somewhat surprising that it has not been recorded in the wild before now. The houses above the cliffs are mainly replacements of older bungalows with extensively landscaped gardens. It was not possible to see if it was growing in those.

V.c. 2 (E. Cornwall)

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 35

Malope trifida (Mallow-wort). Newton Abbot (SX8472472885), 6/2022, R. Smith, J. Day & P. Sansum (det. P. Sansum): in a reseeded roadside below Highweek. Other aliens found on these verges in May and June included Eschscholzia californica, Nigella damascena, N. hispanica, Adonis annua, Silene pendula and Centaurea cyanus. A western Mediterranean annual (Malvaceae) with a conspicuous epicalyx of three ovate-orbicular segments. M. malacoides L. has also occurred, it is a perennial with a stem hairy above (vs glabrous) and leaves longer than wide (vs mostly as wide or wider than long). For G.M.S. Easy’s drawings see p. 1 of BSBI News 53. As well as such mixes, it is perhaps a garden escape and has also been in bird seed (it is a common field weed of N. Africa) and wool. Stace (2019): 399.

A densely tufted perennial grass up to 2 or 3 m tall, native to Italy, Sicily, Tunisia and Morocco. The inflorescence is a long, interrupted, more or less one-sided panicle with drooping branches of many spikelets, c. 12–17 mm long. The spikelets are solitary, laterally compressed, of 2–5 florets and break up above the glumes. The scarious, subequal glumes are lanceolate-aristate and 6–12 mm long. The leathery, often reddish lemmas are silkily hairy in the lower halves, have scarious margins, bidentate tips and a 2 mm awn. The leaves are linear and have very rough, sharp margins, up to 100 cm long and 4–7 mm wide. The ligule is a lanceolate-lacerate membrane, 8–20 mm long. It is a species of dry, sunny, scrubby terrain and rocky places, often coastal on calcareous substrates. The second of the two given English names is a reference to its local use in rope making. The genus is monotypic.

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS:

V.c. 3 (S. Devon)

Senecio inaequidens (Narrow-leaved Ragwort). Okehampton (SX593961), 17/7/2022, H. Marshall (conf. & comm. R. Hodgson): one plant in a car park. The first v.c. 4 record. A S. African perennial (Asteraceae), formerly a wool alien, increasing in a variety of ruderal habitats since at least the early 2000s. Clement et al (2005): 337. Stace (2019): 801.

V.c. 5 (S. Somerset)

V.c. 6 (N. Somerset)

Peltaria alliacea (Garlic Cress). Upper Swainswick (ST758682), 21/5/2022, R. Randall: a colony extending for c. 2 m on west-facing, sunny hedge bank; a purple-leaved form likely escaped from cultivation. It seems to be the second British/Irish record. A tufted perennial (Brassicaceae) from central Europe, grown as a leaf vegetable for salads. The other known site is in Armadale in v.c. 104, where it was first recorded in 2006 (‘large clump top of shore’) and last formally recorded in 2015. Rob Randall could not be certain if the poor fruiting of the Upper Swainswick colony indicated a hybrid (perhaps with P. angustifolia) or self-sterility. Stace (2019): 446.

Lathyrus grandiflorus (Two-flowered Everlasting-pea). Yeovil (ST56971626), 18/6/2022, D. Leadbetter (comm. D. Leadbetter): extensive colony on west side of Yeovil Pen Mill station, with many plants escaped onto bank outside. Known here since 1989. Clement et al (2005): 169. Stace (2019): 173.

V.c. 11 (S. Hants)

Spiraea × rosalba (Intermediate Bridewort). Taunton (ST22), 19/6/2022, S.J. Leach (comm. S.J. Parker & S.J. Leach): a single plant on a rough scrubby bank in Longrun Meadow, where unlikely to have been planted. The first v.c. 5 record, it might also be a first record for south-west England. A sterile garden hybrid (Rosaceae) with pale pink flowers in a cylindrical panicle and narrowly ovate leaves. Stace (2019): 204.

Akebia × pentaphylla (Makino) Makino (Five-leaf Akebia). Chandlers Ford (SU434206), 30/3/2022, D. Leadbetter (comm. D. Leadbetter): growing in hedge in Winchester Road between SU43462067

Peltaria alliacea, Upper Swainswick (whole plant, leaf bases, fruit), North Somerset (v.c. 6). Rob Randall

36 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Epilobium pedunculare (Rockery Willowherb). West Porlock (SS84), 8/5/2022, G. Lavender (comm. S.J. Parker & S.J. Leach): two spots in West Porlock Woods. The first v.c. 5 records. A New Zealand perennial (Onagraceae) sometimes grown in gardens. A much rarer escape than E. brunnescens (New Zealand Willowherb), largely restricted to the north and west of Britain and the west of Ireland

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Adventives & Aliens News 27

where sometimes well naturalised. See Adventives & Aliens News 18, v.c. 110.

and SU43492070. Discovered here by Martin Rand in 2021. A semi-evergreen woody climber (Lardizabalaceae) which is a hybrid of two east Asian species, A. quinata (Houtt.) Decne. and A. trifoliata (Thunb.) Koidz. The leaflets have sinuate-crenate margins and are mostly grouped in fives but also occasionally threes or fours. See Adventives & Aliens News 26, v.c. 9.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 37

V.c. 14 (E. Sussex) Amaranthus deflexus (Perennial Pigweed). Eastbourne (TV59349955), 12/8/2021, M. Berry (conf. E.J. Clement): two plants in gutter, Dacre Road (Old Town). At least one plant was still there in 2022 (M. Berry pers. obs.). The second post-2000 Sussex record. A S. American perennial (Amaranthaceae) which along with the rather similar A. blitum (Guernsey Pigweed) seems to be increasing in this country, particularly where the climate is more ‘Mediterranean’. Adventives & Aliens News 12, v.c. 17. Stace (2019): 530.

Levisticum officinale (Lovage). Eastbourne (TQ62420024), 17/6/2022, M. Berry (conf. E.J. Clement): one plant, basal leaves only (and smelling very strongly of Celery), self-sown in soil pocket in gutter, Bexhill Road (Seaside). The second Sussex record. A more or less glabrous perennial (Apiaceae), probably native in Iran and widely naturalised in Europe, particularly where mountainous. In this country it is cultivated for flavouring and also almost certainly grown decoratively. This plant seems to

Crocus kotschyanus (Kotschy’s Crocus). Church Crookham (SU81005199), 12/10/2021, A. Mundell: many hundreds over c. 20 m × 20 m area of grassy triangle beneath Sweet Chestnuts beside Portland Drive. Spreading from planted, this species is new to Hampshire. See Adventives & Aliens News 25, v.c. 95. Stace (2019): 935.

Cirsium arvense (L.) Scop. var. integrifolium Wimm. & Grab. (Creeping Thistle). Lymington area (SZ29169613), 3/7/2020, M. Rowe (conf. E.J. Clement): on roadside by Gordleton Mill (restaurant), Silver Street. A variety that has sub-entire leaves with somewhat arachnoid hairy lower surfaces.

V.c. 12 (N. Hants)

ADVENTIVES

Adventives & Aliens News 27

Berberis aggregata (Clustered Barberry). Battramsley (SZ30209896), 16/10/2021, M. Rowe (conf. E.J. Clement): 2 m bush with arching branches, in scrub just south of Setley Pond. The yellow flowers were seen earlier (22/7/2021). A garden shrub native to western China, with flowers/berries in crowded panicles. Stace (2019): 106.

Nicotiana mutabilis Stehmann & Semir (Changing Tobacco). Eastbourne (TV59699734), 15/7/2022, M. Berry (conf. E.J. Clement): one self-sown plant at base of Elm stump, Rowsley Road (Meads). Also with one self-sown plant of Althaea cannabina L. (Hemp-leaved Hollyhock), originating from the same garden. It has numerous, relatively small (c. 3 cm long and limb c. 2 cm across), slightly nodding flowers starting pure white and fading to pale pink and darker pink shades and with a pale green throat. A native of Brazil (Solanaceae) and currently in vogue as a tall, branched, colourful garden annual, which has the capacity to escape, at least on a chalky soil. Unusually for this genus the flowers are scentless.

Akebia × pentaphylla, Chandlers Ford, South Hampshire (v.c. 11). David Leadbetter

Amsinckia micrantha (Common Fiddleneck). Malta Barracks (SU85805253), 12/7/2021, C. Reid (conf. A. Mundell from photos): in Forge Lane. This annual of light soils (Boraginaceae) native to western N. America has always been very rare in Hampshire as a whole, with only 8 previous records. Stace (2019): 594–595. AND ALIENS:

Gazania rigens (Treasureflower). Sheringham (TG15524349), 19/6/2022, S. Pryce (comm. J. Parmenter): self-seeded into a lawn in a seaside park, probably from nearby municipal beds. This seems to be the second v.c. 27 record and the third for Norfolk. More self-seeded plants were seen later in a lawn adjacent to new housing by the entrance to a supermarket in North Walsham (TG284304). A more or less mat-forming perennial that has leathery, dark green leaves, densely white-felted below and ranging from entire to irregularly lobed. The solitary radiate capitula arise from the leaf axils on thickish peduncles. They are 4.0 cm to 6.4 cm across, the rays orange-yellow often with a dark basal blotch, the disc yellow or dark-coloured. The herbaceous

Luzula nivea (Snow-white Wood-rush). Near Horsford (TG17531732), 5/5/2022, J. Parmenter (comm. J. Parmenter): single plant by a bridleway at Broadland Country Park, a long way from nearest habitation. First record for both v.c. 27 and Norfolk. A European native (Juncaceae) grown in gardens, best told from L. luzuloides (White Wood-rush) by its longer tepals. There are 58 records in the DDb (minus duplicates), most post-2010. Stace (2019): 987.

V.c. 40 (Salop)

Gazania rigens, Sheringham, East Norfolk (v.c. 27). Suki Pryce

Isatis tinctoria (Woad). Norwich (TG235083), 19/5/2021, L. Parkerson: seemingly persisting in the Mountergate area of the city, where first recorded in 2018. A more or less glabrous biennial or perennial (Brassicaceae) found throughout Europe. It is thought some recent records might be connected to a renewed interest in natural plant dyes. Stace (2019): 445.

Urtica pilulifera (Roman Nettle). Burford (SO58086809), 9/7/2022, A. Woods (comm. J. Martin & M. Cousins): ‘a somewhat sad specimen’ in an Olive tree container in Burford House Garden Centre; ‘worth recording as it could be a case of next

have arisen from a stray seed originating in a nearby garden, where a c. 2 m plant of Lovage was observed above a high wall. Clement et al (2005): 206. Stace (2019): 861.

38 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Adventives & Aliens News 27

V.c. 27 (E. Norfolk)

Luzula nivea, Broadland Country Park, East Norfolk (v.c. 27). Jo Parmenter

phyllaries are partly fused into a cup-like structure and the achenes (cypselae) are densely hairy. A S. African native (Asteraceae), once only reliably hardy by the coast in the south of the country, and even then succumbing in severe winters, this picture might have changed somewhat in recent times and therefore also how frequently it occurs as a casual or established escape. Stace (2019): 768.

Adventives & Aliens News 27

Euphorbia maculata, Whatstandwell, Derbyshire (v.c. 57). Mick Lacey

stop nearby disturbed ground, and it’s useful to have a record of likely arrival routes’, a view I completely endorse. The first v.c. 40 record. A monoecious Mediterranean annual (Urticaceae) with the female flowers in striking, globular clusters. It has or had a history as a garden casual in the London area, being introduced by accident periodically from southern Europe. Stace (2019): 305.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 39

Galium murale (Small Goosegrass). Enderby (SP53209891), 6/7/2022, L.-A. Heald (conf. F. Rumsey/comm. G. Hall): on kerb edge in Kipling Drive. The first vice-county record. On 9/7/2022, Brian Laney found several more plants in Kipling Drive at SP53219891. Stace (2019): 574.

V.c. 57 (Derbys)

Phedimus kamtschaticus (Kamtchatka Stonecrop). Westhouse (SD67427376), 3/7/2022, H. Beck (comm. H. Beck): several clumps at wall base beside

Euphorbia maculata (Spotted Spurge). Whatstandwell (SK33165437), 25/6/2022, M. Lacey (comm. M. Lacey): 4 plants growing alongside the A6 in front of a café. First v.c. 57 record. A drawing of this procumbent N. American spurge, leaves of which usually but not invariably have dark blotches, graces the front cover of BSBI News 13, but unfortunately the stipules were omitted from it. It is increasing, probably being spread through the trade in potted plants. Stace (2019): 359.

V.c. 64 (M.W. Yorks)

V.c. 55 (Leics)

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS:

A65. There are three other v.c. 64 records in the DDb. Another east Asian species, P. hybridus (Siberian Stonecrop), is similar but has overwintering stems with evergreen leaves. P. kamtschaticus itself is split into var. kamtschaticus (apparently very rare in Britain and Ireland), var. ellacombeanus (with relatively broad, bright green leaves and orange follicles) and var. middendorfianus (with much narrower, darker green leaves). Stace (2019): 150.

V.c. 62 (N.E. Yorks)

Veronica gentianoides Vahl (Gentian Speedwell). Redcar Steelworks (NZ576251), 16/8/2017, V. Jones & D. Barlow: on soil mound, presumably of garden origin. A rather robust, tufted herbaceous perennial with shiny, opposite, obovate leaves and a long, terminal, spike-like inflorescence of usually pale-blue flowers marked with darker streaks, c. 12 mm across, and up to 45 cm tall. A native of south-eastern Europe, there have been other recent records for v.cc. 29 (2012), 40 (2011) and 63 (2013).

Allium porrum (Leek). Carlabhagh (NB22474288), 24/8/2021, P.A. Smith: one flowering plant on road verge, the first v.c. record. It occurred here with Diplotaxis tenuifolia (Perennial Wall-rocket), only the second v.c. record. A bulbous perennial (Amaryllidaceae) grown widely in gardens and allotments as a leaf vegetable and turning up

V.c. 91 (Kincardines)

Allium siculum, South of Bell Busk, Mid-West Yorkshire (v.c. 64). Howard Beck

protected section of pavement between kerb and metal barrier, by a roundabout near the River Dee, Kincorth; seven plants with 40 flowering heads. Still present in 2022, but reduced in number (D. Elston pers. comm.). There are historical records for the area, at Inverurie paper mill in 1893 and Aberdeen Town links in 1903, but probably both were in v.c. 92. The first British record of the millennium, there are only 31 records for this Mediterranean grass in the DDb. Very like A. madritensis (Compact Brome) and in some cases not at all readily distinguishable from it, it typically has an extremely dense panicle with the rachis and the stem below the panicle both densely pubescent. British plants have often been associated with docks. Stace (2019): 1092.

Geranium × monacense nothovar. anglicum Yeo (Munich Crane’s-bill). Swillington (SE38223083), 3/5/2020, D.A. Broughton: first recorded in 2019 as a large clump at the base of a wall by a bridleway, Whitecliff Lane, but seeded further and inarguably in wild on ditch bank in 2020. The first v.c. record. The previous nothovar. could be mistaken for G. phaeum var. phaeum (Dusky Crane’s-bill) and this nothovar. for G. phaeum var. lividum, the G. phaeum parents in each case, but have more reflexed petals.

V.c. 110 (Outer Hebrides)

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Adventives

Allium siculum (Honey Garlic). South of Bell Busk (SD90455615), 31/5/2022, H. Beck (conf. M. Crewe/comm. H. Beck): many plants at two locations on the wooded banks of River Aire and nearby road verge. Adventives & Aliens News 25, v.c. 64.

V.c. 96 (Easterness)

Symphoricarpos × chenaultii (Chenault’s Coralberry). Carlabhagh (NB217427), 27/8/2021, P.A. Smith: originally planted, now spreading. The first v.c. record. A garden shrub (Caprifoliaceae), the hybrid of the N. American S. orbiculatus (Coralberry) and Mexican S. microphyllus, most likely to be found surviving or spreading, as in this case, from planted. Another garden hybrid, S. × doorenbosii (Doorenbos’ Coralberry) is very similar but has some leaf/fruit characters tending more to S. albus (Snowberry). Stace (2019): 827.

40 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Muscari botryoides (Compact Grape-Hyacinth). Inverness (NH68684577), 26/3/2021, I.P. Green: a number of plants scattered over small area under trees. A garden escape native to southern Europe. Differs from other Muscari species in its relatively short, broad leaves and more globose corollas. Stace (2019): 967.

& Aliens News 27

Anisantha rubens (Foxtail Brome). Aberdeen (NJ92990350), 15/7/2021, D. Elston (conf. O. Pescott/comm. D. Welch & D. Elston): on a

Geranium × monacense nothovar. monacense (Munich Crane’s-bill). Yeadon (SE20564105), 23/6/2010, D.A. Broughton: originally planted but now naturalised in Engine Fields Nature Reserve (first recorded as G. × monacense).

Adventives & Aliens News 27

Stipa brachychaeta Godr. (Punagrass). Gibberpatrick (S935094), 29/1/2022, M. Maddock (det. O. Pescott/comm. P.R. Green): one clump in garden where wild birds were fed a few years before. It was in flower at the end of January (P.R. Green pers. comm.). A densely tufted S. American perennial, an introduction in Australia and western N. America, it has a few records as a wool alien in this country. Drawing I of Figure 28 in Ryves et al (1996) depicts a single, enlarged (×10) floret of S. brachychaeta along with drawings of florets of 12 other Stipa species (and of another 12 species in Fig. 27). The whole lemma is hairy and has an awn of 10–18 mm. It was not included in the list of Niger aliens (Poaceae) in Gordon Hanson’s 2019 paper. Recent molecular studies place it in another genus, Amelichloa brachychaeta (Godr.) Arriaga & Barkworth.

References

V.c. H12 (Co. Wexford)

Poland, J. & Clement, E.J. 2020. The Vegetative Key to the British Flora (2nd edn). John Poland, Southampton.

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS:

Clement, E.J. & Foster, M.C. 1994. Alien Plants of the British Isles. Botanical Society of the British Isles, London. Clement, E.J., Smith, D.P.J. & Thirlwell, I.R. 2005. Illustrations of Alien Plants of the British Isles. Botanical Society of the British Isles, London.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 41

Ryves, T.B., Clement, E.J. & Foster, M.C. 1996. Alien grasses of the British Isles. Botanical Society of the British Isles, London.

Anisantha rubens (habitat, inflorescence, rachis), Aberdeen, Kincardineshire (v.c. 91). David Elston

relatively rarely in the ‘wild’, predominantly as a throw-out. It is possibly derived from A. ampeloprasum (Wild Leek). Stace (2019): 947–948.

Stace, C.A. 2019. New Flora of the British Isles (4th edn). C & M Floristics, Middlewood Green, Suffolk.

42 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Thlaspi alliaceum is an annual crucifer native to central and south-eastern Europe and northern Turkey. It has been known in the Hothfield/Ripper’s Cross area of v.c. 15 since 1923 and in the Maldon/

On a subsequent visit (11/5/2022) we found many more plants of T. alliaceum (probably hundreds) along a c. 50 m stretch of the upper bank on the opposite side of the Greenway, around TQ 7608 1063, with rather similar associates, but additionally Urtica dioica (Common Nettle), Sinapis arvensis (Charlock) and Conium maculatum (Hemlock).

n 13 April 2022, while exploring Combe Valley Countryside Park to the north of Bexhill-onSea, Judith Linsell and the author came across two close-set colonies of a white-flowered cruciferous plant on the lower bank of the Combe Valley Greenway (TQ 7609 1058). Some plants were small (c. 20 cm tall) and very few-flowered, others had greatly elongated racemes and stood between 60–70 cm tall. The fruits were narrowly winged, slightly notched siliculae, 6–9 mm long. Most of the plants only had flowers remaining at the tops of their inflorescences and these are what had caught my eye as we walked the footpath above the bank. The narrow, fleshy, toothed, clasping stem leaves reminded me of Thlaspi arvense (Field Penny-cress) and when I crushed one it released a distinctly garlicky odour. The strong suspicion began to form in my mind that the plants were Thlaspi alliaceum (Garlic Penny-cress) and this hardened into a virtual certainty when I keyed out specimens at home. Pressed material was later confirmed as this species by Eric Clement. We did not carry out systematic counts so can only give a broad estimate of 20–50 plants for the larger colony. The main associates were perfectly ordinary and included such species as Ranunculus acris

(Meadow Buttercup), R. repens (Creeping Buttercup), Vicia sativa subsp. segetalis (Common Vetch), Ervilia hirsuta (Hairy Tare), Crataegus monogyna (Hawthorn), Geranium dissectum (Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill), Galium aparine (Cleavers), Cirsium arvense (Creeping Thistle), Centaurea nigra s.l. (Common Knapweed), Sonchus asper (Prickly Sowthistle), Achillea millefolium (Yarrow), Anthriscus sylvestris (Cow Parsley), Festuca rubra agg. (Red Fescue), Dactylis glomerata (Cock’s-foot), Holcus lanatus (Yorkshire-fog), Alopecurus pratensis (Meadow Foxtail) and Bromus hordeaceus subsp. hordeaceus (Soft Brome).The only other possible ‘exotic’ was one very immature plant of a leguminous species, identified vegetatively as Medicago sativa (Lucerne).

Thlaspi alliaceum L. (Garlic Penny-cress) in Combe CountrysideValleyPark (v.c. 14)

MATTHEW BERRY

O

Thlaspi alliaceum, Combe Valley Countryside Park, East Sussex (v.c. 14). Judith Linsell

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Thlaspi alliaceum L. in Combe Valley Countryside Park (v.c. 14)

The Combe Valley Countryside Park lies between Bexhill and Hastings covering an area of c. 4 square kilometres. It contains two SSSIs and about half of it is privately owned and farmed. It is served by a number of rights of way, one of which, the Combe Valley Greenway, is used by walkers, cyclists and horse riders, and runs from Sidley in the west to Upper Wilting Farm and the north-western edge of Hastings in the east, and lying mostly just to the south and east of the new link road (Combe Valley Road). The central valley area (of the Combe Haven river) floods in winter and in the summer is marshy and studded with large pools. The Thlaspi site lies along the Greenway close to Adam’s Farm.

Eric Clement is of the opinion that T. alliaceum might be a relic native of floodplains/river valleys in those British localities where it has been long known, albeit one with a markedly disjunct European distribution. It is of course possible that seed was introduced somehow to what happened to be suitable habitat much more recently and provided the conditions for a seed bank. Has a likely vector or vectors ever been identified in that case? The Bexhill record might fit this ‘native pattern’ only if it has been overlooked in the past or if older records were to come to light.

Thlaspi alliaceum, showing hairy stem bases (they can occasionally be glabrous), Combe Valley Countryside Park, East Sussex (v.c. 14). Judith Linsell

Beeleigh Abbey area of v.c. 18 since 1951 (Clement & Foster, 1994; Stace, 2019)1. In the Ripper’s Cross area it has been recorded mainly from winter-wet arable edges quite close to the Great Stour; in the Beeleigh Abbey area mainly from disturbed ground/ banks/verges close to the Chelmer and Blackwater Canal. There have also been a number of casual records. For example, in v.c. 28 it occurred as a weed of ornamental planters in Fakenham and Wells in 1991. In v.c. 29 a 1972 record was for the edge of a field between the villages of Ashwell and Steeple Morden. There is also another v.c. 14 record from 2003 when it was found in disturbed rough grassland in Cuckmere Way in urban Brighton. Other apparently casual occurrences have been variously recorded from a brick pit or former brick pit, the Denbighshire seashore (although according to Clement & Foster [1994], this record is an error), a canal, a road verge and an arable field margin. I

1 Stace (2019) duly notes its recent segregation as Mummenhoffia alliacea (L.) Esmailbegi & Al-Shehbaz – in this regard it might be significant that the seed ornamentation of T. arvense and T. alliaceum is very different; the seeds of the former being concentrically ridged and those of the latter finely alveolate.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 43

The Combe Valley Greenways were officially opened in 2016 (there is no corresponding route indicated on my 1:50000 OS map of the area from 2003). It has not been possible to determine where the earth used to make the upper and lower banks came from, or if this particular part of the Countryside Park has ever been subject to flooding, but it certainly lies very close to the area that does flood.

Discussion

could find no habitat details for what seems to be a casual 1996 record at Icklingham in v.c. 26.

There are a number of other species which are also familiar as ruderals but whose main/persistent populations/former patterns of distribution could be said to more or less follow the old floodplains, such as Myosurus minimus (Mousetail), Erysimum cheiranthoides (Treacle-mustard), Barbarea stricta (Small-flowered Winter-cress), Brassica nigra (Black Mustard), Crepis

Thlaspi alliaceum herbarium specimen showing a plant with basal and stem leaves and different stages of development of flowering and fruiting stems. The notes read ‘Abundant weed of disturbed ground, Beeleigh Falls, Maldon, Essex, 24 Apr. 1966, Coll. J.L. Mazon & EJC. Map ref. 839082’. The annotation above reads ‘Stem can be(±)glabrous nr. base (usu. hairy). EJC’. Courtesy of Eric Clement

References

As far as the Bexhill site goes, the creation of the new link road and the Greenways has certainly meant a lot of recent disturbance, but there has also been a certain amount of planting and sowing

Matthew Berry

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Thlaspi alliaceum L. in Combe Valley Countryside Park (v.c. 14)

Flat 2, Lascelles Mansions, 8–10 Lascelles Terrace, Eastbourne, BN21 4BJ m.berry15100@btinternet.com

Acknowledgements

Clement, E.J. & Foster, M.C. 1994. Alien Plants of the British Isles. Botanical Society of the British Isles, London. Stace, C.A. 2019. New Flora of the British Isles (4th edn). C & M Floristics, Middlewood Green, Suffolk.

My thanks to Judith Linsell for her company in the field and for taking the photographs, and to Eric Clement for his always thoughtprovoking contributions.

44 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 biennis (Rough Hawk’s-beard) and Poa palustris (Swamp Meadow-grass). None of which has been recorded for the tetrad which contains the Thlaspi site (TQ71Q). However it might be worth noting that the only extant E. Sussex M. minimus population occurs in farmland at nearby Crowhurst (TQ71K).

of the new banks and verges, and possibly also the importation of topsoil. Even if the presence of T. alliaceum predates all these changes, an earlier introduction (e.g. with agricultural grain or animal feed) cannot be excluded. It is also of considerable interest that there was a record in 2019 for the Comber Greenway at Knock, Belfast, in v.c. H38. It does obviously occur in this country as an introduced species but perhaps that is not the whole story. We can probably never know for certain; I think its status as an overlooked British/ Irish native (in its long established sites at least) remains an intriguing possibility, nevertheless.

The Grape-hyacinth (Muscari neglectum) is one of these Breckland specialities and until recently was listed as Vulnerable in Britain (Cheffings & Farrell, 2005) and therefore monitored by the BFG1. It has 1 It has now been moved to the Parking List, a holding area for Red Data Book species now presumed to be neophytes.

Above: Muscari neglectum (Grape-hyacinth) in Breckland habitat at Wordwell, West Suffolk (v.c 26). Photographs by the author.

reckland is a rare and remarkable area of low nutrient alkaline and acid soils that are said to be reminiscent of true deserts. Forty-three percent of Breckland is protected at a national or international level for its wildlife or geological interest. The Breckland Biodiversity Audit 12, (Dolman et al., 2010) found that 28% of the priority S41 species in the UK occur in Breckland and 72 species have their UK distribution restricted to or their primary stronghold in Breckland. The Breckland Flora Group (BFG) was set up with the aim to help these plants to survive and spread using a network of trained volunteers to monitor the plants and work alongside experts.

Simpler ways of differentiating Muscari neglectum and Muscari armeniacum in the field

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 45

a common garden relation (Garden Grape-hyacinth M. armeniacum ) and an introduced naturalised relation, the Compact Grape-hyacinth (M. botryoides), which is scattered and rare and was not considered in this investigation. A variety of sources have written about the differences between M. neglectum and M. armeniacum but many of the BFG volunteers have found problems in identifying between them without side-by-side comparison between the two species. In particular, the different flower colours or shape noted by Stace (2020), and others (Blamey, 2013; Easy, 1998; Harrap, 2013; Rose & O’Reilly, 2006) are not easy to use for those volunteers not familiar with M. neglectum, especially as the colours can vary with age and references to comparative length or width were not useful for plants found in poor Breckland soils.

TERRY & HELEN MOORE

B

a b c

• the total length of the flower stem and

ADVENTIVES

The situation was complicated by the publication of Alan Leslie’s superbly researched Flora of Cambridgeshire which mentions sites with Muscari containing plants which are intermediate between M. armeniacum and M. neglectum and thought to be hybrids. However our project continued, knowing (or rather hoping) that most of Breckland sites used were not near enough to garden varieties and with the hope that if an intermediate turned up, it could be recognised.

Muscari armeniacum (Garden Grape-hyacinth)

This report reviews the first two years of study during Covid restrictions. Having chosen a site and a group of plants, volunteers were asked to choose not more than five plants per plant group and for each plant to measure:

Finally, after much discussion, it was decided to design a set of questions which would lead us to a simple way to distinguish between the two species in the field. This approach was apt in its timing as several of our volunteers used the first Covid-19 lockdown (in 2020) to apply the questions to the garden form and there was just enough easing the following year (2021) to visit local sites containing known and confirmed M. neglectum

from an enlarged photograph, especially for very small plants found on very poor Breckland soils. The veins became clearer if the completed cards were left for a few hours or overnight to dry slightly.

46 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

A German text (Jager et al., 2013) suggested that certain measurements from dissected flowers were different between the two species but this proved to be an unreliable field operation so any results were

which several authors mention was tried but several of our volunteers could not detect any scent at all before one of our number found a

Scope and methods

Separately they were asked to count the number of leaves attached to the bulb and the number of veins showing on the back of a leaf, both used by Poland & Clement (2020). Finally they were to look at the mid-leaf cross-sectional shape of the longest leaf and allocate it one of the mid-crosssection shapes shown in Figure 1. Counting the number of leaf veins was made easier by cutting a 1 cm or 2 cm middle section of the longest leaf and sticking the flattened section on a piece of card with double-sided Sellotape with the underside of the leaf upwards. Counting normally takes at least a 10× or 20× magnifying lens so is easier to count

Those measurements were used in all combinations to calculate ratios.

• the length of the raceme.

Figure 1. The mid-leaf cross-sectional shapes that the researchers were asked to match. AND ALIENS: Muscari neglectum and M. armeniacum field identification

Therejected.scent

• the length of the longest leaf and its maximum width,

Leaf shape, flower colour and scent

The analysis of ratios seems to have no value and was not taken further as clearly the original properties can vary independently.

Most books quote colour of the raceme as a potential identification feature but this can be difficult for those unfamiliar with the plants without having examples side by side. Stace (2019) describes sterile flowers being paler, which complicates the identification, so we had decided to look at the colour change from top to bottom of the raceme (Blamey, 2013; Harrap, 2013; Poland & Clement, 2020; Rose & O’Reilly, 2006) rather than trying to estimate absolute colours. This was slightly successful with 13 considered the base of M. neglectum to be darker with 7 returning no change, however only 9 considered that M. armeniacum was darker at the base, with 19 returning no change.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 47

The shapes of the longest leaf at its mid-section were different. M. armeniacum had 21 out of 31 returns choosing the profile of ‘c’, with the rest split having 3 for ‘a’ and 7 for ‘b’. However 30 out of 32 M. neglectum chose ‘a’ with ‘b’ taking the other 2. There is an agreement of leaf shape ‘a’ for M. neglectum by Harrap (2013), Stace (2019) and Rose (2006) but no description of the M. armeniacum leaf is included which, according to our returns, is different.

ADVENTIVES

Results and Discussion

All results were all entered into a spreadsheet for automatic counting and calculations. It was assumed that the spread of all numerical properties followed a simple normal, bell-shaped, curve from which the average and 2× standard deviation of each of the species were calculated and examined for overlap. Statistically this includes 95.4% of all results if they do follow a normal distribution. This crude but quick measure allowed judgement as there was insufficient data to use more complex formula-based conclusions.

The scent was most interesting as some authors consider the scents of the two species to be an identifying criterion, including Rose & O’Reilly (2006) which quotes M. neglectum as plum-scented, and M. armeniacum as scentless. Plant Crib (Easy, 1998) mentions the starch scent of M. neglectum and that M. armeniacum is scentless to most people. Initially our volunteers described a mixture of descriptions where scent could be detected but when changing the procedure to an evening scent it became detectable. M. armeniacum was principally thought to be faint but unpleasant and sweet, and when asked if either species smelt like starch there was some agreement for M. armeniacum but not for M. neglectum, which was the converse of Plant Crib. Following discussions, M. neglectum was considered to have a scent like Parma Violets.

Two potential simple counts were looked at. Firstly the number of leaves per bulb (without digging them up) and then the number of veins seen on the back of a leaf (Figure 3). Poland & Clement (2020) and Harrap (2013) suggests a range of 3–6 leaves per bulb for M. neglectum for which our average of 4.97 is comfortably within, but the value of 5.35 for M. armeniacum was outside the large range of 6–18 of Poland & Clement (2020). However, this was considered difficult without digging the bulbs up so there were few results.

Ratios

The results are discussed in three parts: (i) those features needing judgement of leaf shape, flower colour and scent, (ii) calculation of ratios and (iii) those relating to simple counts.

The most interesting measurement was the number of veins seen on the underside of a leaf.

text saying that the scent was much stronger in the evening. This was found to be true, so became a recommendation for our investigation.

Counts

Poland & Clement suggest that M. armeniacum has 10–15 veins and M. neglectum has up to 10. Our averages of 13.46 and 8.66 appropriately agree well, although the range of the 2× standard deviation and the plot of data values (Figure 2) both bridge 10. It would be interesting to know if the hybrids have an intermediate number of veins. AND ALIENS: Muscari neglectum and M. armeniacum field identification

Thanks are due to members of the Breckland Flora Group (Philippa Goodwin, Johanna Jones, Julia Masson & Anna Saltmarsh) for their help and

M. neglectum M. armeniacum

Table 1 summarises the criteria that BFG volunteers now use. Meanwhile it is hoped that an easy test for the hybrid can be found soon.

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

This study has isolated some promising measurements, all of which are simple enough to do in the field, although the number of veins needs a little prior planning to use our method.

neglectum and M. armeniacum field identification

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS:

48 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

longest leaf illustrated in Figure 1. M. neglectum was found to have a curled-into-a-slender-cylinder ‘a’ shape compared to M. armeniacum which had the flattish ‘c’ shape. The second is the colour change of the raceme from top to bottom which appears to be becoming darker for M. neglectum compared to no change for M. armeniacum

181614121086420 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Frequency No. of veins

Two criteria seem to be useful indicators of which Muscari species has been found. The first is simply to look at the cross-sectional shape of the middle of the Muscari

The two more seemingly exacting and reliable methods need a little more effort. The first is scent but the plant needs to be visited in the evening to get the full effect. M. neglectum has a scent similar to that of Parma Violets and M. armeniacum is not very pleasant. The second method requires a 10× or even 20× hand lens to look at a mid-section of the longest leaf (and possibly others). The leaves for M. neglectum in our study had fewer than 11 veins whereas M. armeniacum had more than 11. This is only a little different from Poland & Clement (2020) who use up to 10 for M. neglectum and 10 to 15 for M. armeniacum.

Figure 2. The number of veins on the back of the middle of the longest leaf plotted against the frequency of occurrence.

Figure 3. This shows the veins from two examples of a leaf from M. neglectum (outside sections) and two from M. armeniacum (middle sections) both flattened and stuck on double-sided Sellotape. Those from M. neglectum have been enlarged slightly.

We believe that this study will make the identification of M. neglectum much easier and more accurate for occasional botanists, not just serious ones, and we hope that this will result in the discovery of more sites of the rare plant.

– scent Parma Violets Mild, sweet

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 49

– shape Oval-shaped More rounded

Bright blue, with no darkening of lower fertile flowers. Becomes paler with age.

Scent much stronger in the evening and a good property to separate the two (if you know Parma Violet scent).

10 or fewer veins More than 10 veins Almost 100% accurate. Use a piece of cardboard with double sided tape to stick down a middle piece of flatted leaf, so that the underside is upwards. Becomes easier to see if left for 1–2 hours.

Individual flower – colour Light blue to darker violet blue going down the flower, i.e. lower fertile flowers are darker

A relative, but fairly accurate, property

References

Table 1. Final guidance table for distinguishing between Muscari neglectum and Muscari armeniacum. Be aware of sites with both, as Alan Leslie has found several examples of hybrids, and their properties are unknown. Attribute Muscari neglectum Muscari armeniacum Guidance notes

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Muscari neglectum and M. armeniacum field identification

Blamey, M., Fitter, R. & Fitter, A. (2nd ed). 2013. Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland. Bloomsbury, London. Cheffings, C.M. & Farrell, L. (eds), Dines, T.D., Jones, R.A., Leach, S.J., McKean, D.R., Pearman, D.A., Preston, C.D., Rumsey, F.J. & Taylor, I. 2005. The Vascular Plant Red Data List for Great Britain. Species Status 7: 1-116. Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough. Dolman, P.M., Panter, C.J. & Mossman, H.L. 2010. Securing biodiversity in Breckland: guidance for conservation and research. First Report of the Breckland Biodiversity Audit. University of East Anglia, Norwich. (www.nbis.org.uk/sites/ default/files/documents/BBA_Report_MainReport.pdf)

Curled into a slender cylinder, grooved on one side

Easy, G.M.S. 1998. Plant Crib, Muscari (BSBI Plant Crib website: https://bsbi.org/plant-crib).

Harrap, S. 2013. A Guide to the Wild Flowers of Britain & Ireland Bloomsbury, London. Jager E.J., Muller F., Ritz C.M., Welk, E. & Wesche, K. 2013. Rothmaler Exkursionsflora von Deutschland, Gefässpflanzen: Atlasband (12th edn). Springer Spektrum. Poland, J. & Clement, E.J. 2020. The Vegetative Key to the British Flora (2nd edn) John Poland, Southampton. Rose, F. & O’Reilly, C. 2006. The Wildflower Key (2nd edn). Frederick Warne/Penguin Group, London. Stace, C.A. 2019. New Flora of the British Isles (4th edn). C & M Floristics, Middlewood Green, Suffolk.

Terry & Helen Moore

Breckland Flora Project Terry@moorehse.co.uk

Longest leaf – mid-section shape

An indication only as flower colours vary with age and pollination state.

An indication if you have both species close together

– no. of veins on the underside (numbers given are from Poland & Clement (2020). Use a 10× or 20× lens.

Flattened

advice, especially Johanna Jones whose enthusiasm drives the project forwards.

L

Salvia viscosa 2 Themeda triandra 1

Plant Alert – results from the first three years

Phaenosperma globosum 11

KATHARINA DEHNEN-SCHMUTZ, JOSEF KUTLVAŠR & APRIL WEBB

Nurseries

Species reported

By February 2022 we had received 579 records relating to 211 species, of which 36 are native, 11 archaeophytes and 164 neophytes. In our previous updates, we have mostly reported on the species which were reported most often, and these are also always displayed on the project’s web page. These include some very familiar invaders, such as Reynoutria japonica (Japanese Knotweed) and Impatiens glandulifera (Himalayan Balsam). However, as the main aim of the project is to gain evidence of potential future invasive plants, we are particularly interested in reports of plants that are not widespread and known as invasive in Britain and Ireland. We therefore checked for all plants if they have any records in the BSBI database, i.e. if they have been reported from outside gardens. This was not the case for nine species (Table 1), all of which were reported just once, with the exception of Araujia

Dipsacus asper 1

Oxalis corniculata (Procumbent Yellow-sorrel) has been frequently reported having entered participants’ gardens accidently in pots with other plants or with building materials or compost.

aunched in 2019, Plant Alert is now a wellestablished reporting tool collecting data from gardeners and the wider public on ornamental plants spreading in gardens. Hosted by the BSBI and integrated within the BSBI database it continues to receive records in line with the initial idea to have this as a permanent reporting tool (www.plantalert. org). While we have posted regular updates about the project in BSBI News, here we want to provide a first overview of the records we have received so far. A PhD student research exchange in February 2022 offered the opportunity for JK to spend time analysing the records we had received to this date. The main aim of this article is to provide some insight into how we want to use the data to identify potential future invasive species and to report some of the additional information we received for the reported species from participants in the project.

sericifera (Cruel Plant), which was reported by two participants.

Chrysosplenium davidianum 8

Table 1. Recorded taxa with no occurrences in the BSBI database 2000 onwards and the number of nurseries selling them

Campanula isophylla 3

Baptisia australis 61

Anarrhinum bellidifolium 0

Roger Horton

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Plant Alert – results from the first three years

Araujia sericifera 9

We then considered all records of plants which were more frequently reported, i.e. having five or more records and having a distribution of less than 1500 hectads, resulting in a list of 14 species (Table 2). For all of these species, we found evidence that they have naturalised in other countries where they are not native in the Global Database of

50 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Species

5 451 5

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Plant Alert – results from the first three years

Akebia quinata is a well-known invasive species in North America, where it is controlled because of its high impacts in woodlands. In Britain, the species is currently undergoing a pest risk assessment by the GB Non-native Species Secretariat. For the rest of the species in our list (Tables 1 & 2) we would recommend narrowing down the list by a screening

Erigeron karvinskianus

Leycesteria formosa 22 1447 40

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 51

Taxa Records Hectads Nurseries

7 1056 102

The more popular a garden plant is in the trade, the more likely it is to be planted in a garden, providing opportunities for species to spread and being recorded outside gardens. The number of nurseries selling a species has previously been shown to explain the likelihood of ornamental plants to escape cultivation (Dehnen-Schmutz et al., 2007).

Anemone × hybrida 16 437 51

given the increasing number of records, continued popularity and evidence of the negative impacts in Ireland.

Houttuynia cordata 16 84 12

Tropaeolum ciliatum received one record to date by Plant Alert and there is a single record in the BSBI database. Shirley Brittin

Naturalised Alien Flora (GloNAF) (https://glonaf.org; accessed February 2022). We also checked for these species the number of nurseries listed in the RHS plant finder (www.rhs.org.uk/plants; accessed February 2022) as a measure of popularity of these species.

5 15 61

7 1128 26

Verbena bonariensis

6 1332 15

5 905 18

7 1299 0

5 656 66

Table 2. The most frequent taxa (five or more Plant Alert records) with the least count of hectads (<1500) from the year 2000 onwards and the number of nurseries selling the species.

Euphorbia amygdaloides subsp. robbiae

6 695 113

Hypericum calycinum

Allium triquetrum 13 1122 14

Only two species are not on sale currently, Lysichiton americanus (American Skunk-cabbage) which is banned from sale as an invasive species, and Oxalis corniculata (Procumbent Yellow-sorrel), which is not considered an ornamental plant (spread mostly with nursery stock). Rubus spectabilis (Salmonberry), sold as a species by just five nurseries, is banned from being planted in the Republic of Ireland where it is known to prevent native tree regeneration in woodlands (Gioria et al., 2018) and scheduled in the Wildlife and Countryside Act for Northern Ireland, where it is therefore ‘illegal to plant or otherwise grow in the wild’, but not banned from sale. However, various double flowered ‘flore pleno’ cultivars are available from more than 30 nurseries. This species seems certainly also a candidate for a risk assessment

Akebia quinata

Rubus spectabilis

Lysichiton americanus 6 594 0

Oxalis corniculata

Soleirolia soleirolii

Fallopia baldschuanica

This approach will also be applied to the full list of records received to include species with few records from gardens and in the BSBI database. For example, we received one record of Tropaeolum ciliatum (Yellow Flame Flower), a climber native to Chile, which is not reported as invasive in the usual invasion science databases; however, reviews in gardening forums and product reviews on online retailers web pages as well as nurseries selling the species themselves are warning of its invasiveness (‘once established, you’ll never get rid of it’).

Most of the plants reported were already in the gardens of participants when they moved in, followed by plants they had bought themselves, that spread into their gardens or which they were given by someone else (Figure 1). Seeds and non-commercial sales and seed swaps were less often mentioned as introduction pathways. Other pathways included,

It is also important to keep in mind that Plant Alert is just one tool to identify species with potential future high environmental impacts with a focus on garden plants; there are also many species that are already widespread with evidence of impacts that

process considering further evidence on invasiveness (not just naturalisation as documented in GloNAF), impacts in other countries and climatic suitability before subjecting some of them to the full risk assessment process.

Figure 1. The source of invasive garden plants in respondents’ gardens (top left), their growth form (top right), spread in the garden (bottom left) and control measures applied (bottom right). 140120100806040200taxaofNumber Growth form 140120100806040200 Seeds Runners Unknown Other Roots Bulbs Records Means of spread in gardens 180160140120100806040200 Pulling Digging Cutting Chemical Other Mulching Records Control method 120100806040200Records Source of plants

should also be considered for risk assessments and potential policy actions. In these cases, Plant Alert can also contribute information, in particular evidence which could be relevant to the potential management of such species. For example, the high number of records of Lamiastrum galeobdolon subsp. argentatum (Variegated Yellow-archangel) and comments received on the difficulties to control the species in gardens also indicate potential problems with its management in woodlands, where it is increasingly invading.

Gardeners’ feedback on the reported plants

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Plant Alert – results from the first three years

52 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Houttuynia cordata is one of the most frequently reported plants gardeners struggle to contain in their gardens. Jacqueline Nutkins

Department of Invasion Ecology, Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Zámek 1, 252 43, Průhonice, Czech Republic

A key feature of Plant Alert is that it is designed to be a permanent reporting tool. As we continue to receive records, we will also continue to analyse these, make them available for horizon scanning

Participants reported that most of the species they recorded were spreading by seeds, followed by runners and roots; the most often used control techniques were hand weeding by pulling or digging (Figure 1). Respondents used green waste collections for 39% of plants once removed, 34% were put into home composting, 10% in general waste and 17% were disposed of with other methods, where in most cases burning was mentioned. Finally, when asked about if they think the plants should be labelled with a warning about their potential invasiveness, respondents agreed for 72% of records, were unsure in 15% of cases and didn’t think it was useful for just 4% (the question was not answered for 9%).

Acknowledgements

References

Dehnen-Schmutz, K., Touza, J., Perrings, C. & Williamson, M. 2007. A century of the ornamental plant trade and its impact on invasion success. Diversity and Distributions 13: 527–534. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14724642.2007.00359.x

Josefab6340@coventry.ac.ukKutlvašr

We are very grateful to all participants who submitted records to Plant Alert, gave permission to use their photographs, everyone who helps to promote the project and Tom Humphrey for setting up and maintaining the project web page and recording forms.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 53

Outlook

Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, Ryton Gardens, Wolston Lane, Coventry, CV8 3LG

Gioria, M., O’Flynn, C. & Osborne, B.A. 2018. A review of the impacts of major terrestrial invasive alien plants in Ireland. Biology and Environment: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 118B: 157–179. https://doi.org/10.3318/ bioe.2018.15

ADVENTIVES AND ALIENS: Plant Alert – results from the first three years

Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz, April Webb

exercises (which has already happened in a UKCEH workshop in 2019) and work with relevant authorities to raise alerts for species, which may not have been on their agenda before. Over time, records should also allow different questions to be asked, for example, if more species previously not considered fully hardy in our climate will be reported, or if the number of records for species that are subject to regulatory policies will decline. We also hope the results could be a source of information for the horticultural industry and be used to provide more advice to gardeners trying to manage them in their gardens or wanting to know which plants to avoid while still enjoying the benefits of non-native ornamental plants in their gardens.

for example, the introduction with potted plants for Oxalis corniculata, birds (Rubus spectabilis, Crassula helmsii, Leycesteria formosa), or building materials and compost (Oxalis corniculata). Most plants reported were herbs, but other lifeforms were also reported.

ADVENTIVES ALIENS: Chance hybrids

AND

BSBI News 142 (2019) I illustrated a hybrid lupin (Tree Lupin × Russell Lupin) that appeared spontaneously in my garden, and suggested that it is better to make sure of the identity of ‘weed’ seedlings that appear before deciding that they are undesirable. I mentioned two other chance hybrids that had arisen in my garden, but at that time I had mislaid their photographs. Having now found them, I thought it worth drawing attention to more plants for members to look out for in their gardens.

exists as two morphs from reciprocal crosses, I could not say which parent my plant more closely resembled. It has been found in the wild on the Continent, but not as far as I know in Britain. It arose twice in my garden, with the same morphology each time, but in both cases died after flowering (hence closer to D. purpurea in this respect). Its hybrid name is D. × purpurascens Roth, and it has even had a book devoted to its study (Henslow, J.S. 1831. On the Examination of a Hybrid Digitalis).

Chance hybrids CLIVE STACE

The hybrid Digitalis purpurea × D. lutea, involving extremely different looking parents, is well known in horticulture and if you grow both species it is likely to arise sooner or later. There can scarcely be a more obvious intermediate hybrid. Although it is claimed that it resembles its female parent more closely, so

In

Hybrids between Primrose, Cowslip and Oxlip are known in Britain in all three combinations, and there are a few reports of the triple hybrid (Primula × murbeckii Lindq.) from West Suffolk. For many years I grew a single plant of Oxlip in my garden, and about 15 years ago a plant arose very near it that obviously (from the corolla colour) had a garden polyanthus (P. veris × P. vulgaris) in its parentage. That the other parent was the Oxlip was clearly evident from the bicoloured calyx (darker green stripes on the five midribs), the diagnostic feature of Oxlip. The plant thrived and enlarged at least until I left the garden in 2013. It would be interesting to hear of members’ other serendipitous discoveries.

Clive cstace@btinternet.comStace

54 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Left: a hybrid foxglove, Digitalis purpurea × D. lutea; top right: flowers of D. purpurea, the hybrid and D. lutea; bottom right: a 3-way Primula hybrid Primula × murbeckii.

you don’t know it, visit https://finder.eircode.ie/#/ to find out. Also please let me know if you have had problems receiving postal mailings from BSBI because of the new customs requirements.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 55

Areminder that it is now possible to opt to receive all BSBI publications in digital format rather than by post. If any member would like to update their preferences, please email membership@bsbi.org

The AGM will be preceded by talks from 6.30 pm. It will be held electronically. The Board of Trustees approved holding the AGM electronically given this allows more members to participate, cuts down travel costs including carbon emissions and responds to those members who have asked for an electronic meeting. It also removes any uncertainty around Covid measures if they are required.

BSBI has been undertaking a staff review to ensure we have the right roles and capacity in place to deliver our strategic plan. As part of this, we are now recruiting both a Scotland Officer and a Countries Support Manager (a one-year post to take us through the completion and launch of the Atlas and development of our new science strategy).

NOTICE OF 2022 BSBI ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

nside this issue of BSBI News you should find a hard copy invitation to attend the 2022 BSBI Annual General Meeting (AGM). It will be held at 7.15 pm on Thursday 17 November 2022

Gwynn Ellis Membership Secretary

Steve Gater BSBI Company Secretary steve.gater@bsbi.org

MEMBERS IN IRELAND

NOTICES

A reminder to Irish members; please let me have your Eircode if you have not done so already. If

Any member interested in becoming a trustee may find more information on the BSBI website (and see the note on trustee vacancies below).

STAFF CHANGES AND RECRUITMENT

Jim McIntosh, BSBI Scottish Officer and Senior Country Officer is planning to retire in November 2022. Jim has made a huge contribution to BSBI’s work over 18 years and will be much missed. He has decided to retire in November so he can say his goodbyes at the Scottish Botanists’ Conference, and also to give time for a good handover. We are delighted that Jim will continue to be closely involved with BSBI as he will remain our Vice-county Recorder for Mid-Perthshire.

Trustees have also agreed to invest in a new Data Support Officer role for two years, to work alongside our Database Officer, providing extra capacity to improve our user support, and training and documentation for the Distribution Database (DDb).

PAPERLESSgwynn.ellis@bsbi.orgMEMBERSHIP

Sarah Woods Fundraising Manager sarah.woods@bsbi.org

NOTICES

PROPOSAL TO INCREASE BSBI MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTION RATES

At the BSBI AGM on 17 November, members will be asked to vote on a proposal to increase the annual membership subscription rates as of 1 January 2023. The decision to propose this increase has not been taken lightly. Full details of the proposed increased rates, and the reasons underlying this proposal, can be found on this page: www.bsbi.org/membership-subscriptions-2023 which also includes information about the BSBI Hardship Fund to which members can apply if they find themselves in unforeseen financial difficulty.

I

Julia Hanmer BSBI Chief Executive julia.hanmer@bsbi.org

Steve Gater

There will be one link to join the meeting which will be made available after registering to attend. Details will be posted on the BSBI website: www. bsbi.org/annual-general-meeting. You may join the meeting when you wish, but only BSBI members are eligible to vote in the AGM.

Nominations, accompanied by the consent of the proposed candidate and the name of a seconder, should be emailed to the Company Secretary (steve. gater@bsbi.org) or sent by post, to arrive by midday Thursday 6 October 2022. Details of nominations will be published by 13 October here: www.bsbi.org/ annual-general-meeting

56 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

• The importance of using our data to influence conservation, as showcased through the botanical heatmap partnership with Natural England (see last issue).

• BSBI joining the new European Botanical Federation, so we can collaborate with other societies across Europe.

e are looking for up to four trustees to join BSBI’s Board for a period of three years (with an option of a further three years afterwards). Any member can apply to become a trustee and you can find more information here: www.bsbi.org/ bsbi-trustees. A wide range of perspectives and experience is valuable on the Board and support is available, including training opportunities, mentoring and paying expenses. The time commitment is attending, and reading papers for, four board meetings a year, each of which lasts around three hours. Two are online and two in person (in London, but also with hybrid facilities).

VACANCIES

Julia Hanmer

If you are interested in becoming a trustee now or in future, we would also be delighted to discuss the trustee role with you, so do get in touch.

• The need to engage more people in botany through local and urban projects and learning from the ‘loose networks’ approach pioneered in Scotland.

Chris Miles* and Julia Hanmer *BSBI Chair chris.miles01@btinternet.com

Themes that emerged from the Forum discussions •were:The need to continue to improve communications including through continued cross-fertilisation approaches across our committees and by signposting a clear route for members to send feedback, ideas and questions – now available on the members area of the website.

• The need for training and skills including learning from the success of the Aquatic Plant Project in Ireland and a new idea of developing botanical mentoring.

TRUSTEENOTICES

The Board is responsible for ensuring that we carry out our charitable objectives in accordance with the relevant legislation. It sets the Society’s overall vision, mission, policy and goals, in line with our Strategic Plan, and must also ensure our financial stability and the effective management of our assets. This year, to ensure we have the right skills mix for effective governance, we are particularly looking for trustees with knowledge or experience in finance, science, fundraising/marketing and digital/IT. We would ideally like at least one new trustee to be resident in Ireland (either the Republic or Northern Ireland).

W

We also considered diversity and inclusion at BSBI and how this can help contribute towards our vision of more people caring about plants, as well offering opportunities to improve our learning and decisionmaking. We discussed steps we can take to continue our diversity and inclusion journey at BSBI, including continuing to offer a range of activities catering for all ability levels; growing our ‘Botany for All’ plans; equipping members to be ambassadors for plants and advocates for botany; continuing to share exciting stories about wild plants in the media and building on work we’ve done during the pandemic to make our events and activities more accessible online.Youcan read the full BSBI Forum report on our password-protected Governance website (https:// governance.bsbi.org). Learning from this first Forum event will feed into our work plans and the design of future Forum meetings.

In 2020, as part of our Resilience Project, the Society’s committee structure was changed, to help ensure we have strong, clear, accountable governance and decision-making structures. At the same time the trustees committed to hold an annual planning meeting across BSBI to promote joined up communication and planning across the Society. In March 2022 we held our first BSBI Forum, and 47 committee members, trustees and staff took part in online discussion sessions to: (1) celebrate what’s

• The need to support and recognise the vital work of BSBI volunteers, with ideas of expanding BSBI awards (see notice below) and taking a team approach to the VCR role.

good – showcasing what we’ve done for botanists, wild plants and botany over the previous year; (2) discuss the future – an open space for free flow of ideas and (3) explore what this means in terms of actions for the next year.

BSBI FORUM

• An outstanding contribution to British and Irish Botany. The nominee will have made a sustained and nationally significant contribution to advancing the understanding and appreciation of the British and Irish flora through their actions and/ or publications. This award might not be made every year.

Nomination forms are available from the members-only area of the BSBI website and give more detail of what is required. Only BSBI members may make a nomination.

Chris Miles

We know that there are many people who do tremendous unpaid work for the Society and so we are launching two new Awards to recognise those who go that extra mile to inspire and encourage their fellow botanists. The Awards will be a certificate, and a listing in the April issue of BSBI News and on an awards page on our website. Nominations will be open from 1 October to 31 December. They will be considered by the Board’s Nominations, Awards and Governance Committee and announced in the April issue of BSBI News and online.Nominations are sought from both individual members, or from individuals on behalf of local groups or committees for the following two •categories:Anoutstanding contribution to botany in your area (county, region or country). This might be through recording, interpretation to help inform conservation/land management decisions, mentoring, training, engagement or organisational activity. We will be looking for nominations from each country and there will be a limit on the number of awards made each year.

NOMINATE SOMEONE FOR A BSBI AWARD

We are delighted to announce the title of the printed atlas, Plant Atlas 2020: Mapping Changes in the Distribution of the British and Irish Flora This two-volume book will be published by BSBI in

Sandy Knapp, Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum and a BSBI trustee, has just been made a Fellow of the Royal Society. We’d like to extend our congratulations to Sandy on this prestigious award which is only granted to individuals who the Society considers have made a ‘substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge’ – previous recipients include Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Sir David Attenborough.

BSBI ATLAS LAUNCH PLANS

For now, work is ongoing to draw out the various trends underlying changes in plant distributions but we’re already thinking about how we might communicate to journalists and policy-makers the various ‘stories’ that the Atlas will tell – and we’d like your help with this.

Do you have anecdotes or images that would illustrate how your local flora has changed during your lifetime? Maybe you recorded for one of the previous atlases and have photographs of how a site near you has changed over the years? Maybe you’d like to tell us about the plants that disappeared from your area, due to habitat loss or agricultural intensification, or maybe you recorded plants for this third atlas that moved into your vice-county recently, perhaps in response to climate change? We’d be interested in positive stories and images (about restoration of once-degraded meadows, or flourishing road verges) as well as negative stories about declines and losses.

NOTICES

Plant Atlas 2020 will provide a wealth of evidence around how our plants are changing, but for that extra ‘human touch’, please email Louise with your stories and images.

We will also be launching the first online Plant Atlas, a website with all the Atlas species data displayed in interactive maps, developed in partnership with UKCEH. This is all very exciting and we hope that the thousands of you who went out recording and contributed your data will enjoy seeing the outputs from all your hard work.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 57

CONGRATULATIONS!

Plans are progressing for the launch of the latest Atlas in March 2023, with an online launch followed by a series of face-to-face events across Britain and Ireland (early ideas are for face-to-face events in Belfast, Carmarthen, Dublin, Edinburgh and Oxford). We’ll provide more detail in the next (January) issue of BSBI News

Julia Hanmer and Louise Marsh* *BSBI Communications Officer louise.marsh@bsbi.org

Louise Marsh

partnership with Princeton University Press. Members will be able to pre-order copies with a 50% discount from January 2023 – look out for a flyer inside the next issue of BSBI News.

BRITISH AND IRISH BOTANICAL CONFERENCE 2022: ‘A FESTIVAL OF PLANTS’

e are delighted to invite you to our faceto-face conference at the Natural History Museum, London, on 19 November 2022. The event formerly known as the BSBI Exhibition Meeting is back and we have some exciting talks lined up for you. Find out more in the flyer (inside this issue of BSBI News) which sets out the draft programme for the day and explains how to book, whether you wish to exhibit, join a herbarium tour, or simply to come along and enjoy the day’s proceedings.

Although we are not planning to livestream the event, we may try to record the talks so they can be viewed or re-viewed afterwards – if successful. We

This year's Presidents' Award has gone to John Richards for his Field Handbook to British and Irish Dandelions, number 23 in the series of BSBI Handbooks. This award is made jointly each year by the Presidents of the BSBI and the Wild Flower Society to acknowledge the year's most useful contribution to the understanding of the flowering plants and ferns of Britain and Ireland. Find out about past recipients here: www.bsbi.org/presidentsprize

Louise Marsh

PRESIDENTS’ AWARD WINNER

W

CONFERENCEBOTANISTS’2022

Jim McIntosh BSBI Scotland Officer jim.mcintosh@bsbi.org

are going to have to limit numbers, so if you have missed being able to meet up with friends and fellow botanists over the past two years, book early!

Keep an eye on our website for further information nearer the time: www.bsbi.org/new-year-plant-hunt

SBI’s twelfth New Year Plant Hunt will run from Saturday 31 December 2022 to Tuesday 3 January 2023. Last year’s Hunt, held under Covid restrictions, saw 1,895 people taking part and they generated 20,612 records of 669 taxa in bloom. We’re hoping that this winter we will be allowed to go out plant-hunting in groups, as we used to before the pandemic – for many of us, this is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the Hunt.

58 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

This year’s Scottish Botanists’ Conference will be held face-to-face at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on Saturday 5 November. Our main speaker, Clifton Bain will give a talk entitled Rainforests and Peatlands: Travels around Scotland’s most threatened habitats. Following on from last year’s very successful theme of National Nature Reserves, Shaila Rao, will give a talk on the Conservation of Mar Lodge Estate NNR.

We hope to be able to record at least some of the talks and upload them afterwards to the BSBI YouTube channel, but for many of us the main draw will be a chance to meet up again in person after the last two years of Zoom meetings. Please book as soon as you can – we will be monitoring the Covid-19 situation during the autumn and if the advice is to return to social distancing, we may have no option but to restrict attendance to the first 100 people who book. We’ll keep you updated via the BSBI website.

There will be an interesting variety of other short talks, workshops, exhibits and posters, the Scottish AGM and the Photographic Competition. For fuller details see the flyer inside this issue of BSBI News You’ll need to register for the event and you can do this, and book exhibitor space, via the BSBI website: www.bsbi.org/scottish-annual-meeting

Louise Marsh

B

NEW YEAR PLANT HUNT

SCOTTISHNOTICES

Louise Marsh

In Ireland, Co. Waterford (v.c. H6) has three new joint VCRs; Ann Trimble, Andrew Malcolm and Julie Larkin. Eamon Gaughan, already joint VCR for Leitrim (v.c. H29), has taken on the role of VCR for Sligo (v.c. H28) too. In Limerick (v.c. H8), we are looking for a joint VCR to share the role with the recently appointed Tanya Slattery.

Contact details

Martin Rand Panel of Referees & Specialists VC11recorder@hantsplants.net

Oenanthe: now vacant.

Sending plant material to and from the EU

Parker, Prof. J.S. – jsp1796@gmail.com

Several people are reporting difficulties, delays and non-delivery when sending plant specimens between the UK and EU countries. In theory you should not need a phytosanitary licence for most material, although it seems to me that the situation is hazy when it comes to specimens with seeds. Section 5 at the website www.herbariumcurators. org/curators-toolbox has some useful practical tips for preparation and packaging. Anyone intending to send material to a referee in the EU would do well to contact the recipient in advance to find out if they have previous experience of successfully receiving material from post-Brexit UK. You may also find it helpful to email the UK Animal Plant Health Agency at planthealth.info@apha.gov.uk to determine whether material needs to be submitted via an established inspection post, and any charges that will then apply to you as a private citizen.

I

Updates/changes to emails are as follows: Dalrymple, Dr S.E. – s.e.dalrymple@ljmu.ac.uk Kay, Mr G.M. – graeme.m.kay@gmail.com

Carex muricata group and Carex hybrids: Porter, Mr M.S. is now sole referee.

Quercus and Crataegus: McKean, Mr D.R. is no longer a referee. Crataegus is now vacant. Limonium: now vacant.

Orobanche, Phelipanche: Rumsey, Dr F.J. is now sole referee.

In England, there are vacancies for Buckinghamshire, Dorset (alongside Robin Walls), Essex (North and South), Surrey and East & West Sussex. In Scotland, there are vacancies in Argyll (alongside Gordon Rothero), Banffshire and Midlothian. And in Ireland, there are vacancies for Cavan, and Limerick (alongside Tanya Slattery). If you, or someone you know, is interested in taking up the role of VCR (or perhaps first trying it out as a trainee VCR), and would like to discuss what is involved, then please do get in touch with me, or the relevant Country Officer, using the contact details given on the inside front cover.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 59 NOTICES

PANEL OF VCRS

n Shropshire (v.c. 40), Sarah Whild and Alex Lockton have retired after 24 years and 7 years respectively as VCRs. Both will be well known to BSBI members, perhaps most notably for their 2015 publication The Flora and Vegetation of Shropshire, though really that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the contributions both have made to the BSBI, and to conservation in general. Many thanks to Sarah and Alex, and also to Mags Cousins (mags@bagbatch. co.uk) and John Martin, who are the new joint VCRs for the county. Bob Kirby has been appointed joint VCR for North Devon (v.c. 4), alongside Bob Hodgson, and in West Gloucestershire, Olga Krylova (olgakvc34bsbi@gmail.com) and Rupert Higgins are new in post following the death of Clive Lovatt earlier this year. In Staffordshire, I’m sad to relay the news that Ian Hopkins, joint VCR since 2014, has died. John Hawksford writes that ‘no one knew more about Staffordshire plants than Ian’, ‘and he will be keenly missed’. And in Angus, Mark Tulley, jointVCR for the county, has died. Mark will be greatly missed by the Angus team, and the wider botanical community, and we send our condolences to the friends and family of Mark, Ian and Clive.

PANEL OF REFEREES AND SPECIALISTS: UPDATES AND ResponsibilitiesAMENDMENTS

Vacancies

Pete Stroh Scientific and England Officer peter.stroh@bsbi.org

Rumsey, Dr F.J. – rumsey2021@outlook.com. Walls, Mr R.M. – robin44walls@outlook.com

Prof Ian Denholm, who has been Editor-in-Chief of British & Irish Botany since it was launched in 2019, is now looking to hand over the reins. If you feel that you might have the skills, time and interest to take over this voluntary role, please contact us at bib@bsbi.org for an informal chat. An academic background and/or experience of journal publication would be desirable but not essential, and editorial assistance is on hand to support the Editor-inChief with admin, journal promotion and use of the publication software (OJS Open Access).

John Gough (1757–1825) and his missing herbarium – can you help?

Identification and taxonomy of Betula (Betulaceae) in Great Britain and Ireland – Andy Amphlett Populations sizes and leaf morphology of the Welsh endemics Sorbus cambrensis Welsh Whitebeam and Sorbus stenophylla Llanthony Whitebeam (Rosaceae) – Martin Lepší, Timothy C.G.

MEMBER NOTICES

The Genus Hieracium (Asteraceae) in the British Isles in 1821 – J. Bevan Rubus sellii, a new name for R. rubicundiflorus (Rosaceae) – Muhammad Idrees, Julian M.H. Shaw

Growth trajectories of diploid and tetraploid trees of the Betula pendula/B. pubescens complex (Betulaceae): a 38-year record of trunk circumference – Anthony J. Davy, John A. Gill Long-term study of the Sword-leaved Helleborine Cephalanthera longifolia (Orchidaceae) in Knapdale, Argyll – Patricia Batty

The typification of the Linnaean name Papaver medium (Papaveraceae) published in Flora Anglica – Duilio Iamonico

T

CORRECTION

John Gough of Kendal was a natural philosopher and polymath who lost his sight in early childhood following an attack of smallpox. In his autobiography (The Dark Path to Knowledge, edited by Michael Pearson and Ian Hodkinson, published 2001) he described how, with the help of his school friends, he became a proficient botanist and amassed an extensive herbarium of plants collected in his native Cumbria. This collection remained in the family along with his library until they were sold at auction in London in July 1909. In the catalogue, Lot 337 was described as ‘a collection of several hundred flowers, grasses, ferns … laid on white paper, loosely inserted in 8 folio albums, half calf, with book plates of Harry Arnold of Arnbarrow.’ The herbarium was sold for 17 shillings but there is no record of the buyer’s name. It is not recorded in any public collection and its current whereabouts remain unknown. Any further information about the present location of the herbarium would be much appreciated.

he second issue of the 2022 volume of British & Irish Botany, BSBI’s open access, online scientific journal, was published in June (see box for Table of Contents). You can view or download the papers free of charge, as well as previous issues and guidelines for submissions, from the B&IB website: https://britishandirishbotany.org/index.php/bib You can also phone us on 07725 862957 to discuss a proposal.

Michael Pearson* and Ian Hodkinson * nchteditor@gmail.com

BRITISH & IRISH BOTANY 4:2

Change of email

British & Irish Botany Vol. 4 No. 2 (2022)

Frank Horsman, author of Who Discovered the “Teesdale Rarities”? (see review, BSBI News 148, September 2021) has changed his email address to frankhorsman306@gmail.com. For anyone interested, the book is still available.

60 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 NOTICES

Ian Denholm and Louise Marsh bib@bsbi.org

ConspectusRich of and key to the world’s species of Vulpia C.C. Gmel. (Poaceae: Loliinae) and seven related genera – Clive A. Stace

Notes on Atriplex (Amaranthaceae) species and hybrids, particularly A. littoralis and the hybrid A. littoralis × A. prostrata (A. × hulmeana) –Michael Wilcox

There was an error in David Blower’s article on Centranthus ruber in the last issue of BSBI News (No. 150, April 2022). On p. 60. in Equation 1 (Apparent Change) the numerator and denominator in the fraction should be swapped.

Changing environment and orchid distributions close to their northern and southern limits in Britain – David Trudgill

Phelipanche purpurea (Purple Broomrape). Roger Smith

Himantoglossum robertianum (Giant Orchid) was reported in March this year flowering on the banks of a disused railway line in Oxfordshire (v.c. 23), though I was a bit sceptical about the news at first, as I heard about the discovery on April Fool’s Day. Plant stories don’t often make it into the national press, but few papers could resist telling their readers about a showy Mediterranean orchid found for the first time in the UK that is

Compiled by Pete Stroh peter.stroh@bsbi.org

COUNTRY ROUNDUPS: England

capable of growing over a metre tall. The species appears to be genuinely expanding its range northwards into central parts of Europe, but it soon emerged that the Oxfordshire plants had in fact been deliberately introduced a decade or so ago. Journalists were quick to make the link between warming temperatures and the orchid’s evident ability to survive in such northerly climes – a valid point, irrespective of how it actually got here in the first place.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 61

It was pleasing to hear from Roger Smith that a new colony of Carex disticha (Brown Sedge) has been discovered by Hannah Gibbons in a small flood meadow near Chagford, South Devon. This sedge is not particularly uncommon in England in suitable habitat, though there have been declines due to the usual factors of drainage, undergrazing and habitat destruction. It has, however, always been a rare species in the south-west, and Hannah’s record is only the second recent find for v.c. 3. Also in South Devon, Cytisus scoparius subsp. maritimus (Prostrate Broom) has been found for the first time at Bolberry Down (which worryingly, as I write in late July, is on fire), near to a lovely population of Carex punctata (Dotted Sedge), and Phelipanche purpurea (Purple Broomrape) was spotted at Aymer Cove by a visitor looking for Thrift Clearwings. This attractive Broomrape hadn’t been seen in the county for over 40 years. Staying in the south-west, Ian Bennallick reports two patches of Pancratium maritimum (Sea Daffodil) at a new site at Par

Himantoglossum robertianum (Giant Orchid). Ian Denholm

Carex punctata (Dotted Sedge). Roger Smith

ENGLAND

COUNTRY ROUNDUPS

On a much more depressing note, 30 Ophrys fuciflora (Late Spider-orchid) plants were stolen this spring from one of the better sites for it in East Kent (v.c. 15), and at least 10 Neotinea ustulata (Burnt Orchid) were dug up from Mount Caburn NNR in

John Richards writes that a theme connecting discoveries in South Northumberland (v.c. 67) this year has been new sites for species with a mainly southern distribution, doubtless responding to warmer summers. In particular, the recently designated Silverlink Biodiversity Park, formed from industrial wasteland just north of the Tyne Tunnel, has yielded records for Anacamptis pyramidalis (Pyramidal Orchid) and Hypericum montanum (Pale St John’s-wort). Although known

62 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

COUNTRY ROUNDUPS: England

records of J. capitatus in England, although in Britain there are Heslop-Harrison records for the Hebrides, and also a 1911 record forInGalashiels.North-east Yorkshire (v.c. 62), Melanie Earle has been investigating fields in the south of the county which have turned up some unusual plants, the star find being a sizeable population of Hypochaeris glabra (Smooth Cat’s-ear), which hasn’t been seen in the vice-county since the 1960s. And in Teesside, just within v.c. 62, Chris Bell has found 31 spikes of Epipactis phyllanthes (Green-flowered Helleborine) growing on the banks of the Tees, only a couple of metres from the river. This is an excellent record and the first for the vice-county. In Cumbria, Mike Porter reports a new site for Epipactis palustris (Marsh Helleborine) near Kirkby Stephen (v.c. 69) with more than 20 plants, and up to 200 plants of E phyllanthes var. vectensis in Miltonrigg Wood near Brampton (v.c. 70). This is a known site but helleborines are doing particularly well there this year with many specimens of E helleborine (Broad-leaved Helleborine), some exceptionally tall. Mike has also confirmed a new site for the hybrid Carex elata x nigra (C x turfosa) near Warcop (v.c. 69).

East Sussex (v.c. 14). Keeping the precise details of locations for such rare plants secret is nigh-on impossible in the age of social media (and really, it was ever thus, thanks to word-of-mouth), and consequently conservation of threatened species largely depends on a shared moral compact, notwithstanding the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act. Unfortunately, as Richard Bateman has noted, although these species are relatively easy to grow from seed if you want them in your garden, “some foolish people insist on possessing the ‘real Mona Lisa’ rather than a copy.”Back to better news, with Bryan Edwards making the rather remarkable discovery of Juncus capitatus (Dwarf Rush) at RAOC West Moors (within Holt & West Moors Heaths SSSI), an MoD site in Dorset (v.c. 9) which is primarily used as a fuel storage facility. The population, which numbered in its hundreds, was growing on bare damp acid ground within tightly mown grass-heath, and is new to the county. We can only speculate about how this species arrived at the site. Rushes have very small seeds with hard casings, and they may well have been trapped in tyres or boots that were previously roaming military training areas in West Cornwall. Alternatively, the seeds may have stowed away on equipment brought over from mainland Europe, or the Channel Islands. There is also the possibility, as a rather inconspicuous species most ‘obvious’ in the spring, that it is a hitherto overlooked native population, though its presence away from the coast combined with the MoD association seems a bit suspect. It’s impossible to be sure, but what is certain is that it would seem to be happy where it grows. I can find no casual

Beach, East Cornwall (v.c. 2). Each patch had six to eight separate small clumps of leaves. The current consensus using the available evidence is that this species is probably naturalised from gardens in its known coastal locations (Pearman, 2022), though it does occur in similar habitats along the western coasts of Portugal, Spain and France, north to southern Brittany, and so it is just possible that bulbs were carried on currents and colonised at some least of the sites naturally from a native source, with would make it a native species in our area. As Ian says, it would help to know if Pancratium is spreading elsewhere, perhaps colonising new sites along beaches in northern France? Any information would be very welcome.

Ophrys fuciflora (Late Spiderorchid). Lliam Rooney

from the Magnesian limestone south of the Tyne for many years, this is a northwards extension of range for Pale St John’s-wort and a new county record. Pyramidal Orchid had not been seen inland in the county for many years, but appeared in three inland sites this summer. Elsewhere, a selfsown individual of Dactylorhiza praetermissa (Southern Marshorchid) has come to light, the second v.c. 67 site and marginally a northwards extension of range. Lathyrus nissolia (Grass Vetchling) has provided another surprising extension of range, this time to the west, having colonised a Nature Reserve on Whinstone at Walltown, not far from the Cumbrian border. Its origin there seems to be a total mystery.

Holcus mollis (Creeping Softgrass), Danthonia decumbens (Heath-grass), Carex leporina (Oval Sedge) and Potentilla erecta (Tormentil) are all first hectad records this century. Chris also found Pedicularis sylvatica (Lousewort) at the site, which is now far from common in lowland England. On that theme, Carex canescens (White Sedge) and Comarum palustre (Marsh Cinquefoil) have been located at a mire at Frensham Little Pond in Surrey (v.c. 17). The former was last seen in 1961 and the latter in 1994. And a new site for Galium pumilum (Slender Bedstraw) was discovered in v.c. 17 by Simon Riley on the downs above Shere whilst working as a volunteer for Butterfly Conservation.

In Herefordshire (v.c. 36), Hilary Wallace found Carex vulpina (True Fox-sedge), confirmed by Stuart Hedley and Mike Porter. This population extends significantly its previously known western limits, and comes hot on the heels of the discovery by Stuart of another rare sedge in the county, Carex muricata subsp. muricata (Largefruited Prickly-sedge), growing far beyond its previously known range. Graeme Kay has reported two interesting finds for Cheshire (v.c. 58). In the early spring, a first county record for Poa infirma (Early Meadow-grass) was discovered by Eric Greenwood in Port Sunlight Cemetery and Ranunculus parviflorus (Small-flowered Buttercup) was recorded by Brian Laney whist out searching for discarded antlers in deer-grazed grassland in Tatton Park, Knutsford. This is the first v.c. record since 1860. Thirteen plants of Myosotis sicula (Jersey Forget-me-not) have been spotted at its sole location in our area, following conservation efforts last autumn that involved rolling up thick mats of Crassula

Lepidium latifolium (Dittander) has been found for the first time in South Somerset (v.c. 5) by Simon Leach, where it was growing on a patch of trackside waste ground on the eastern edge of Taunton, squeezed between a parking lot, a car wash and a motorcycle repair workshop – the glamour of urban botany! There was also a first record for c. 20 years in v.c. 5 for Fumaria densiflora (Dense-flowered Fumitory), found flowering in January by Fred Rumsey in the farm-shop car park at Lopen, near South Petherton, and Fred and Simon also recorded Carduus × stangii (Carduus crispus × nutans) at Ham Hill during a Somerset Rare Plants Group field meeting. This is the first modern record for the vicecounty, the three others being pre-1970.Itwouldn’t be an England Roundup without mentioning new sites for Himantoglossum hircinum (Lizard NorthamptonshireOrchid).(v.c.32) has its second vice-county record following the discovery by Ian Hilbert of one flowering plant on

Pete Stroh

Lythrum hyssopifolia (Grasspoly) was once a rare and declining species in England (see Preston & Whitehouse, 1986), but there have been a number of new sites found this century, and the latest comes from St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly (v.c. 1), where Liz Askins recorded several plants in a sandy bulb field. Grass-poly certainly has a long-lived seed bank, but just how it has managed to spread to so many new sites is a bit of a mystery (at least to me). In East Gloucestershire (v.c. 33), Chris Dixon has refound a few species on the slopes of Salter’s Hill above Hailes that, though relatively widespread across much of England, are rarities there.

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COUNTRY

helmsii (New Zealand Pigmyweed) and disposing of the material. The Forget-me-not hadn’t been seen for a few years, and as well as the find being greatly encouraging to the volunteers who removed the presumably heavy rolls of Crassula, it has also galvanised the local environment department into providing cash for more clearance this autumn.

ROUNDUPS: England

Lythrum hyssopifolia (Grass-poly)

64 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

a public footpath at the Wildlife Trust’s Ring Haw nature reserve in the north-east of the county. A new site in Buckinghamshire (v.c. 24) – only the second this century – was spotted by the sharp-eyed Andrew Luke growing on a roundabout to the north of Milton Keynes. If roundabouts make suitable habitat, Milton Keynes is well-placed to support hundreds of populations! The flowering spike was found on a Saturday, reported to the Bucks Record Centre the following Monday, and mown by oblivious contractors on Tuesday, though hopefully it will live to tell the tale. And there are three ‘new’ sites in

COUNTRY ROUNDUPS: England

Suffolk (v.cc. 26, 27), one of which supports quite a few healthy plants that must have been there for some time, growing with flora typical of the Breckland area. Staying in Suffolk, Martin Sanford has let me know that, perhaps unsurprisingly, a few drought-tolerant plants have turned up in new places this year. Jo Parmenter found a good population of Ranunculus parviflorus at Lound, and also found Cotula australis (Annual Buttonweed) and Polycarpon tetraphyllum (Four-leaved Allseed) at Lakenheath air base; the latter was seen in another part of the air base by Oliver

Artemisia campestris (Field Wormwood). Alex Hyde

Glenister in 2020 so there may be a significant population there. The Polycarpon also turned up in Sudbury and Thetford this year and might be benefiting from dry summers. It has certainly spread nationally, as the forthcoming atlas will show. Jo Jones contacted me to say that whilst surveying a scrape designed to invigorate a population of Silene conica (Sand Catchfly) at Aspal Close LNR in the west of the county, Linda Gascoigne, a Breckland Flora Group (BFG) member, found three plants of Artemisia campestris (Field Wormwood), making it the fourth native site for this species in the UK, assuming you count a site as native if the probable source of dispersal was via machinery (no letters, please). The BFG, managed by Plantlife and working in partnership with Natural England and Forestry England, do a wonderful job helping to conserve the special flora of this area, and are rapidly building an expert volunteer base for monitoring. All very positive. Not to be outdone by their neighbours, West Norfolk (v.c. 28) has what might be considered the find of the year (though technically it was found last year). Ian Woodward, who discovered Helosciadium repens (Creeping Marshwort) on the West Suffolk/West Norfolk border (marginally into v.c. 26, by a matter of c. 100 m) in 2020 (see Woodward & Webster, 2021), has found a second location for this nationally rare species c. 1 km downstream from the first site in Thetford, but this time just over the border in v.c. 28. This find was not a fluke – Ian has been meticulously searching potentially suitable habitat since his initial find, and his hard work has paid off handsomely in the form of hundreds of plants growing in amenity grassland which is

COUNTRY ROUNDUPS:

In Monmouthshire (v.c. 35) three vice-county firsts were found by Elsa Wood and Steph Tyler. Alchemilla filicaulis subsp. filicaulis turned up on a limestone track in Great Barnets Wood (subsp. vestita is the usual subspecies in unimproved old pastures), coinciding with the new Alchemilla handbook dropping through the letterbox! They also found Alopecurus × brachystylus, the hybrid between A pratensis (Meadow Foxtail) and A. geniculatus (Marsh Foxtail), growing near the River Monnow at Monmouth Cap, and Scrophularia vernalis (Yellow Figwort) was discovered by Bob Hewitt at Abersychan. There was also an exciting re-discovery of Epipactis leptochila Helleborine)(Narrow-lippedbyDesEvans and Sarah Clay (confirmed by John Richards) in a beech wood on limestone near the Wyndcliff. This species was last seen in the vicecounty at a nearby site in 1926. Two other records from more than 30 years ago were not confirmed and it was thought to be extinct in the vice-county. Other noteworthy new hectad records in the vicecounty included Polypodium

Epipactis leptochila (Narrowlipped Helleborine). Sarah Clay

ConservationBiological 35: 41–62.

Ian’s working supposition is that the plants established from seed that was brought here from the 2020 site by flooding in winter 2020/21. No fruits were found in 2021, but Ian had more luck this year, and the identity of the species has now been confirmed by Tony O’Mahony.

Iwas unaware when I wrote my last round-up in the BSBI Bulletin that Barry Stewart had made a very exciting discovery of nearly 20 plants of Orobanche picridis (Oxtongue Broomrape) at Port Talbot Docks in the western half of Glamorganshire (v.c. 41). This may be the largest population in the Britain.

Orobanche picridis (Oxtongue Broomrape). Fred Rumsey

cambricum (Southern Polypody) on the walls of the church at Christchurch; Dactylorhiza × hallii (Heath Spotted-orchid × Southern Marsh-orchid) in Chepstow Park Wood and at Earlswood; and Polypogon monspeliensis (Annual Beard-grass) and Diplotaxis muralis (Annual Wall-rocket) at Wainfelin near Pontypool, where there was a further surprise of c. 20 plants of Euphorbia stricta (Tintern Spurge) on a bank by a car park. Oenanthe pimpinelloides (Corkyfruited Water-dropwort) continues to turn up in meadows, with three small clumps found at Lydart, Penallt in eastern Monmouthshire and then amazingly, another patch in a small meadow at Llanvaches in the south of the county the following day. One field on the Levels near Pye Corner, Newport, was dominated by this species.

WALES

It seems that records of Wolffia arrhiza (Rootless Duckweed) found in reens on the Gwent Levels may need to be questioned. A recent paper by Richard Lansdown (Lansdown et al., 2022) has suggested that at least some previous

England / Wales

Preston, C.D. & Whitehouse, H.L.K. 1986. The habitat of Lythrum hyssopifolia L. in Cambridgeshire, its only surviving English locality.

Woodward, I. & Webster, M. 2021. A regeneration’‘naturalapproach

regularly mown throughout the summer and is often winter-wet.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 65

References

Pearman, D.A. 2022. The status of Pancratium maritimum L. (Sea Daffodil) in Britain and Ireland.

BSBI News 150: 66–68.

Pete Stroh

to wild flower meadow creation results in the appearance of Helosciadium repens (Creeping Marshwort) in West Suffolk. BSBI News 146: 3–6.

Lathyrus japonicus (Sea Pea) at Ceibwr Bay, Pembrokeshire (v.c. 45), its only Welsh locality, 18 July 2016. Stephen Evans

Exciting news from Carmarthenshire (v.c. 44) is that Liparis loeselii (Fen Orchid) was rediscovered at MoD Pendine on 10 July, having been thought to be extinct for much of this century. The eagle-eyed 11-yearold Tristan Morris found the first one during a visit by 16 BSBI members attending the annual Glynhir recording week. Five further plants were subsequently found by the party in the dunes. Work has been undertaken

records may actually have been the neophytes Wolffia columbina and W. globosa. Ray Woods noted three unusual plants for Radnorshire (v.c. 43) – Crepis biennis (Rough Hawksbeard) along the A470 between Builth Wells and Newbridge-on-Wye, and Urtica urens (Small Nettle) and Chenopodium bonushenricus (Good-King-Henry).

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here to make the dunes more suitable for Fen Orchids and continuing management will seek to further enhance the habitat at Pendine to encourage further colonisation in future years. Several other rare species were recorded during the day including Gymnadenia densiflora (Marsh Fragrant-orchid), Gymnadenia densiflora x Dactylorhiza fuchsii, Carex punctata (Dotted Sedge), Ophioglossum vulgatum (Adder’stongue) and the second record for v.c. 44 of the non-native Senecio inaequidens (Narrow-leaved Ragwort). Matt Sutton has been doing some important monitoring at MoD Pendine and has found new sites for Torilis nodosa (Knotted Hedge-parsley), the first v.c. record since 1965, as well as Lysimachia minima (Chaffweed) and Koeleria macrantha (Crested Hair-grass).

The Glynhir recording week in v.c. 44 provided the first vice-county record of Cotula coronopifolia (Buttonweed), an alien that has colonised an area of perhaps 1 ha on saltmarsh in the Taf estuary upstream of Black-scar. Arthur Chater reported that it occurs at a single site in a similar situation at Ynys Las in Cardigan. Many other records of interest were made during the Glynhir week, though it was disappointing that species such as Vicia orobus (Wood Bitter-vetch), Carex montana (Soft-leaved Sedge), Genista tinctoria (Dyer’s Greenweed), G. anglica (Petty Whin), Ophioglossum vulgatum and Persicaria minor (Small Waterpepper) that were specifically searched for at sites where they were last seen in the 1980s were not re-found.

Jo Clark and Heather Garrett, joint Recorders for Meirionnydd (v.c. 48), reported that over the winter a few members sorted through some of Peter Benoit’s botanical papers which were retrieved by Annie Seddon from his house after his death in 2021, collating letters and records into

compressa (Flattened Meadowgrass) and the halophytic Plantago coronopus (Buck’s-horn Plantain) and Sagina maritima (Sea Pearlwort). The Poa is the third of a trio of nationally ‘on the move’ grasses to be found new for the vice-county in the last two years, and the location is currently the most north-westerly one for the species in Britain.

The long-awaited Wales AGM finally took place in Caernarvonshire (v.c. 49), having been cancelled in the previous two years for obvious reasons. Based at Bangor, the weekend meeting attracted around fifty participants and much useful recording was done during the field visits. The Great Orme flora was at its best and at Morfa Aber, Parapholis strigosa (Hard-grass) was a pleasing update. In full flower with its white anthers obvious, it was much easier to spot than when vegetative. A couple of plants of Drymochloa sylvatica (Wood Fescue) were found by the river bank in the woodland nearby, probably washed down from the Aber Falls gorge on the hillside above, a more typical habitat and its only known vice-county site. In Pwllheli, the first recording group meeting of the year following reports of possible Anacamptis morio (Green-winged Orchid) yielded 29 flowering spikes; this is a new hectad record. In the car park, two flowering plants of Matthiola incana (Hoary Stock) grew in a crack at the wall base, their lovely fragrance filling the air.

broad categories. The papers have been deposited in the Gwynedd County archive in Dolgellau. The hope is for the post-2010 records for locally rare and scarce species to be extracted in preparation for a revision to the vice-county Rare Plant Register. The first field visit this year was held on a cool and sunny day in late March when the Cadair Idris population of Saxifraga oppositifolia (Purple Saxifrage) was checked. Flowering was at its peak and seeing such bright purple flowers against a backdrop of the faded winterbrown upland habitats was a great start to the field season programme. The Snowdonia National Park warden assisted during this trip. May saw Jo and Heather down on the coast at Penllyn farm, Tywyn, at the invitation of the RSPB. The coastal grassland habitat was in good condition and they were tasked with re-finding the five locally rare or scarce species previously recorded here. Ophioglossum azoricum (Small Adder’s-tongue) was spotted in the short turf, but they could not re-find Urtica urens (Small Nettle) or Moenchia erecta (Upright Chickweed), and were too early in the season to see the other remaining two species on the checklist (Spiranthes spiralis (Autumn Lady’s-tresses) and Juncus subnodulosus (Bluntflowered Rush), though did find

Ophioglossum azoricum (Small Adder’s-tongue). Tom Kistruck

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 67 COUNTRY ROUNDUPS: Wales

Chambers, VCR for Cardiganshire (v.c. 46), has found Poa infirma (Early Meadowgrass), new for the vice-county, growing on the salted road verge of the A44(T) below Bwlch Nantyrarian. Though inland and upland (300 m alt.), the roadside is a known hotspot historically for other plants of dry, coastal grassland, including Poa

Lathyrus japonicus (Sea Pea) is very rare in Wales, with just a single plant/clump at Ceibwr Bay, Pembrokeshire (v.c. 45). Following its discovery by Sue Phillips in 2010, Stephen Evans had visited the site every year, often more than once, to follow the plant’s survival, with a detailed note written about the first four years (Evans, 2015). Surveys since the publication of this article have noted flowering in 2016 (with 28 stems in three clusters spread over 1.7 × 1.4 m, and 25 pods, though most were still unripe in September), and 2017 when there were 25 stems over 3.4 × 2 m but only three pods in midSeptember, which again were not ripe. Subsequently, it was greatly reduced to between two and four stems, with no flowers, and the plant was last found on 28 June 2021 when it was confined to a 3 × 3 cm area. Its decline could have been partly due to storms, high tides and re-shaping of the beach shingle, or perhaps more likely a result of disturbance from holidaymakers on this small but increasingly popular beach. During the Covid pandemic and the consequent ‘staycation’ tourism boom, damage from barbecues and trampling had greatly increased. There was no sign of the Sea Pea in September 2021 or in June 2022, and so unfortunately it seems likely that it has been lost to Pembrokeshire and therefore, once again, to Wales.Steve

Orchids are renowned for hybridising, even across genera. Two records of inter-generic orchid hybrids in Easterness were of note. In June a specimen of Pseudorchis albida (Small-white Orchid) × Gymnadenia borealis (Fragrant-orchid) was found by Jane Bowman in Glenmoriston, the fourth location for this rare hybrid in the county. A record of X Dactylodenia varia (Gymnadenia borealis × Dactylorhiza

of sightings just east of Coylumbridge, Andy Amphlett and Gus Routledge found 125 fruiting stems at six additional locations just west of the village. These are the first records for Easterness (v.c. 96) since 1875, but also the first records this century for northern Scotland. The plants have been confirmed as subsp. hypophegea and were growing under Pinus sylvestris (Scots Pine), mostly in rather bare situations with needle litter and sparse vegetation. Dead spikes from last year were also present indicating that this is not a very new arrival. See also the article on p. 9 of this issue – Editor

COUNTRY ROUNDUPS: Wales / Scotland

68 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Steph Tyler Joint Recorder for Monmouthshire (v.c. 35)

O

SCOTLAND

Jo and Heather spent the first part of the Jubilee bank holiday in the catchment of the Afon Eden, Trawsfynydd, surveying land newly acquired by Natural Resources Wales for nature conservation and habitat restoration. They found lots of species typical of upland acidic and marshy grassland, and also Phegopteris connectilis (Beech Fern) growing along a row of old field boundary stones, and Carex pallescens (Pale Sedge) and C. caryophyllea (Spring Sedge), new records for the monad, and Veronica scutellata (Marsh Speedwell), new for the tetrad. On the second part of the Jubilee holiday, they set off up to Moelwyn Mawr, near Blaenau Ffestiniog on what promised to be a wet day. On the way up they recorded P. connectilis, Saxifraga stellaris (Starry Saxifrage), Thymus drucei (Wild Thyme) and three species of clubmoss (Alpine, Fir and Stag’s-horn). The rain luckily held off, so through bursts of thunder, they reached the summit in search of Arabidopsis petraea (Northern Rock-cress), though it was not found. Instead, there was again S. stellaris and a scary scramble to get off the peak!

Reference Evans, S. 2015. Ytbysen y Mor/the Sea Pea (Lathyrus japonicus) in Pembrokeshire 2010–2014. BSBI Welsh Bulletin 95: 27–29.

one other notable species, Sagina subulata (Heath Pearlwort), a new record for the tetrad.

Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest). Andy Amphlett

Pseudorchis albida (Small-white Orchid) at Corrour. Ian Strachan

ne of this summer’s most remarkable finds was Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest) near Aviemore. Following reports on iNaturalist

Like H. monotropa, Neottia nidus-avis (Bird’s-nest Orchid) lacks chlorophyll and derives its nutrition from mycorrhizal fungi. Two new sites were discovered in the north-west earlier this year. A remarkable population of 26 plants was found in Coille Mhor, Balmacara (v.c. 105), while across the water on Skye (v.c. 104) Stephen Bungard chanced upon four plants on the coast near Broadford. It seems to have been a good year too for Pseudorchis albida (Small-white Orchid) on Skye, with new sites and good numbers at known sites. At Corrour (v.c. 97) during a very successful field meeting in July (to be reported elsewhere), P. albida was extraordinarily frequent, with many new locations found.

purpurella) from Tromie Meadow (part of the RSPB Insh Marshes NNR) is the first for the county; the finder, Richard Milne, had photographed the plant in 2012, but only recently submitted the photo. This is the second record for the Cairngorms National Park. Several exciting finds have been made in mid-Perthshire (v.c. 88). Near Bridge of Ericht, Gus Routledge came across a new and very large population of Melampyrum sylvaticum (Small Cow-wheat) on the north shore of Loch Rannoch. Unusually, it was already flowering at the end of May. He estimated that there were at least 2,000 plants, making it comparable in size to the population ten miles to the north-east beside Loch Ossian (BSBI News 148 p. 71). Further south near Ben Lawers, Roger Goulding discovered a single plant of Dryopteris affinis (Golden-scaled Male-fern) subsp. kerryensis below Creag an Lochain, on the east side of Meall nan Tarmachan. This is the first Scottish record of this taxon, which is given specific rank in Rich (2020). It was originally thought to

Other notable Stirlingshire finds this year include Scleranthus annuus (Annual Knawel), Thlaspi arvense (Field Penny-cress), a large population of Draba muralis (Wall Whitlowgrass) and best of all the first modern county record of Teesdalia nudicaulis (Shepherd’s Cress) near Carron Valley Reservoir, growing in abundance on track verges. Another species previously thought to be extinct in the county was Trifolium striatum (Knotted Clover), known from just two historic hectad records. However, an excursion along the Back Walk at Stirling Castle to count T. arvense (Hare’s-foot

growing out of bare substrate, was discovered in the county a few years ago at two wasteground sites; fieldwork this season has revealed it at various new locations with suitable bare substrate, including Fallin Bing, Cambusbarron Quarry, Almond Bing and Cairnoch Hill – so is this species a rapidly spreading colonist or previously overlooked in the area? Interestingly, it was found new to Skye last year at Portree Industrial Estate, and Stephen Bungard counted 100 plants there this summer.

Melampyrum sylvaticum (Small Cow-wheat). Gus Routledge

COUNTRY ROUNDUPS: Scotland

be endemic to south-west Ireland, but three sites are now known in Cumbria and one in Somerset. Another surprising discovery was made just across the lochan below Creag an Lochain, near the foot of Ben Lawers, at the end of June – a small population of Linnaea borealis (Twinflower), at 580 m ASL. This is only the second known extant site in the vice-county, at an unusually high altitude.InStirlingshire (v.c. 86), Matt Harding reports that fieldwork for the Rare Plants Register has resulted in many exciting finds. On Ben Lomond, Draba incana (Hoary Whitlowgrass) was refound on Breac Leac, where it was last seen in 1968. A visit to the Falkirk Wheel produced one of the highlights of the summer – a cluster of Filago germanica (Common Cudweed) at the edge of the Forth & Clyde Canal. This small but attractive plant was not previously recorded from the vice-county, and there are only two post-2000 records from all the neighbouring vice-counties. Logfia minima (Small Cudweed), a smaller cousin of F. germanica that forms delicate silvery fingers

Filago germanica (Common Cudweed). Matt Harding

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Reference

In Fife (v.c. 85) a visit by Tim Rich to look for rare endemic hawkweeds had mixed success. At Kinkell cliffs near St. Andrews he was unable to find Hieraceum kinkellense, which had been lost due to a cliff fall. However, at Dumglow in the Cleish Hills a good colony of H. kinrossense was still present. Both taxa were first described in 2013 by David McCosh. VCR Sandy Edwards refound the Nationally Scarce Limosella aquatica (Mudwort) at Morton Lochs (Tentsmuir), last seen there in 1986, as part of the BSBI SHARP project. The Skye Botany Group have also been involved with SHARPP and had notable success with Ribes spicatum (Downy Currant), where all historical records have been re-found and one population is now additionally known in an adjacent tetrad.

COUNTRY ROUNDUPS: Scotland / Ireland

In the adjoining county of Dunbartonshire, the energetic new Botany Network is continuing its efforts to re-record every monad; visits have already been made to 411 out of 704 squares since the start of 2021. Of several new vice-county records, the prize find of the year has been Ophrys apifera (Bee Orchid) near Dumbarton, continuing its remarkable spread across Scotland. In Kirkcudbrightshire (v.c. 73) the Ross Bay population of this orchid had 39 spikes this year compared to only six in 201921. Other notable finds in v.c. 73 include new sites for Cladium mariscus (Great Fen-sedge) and Carex limosa (Bog Sedge).

(v.c. 106) for 15 years and only the third since 2000.

Clover) discovered it growing between rocks on the top of a basalt knoll, and a second population was subsequently found on thin sandy soil beside the road in nearby Gowanhill.

We have been running our Aquatic Plant Project again this year. Field training meetings have taken place in counties Clare (H9), Limerick (H8), Louth (H14) and Mayo (H27), and we ran three online webinars, the first two on pondweeds, and the third on bladderworts and water-milfoils. These are available on the BSBI YouTube channel. The field training days are great fun, but also very educational, and I was extremely pleased when Cilian Roden showed us Potamogeton alpinus (Red Pondweed) in a river, and then again in a lough, as it was a new species to my life list.

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In the last Ireland Roundup published in the January issue of BSBI News, Sarah Pierce thanked me for my time as acting Ireland Officer while she was on maternity leave. Sarah had been suffering from ill health over the winter and, with regret, decided to step down as Ireland Officer in February. Consequently, once again I’m back here in the post as the BSBI Ireland Officer. We wish Sarah all the very best in the future.

Further west in Argyll (v.c. 98), Pat Batty has been monitoring Carex buxbaumii (Club Sedge) at Lochan an Torrnalaich, since first discovering it there in 1986. This Nationally Rare sedge of

mesotrophic fens is only known from three other sites, two near Arisaig (v.c. 97) and one in Easterness (v.c. 96). Counts of flowering or fruiting stems made in most years between 1986 and 2000 ranged from several hundred to nearly two thousand, but with no obvious trend. Counts made in the last few years have been substantially lower, with an all-time minimum of just ten flowering stems this summer. This sedge can be a shy flowerer, but limited vegetative estimates (which can be difficult to make) support the conclusion of a substantial and worrying decline. Pat considers that recent high water levels and a lack of grazing are possible causative factors.

Ian Strachan Joint Recorder for Westerness (v.c. 97)

Finally, back to industrial estates, which seem to be a popular haunt for botanists! Lysimachia (Anagallis) arvensis (Scarlet Pimpernel), which is rare in the north of Scotland, appeared in the Evanton Industrial park in July – the first record in East Ross

News from around the vicecounties. Jessica Hamilton has refound Sambucus ebulus (Dwarf Elder) and Parentucellia viscosa (Yellow Bartsia) for hectads in Co. Kerry (H1/H2) where they were last reported before 1969. In East Cork (H5) Finbarr Wallace found

Over on Bute (v.c. 100), Angus Hannah began a small project in March to re-find as many as possible of the species he has recorded there over the last 20 years, and to record them at least once in each hectad where they occur. By late July he had found 720 of these species, with one or two surprises on the way, such as a big previously missed colony of Ophioglossum vulgatum (Adder’s Tongue) and a new hectad site for Carex diandra (Lesser Tussocksedge). A few species seem to have suffered from droughty springs in the two previous years, especially plants of thin turf or small runnels that can dry up, such as Carex caryophyllea (Spring Sedge) and Selaginella selaginoides (Lesser Clubmoss).

Rich, T.C.G. 2020. List of vascular plants endemic to Britain, Ireland and the Channel Islands 2020. British & Irish Botany 2: 169–189.

Euphrasia tetraquetra (Western Eyebright) on the sea-cliffs at Ballylanders, a new vice-county record, otherwise only known in Co. Cork from the southwest (H3). Rather alarming news from the neighbouring County of Waterford (H6) is Crassula helmsii (New Zealand Pigmyweed), found in large quantities along the River Blackwater at Cappoquin, and otherwise only known from one other site in the county. In Antrim (H39) another Crassula, this time Crassula tillaea (Mossy Stonecrop), has been found new for the county at Newforge in Belfast. This tiny little plant is spreading in Ireland, like it is in many parts of the UK. David McNeill also reports that Vicia lathyroides (Spring Vetch) has been found at Waterfoot, which is a new site and only the second post 2000 record for Co. Antrim. Staying in the

same county, David tells me that Ric Else and Hazel Watson have carried out an amazing Ajuga pyramidalis (Pyramidal Bugle) survey on Rathlin Island, recording over 700 flowering spikes this year.

Dryopteris affinis subsp. kerryensis (Golden-scaled Male-fern). Paul Green

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 71 COUNTRY ROUNDUPS: Ireland

(Stag’s-horn Clubmoss) has perished.Onthe South Tipperary side of the Knockmealdown Mountains on a slope below the road leading from the Vee, Alison Evans and Roger Golding found a large population of Dryopteris affinis (Golden-scaled Male-fern) subsp. kerryensis, new for the county, and also the second county record for subsp. cambrensis. In North Tipperary Lisa Dolan had found Campanula trachelium (Nettleleaved Bellflower) scattered along either side of a small river at Killavalla, east of Borisokane; this being the first hectad record since Robert Praeger saw it in 1900. On a remote shingle beach south of Rossaveel in West Galway (H16) Aoife Boyd found two plants of Lathyrus japonica (Sea Pea), only the second record for Co. Galway. In Co. Wexford

Still in Northern Ireland, Graham Day reports that Polypogon monspeliensis (Annual Beard-grass) has been found new for Co. Down (H38) in Belfast by Jake Dalzell. While Graham was in the Mournes with Valerie Macartney they found Vaccinium oxycoccos (Cranberry) new for the area, which is in itself surprising as the Mournes have been very well recorded over the years. Graham Day also reports that Asplenium trichomanes subsp. trichomanes (Maidenhair Spleenwort) has survived the fire of April 2021 in the Black Stairs, while it would seem the Lycopodium clavatum

Neottia cordata (Lesser Twayblade). Andrew Malcolm

(H12) Paula O’Meara refound Orobanche rapum-genistae (Greater Broomrape) on the margin of Killoughrum Forest where it once occurred in large numbers and was lasted reported in 1917 by Charles Moffat. Still in Co. Wexford I found Trifolium suffocatum (Suffocated Clover) at Ferrycarrig Castle, a new clover for Ireland.

Two of the best finds to report are by Ciarán Byrne of Epipactis phyllanthes (Greenflowered Helleborine) from an

And finally, it can sometimes be fun doing the research to see when a plant was first reported from a county. As I was driving through Co. Laois (H14) near Stradbally I noticed a patch of Senecio sarracenicus (Broadleaved Ragwort) on the top of a roadside bank. The DDb (BSBI database) implied it was a new county record. Both A Catalogue of Alien Plants in

Paul Green BSBI Ireland Officer

72 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 COUNTRY ROUNDUPS: Ireland

Vaccinium oxycoccos (Cranberry). Graham

(Nettleleaved Bellflower). Lisa Dolan

Ireland (Reynolds, 2002) and Census Catalogue of the Flora of Ireland (Scannell & Synnott, 1987) listed it as occurring in Co. Laois. Sylvia Reynolds came to my rescue and dug out the information, and to our surprise it was found by Thomas Chandlee in two places near Stradbally, mentioned in Cybele Hibernica (Moore & More, 1866). It is expected that publications since Cybele Hibernica carried the record forward, but authors hadn’t actually seen Broad-leaved Ragwort growing in the county. Is my record the first Co Laois record since 1866?

CampanulaDaytrachelium

oak-ash-hazel wood at Dunsany, Co. Meath (H22), and Andrew Malcolm, who found five plants from a wooded road verge at Villierstown, Co. Waterford (H6); it is a new orchid for both counties. Ciarán also recorded Atropa belladonna (Deadly Nightshade) in the wood at Dunsany, another new species for Co. Meath. Andrew has been busy updating sites of rare species on the Waterford side of the Knockmealdown Mountains, including Neottia cordata (Lesser Twayblade), where he counted over 400 flowering plants under the conifers.

Epipactis phyllanthes (Greenflowered Helleborine). Andrew Malcolm

Photo: Don Cotton on a family outing to the top of the Ben Bulbin range, Co. Sligo, 1986. Elaine Cotton

OBITUARIES

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 73

Compiled by Chris D. Preston, Obituaries Editor

Don’s records were submitted to the relevant recording groups and he published over 30 articles in the Irish Naturalists’ Journal and many others in the Sligo Field Club Journal. His most recent article, published jointly with Micheline Sheehy Skeffington just before his death, was on the Strawberry Tree Arbutus unedo in County Sligo. In 2012 Don was awarded the Distinguished Recorder Award from the National Biodiversity and Data Centre for his life-long commitment to conservation.

Sligo and Leitrim, where Don did most of his recording, are both counties famous for their

OBITUARIES

involved in recording the natural history of this part of the north-west of Ireland.

Don was born in Carlisle on 19 November 1950; he started his secondary education in London but spent his sixth form years at Tiverton Grammar School in Devon before spending a short time in nature conservation in Scotland. He then went to Reading University where he undertook a first degree followed by a PhD on the insects colonising cattle slurry. In 1976, after his time in Reading, Don came to Ireland to do postdoctoral research at University College, Dublin on the impact of new farming practices on the ecology of soil invertebrates, especially earthworms. In the late 1970s he moved to Sligo to lecture in ecology and geology at the Regional Technical College where he taught undergraduates and supervised higher degrees. From the day of his arrival in Sligo Don got

In the most general terms Don was a naturalist, an ecologist and a conservationist, but more particularly he was an ornithologist, an entomologist, an odonatist and a botanist; he also studied whales, earthworms, hoverflies, spiders, snails, ladybirds, jellyfish and marine debris, though this list is not exhaustive. He added significantly to the knowledge of the distribution of many species in these groups in Ireland. The only validated record of Gervais Beaked Whale in Ireland was due to Don’s curiosity and attention to detail; he had a whale exhumed by Sligo County Council on 26 January 1989, and transported to the Ulster Museum, Belfast where it was identified as a species new to Ireland. In 1981 Don discovered a damselfly, Coenagrion lunulatum, which was new to Britain and Ireland; the species is now known as the Irish Bluet, and is quite widespread in the northern part of Ireland but it has yet to be found in Britain.

DONALD (DON) CHARLES FRANCIS COTTON (1950–2022)

D

19 Green’s Road, Cambridge, CB4 3EF cdpr@ceh.ac.uk

on Cotton, the BSBI Vice-county Recorder for Co. Sligo (v.c. H28), died peacefully at home in Sligo on 13 January 2022, after a long illness.

arctic-alpine plant species at well-known sites such as Glenade, Glencar, the Horseshoe and Ben Bulben. Mullaghmore, a site with well-developed machair and numerous orchid species, is also in Sligo. When Dr Daniel Kelly retired as Vice-county Recorder for Leitrim in 1995, Don was appointed in his place as he had started recording in the county soon after his arrival in Ireland. The New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora (2002) contains over 16,000 of Don’s records from the county. Don’s meticulous recording skills added many new vice-county records to what was already a relatively well-recorded county, amongst the most notable species being Blackstonia perfoliata, Carex lasiocarpa, Echium vulgare, Equisetum pratense, E. × trachyodon, Hammarbya paludosa, Limosella aquatica, Milium effusum and Oenanthe fluviatilis. Even after his appointment as VCR for Sligo in 2006, Don continued his interest in Leitrim’s plants until shortly before his death.

The yet to be published Plant Atlas 2020 will contain some 100,000 of Don’s records for Sligo and Leitrim and they will be a fitting tribute to his years of exploring these two counties.

Don was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2014 and from then until late 2021 he received many different courses of treatment. Each would be effective in suppressing the myeloma for a period but eventually the markers for the disease would increase again, necessitating a change to a different treatment. By late 2021 there were no new treatments left to give him and through December he deteriorated quite quickly, finally succumbing to the disease in January 2022. Don continued to botanise during his illness, spending many days in the field exploring Counties Leitrim and Sligo.

Robert Northridge

I

first met Michael by chance in August 1985 at Sandscale Haws in south-west Cumbria. We had a long and, for me, informative conversation during which he promised to show me Orchis morio (as it then was) at several south Cumbrian sites the following spring. That second meeting in May 1986 was wholly successful and was the first of many over the next 35 years, encompassing visits to all parts of Britain, shortly followed by trips to Ireland, Gotland, Crete, Cyprus, the Peloponnese, Spain, Switzerland and France. Initially, orchids were our main target but

MICHAEL JAMES YATES FOLEY MBE, PhD (1935–2022)

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Don’s first botanical records from Sligo date from 1981, soon after his arrival, and by the time that the New Atlas was published Don had collected over 11,000 plant records for the county. On Dr Sharon Parr’s retirement from the position of VCR for Sligo in 2006, Don took over her position to officially record in his home county where he had been living and recording for the previous quarter of a century. As in Leitrim, Don’s keen eye, methodical quartering of the ground and accurate identification skills added many new first county records for

Sligo. Some of the more interesting were Eleocharis acicularis, Fumaria purpurea, Hieracium umbellatum, Lathraea squamaria, Luzula pilosa and most notably Viola persicifolia at Lough Gowra in 2006.

OBITUARIES

Don will be sadly missed by all those in Ireland interested in conservation and natural history, but he will be especially missed by his friends in the BSBI. Don is survived by his wife Elaine and his daughters Róisín and Aisling; he was predeceased by his son Martin.

Michael had a wide and constantly evolving range of botanical enthusiasms and interests and, as the years went by, salvias, broomrapes, horsetails, sedges and violas were added to our list with birds and butterflies and, latterly, other insects playing an increasingly important role. What never failed to amaze me was the way Michael always seemed to know exactly the places to go to see the various species we were looking for. In the wilds of the Peloponnese, he might say, ‘We need to park here and walk up this little valley and then, over the top there should be …’.

Michael Foley after receiving his MBE, 2003.

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development chemist until he was made redundant in 1988. Following a short period of work as an ecological consultant, Michael began a PhD at the University of Lancaster on the taxonomy of some European species of Orobanche. This was successfully completed in 1998. Before this date Michael had produced several academic papers on botanical matters but he subsequently wrote many more (30 in total) on subjects as diverse as Salvia veneris in Cyprus, Orobanche on the Arabian Peninsula and Spiranthes aestivalis in north-west Europe. He also wrote articles on little-appreciated British botanists and a paper on Christopher Merrett’s Pinax rerum naturalium britannicarum (Foley, 2006). Shortly after gaining his PhD he carried out work in conjunction with Ian Hedge of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh and became an associate of the Garden. He wrote the text for Orchids of the British Isles (Foley & Clarke, 2005), was joint author of two BSBI Handbooks, Sedges of the British Isles (Jermy et al., 2007) and Violas of Britain and Ireland (Porter & Foley, 2017) and contributed substantial items on Orobanche to Flora Iberica and the Flora of Nepal. Whilst maintaining the highest scientific and academic standards, Michael had the happy knack of writing interestingly and his work is always highly readable. He was also able to back up his investigations with photographs, as he was a skilled and imaginative photographer. During this period of his life he travelled widely and frequently in Britain and Europe, sometimes alone, sometimes with Ruth and Trevor Piearce (including two visits to Svalbard), sometimes with me, in pursuit of plants. His trips were not for the faint-hearted! I remember on more than one occasion driving to the Scottish Highlands, climbing a substantial hill, collecting details of a sedge, going back down the hill and then driving home – 600 miles, and a moderate climb, all in one day. Or I might get a phone call one evening ‘Do you fancy a trip to France to look at Spiranthes aestivalis – on Friday? If we sleep in the car and don’t hang around we can manage it in two days’.

Though Michael will be remembered by many botanists for his exceptional contributions to botanical knowledge, he had many other interests, chief among which was cricket and the coaching of

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 75

And there was! I soon realised this was due to a wide range of contacts throughout Europe, a phenomenal memory, meticulous planning and, above all, a feel for where a particular plant would grow.

Michael (often Mike to his friends) was born on 15 December 1935, the only child of Harriet (née Yates) and Robert Foley, a cotton mill manager. For the first years of his life the family lived in Darwen, Lancashire before moving a short distance to 87 Ribchester Road, Clayton-le-Dale in September 1939, the house where Michael was to live until his death in 2022. He attended Clitheroe Royal Grammar School, obtaining A-levels in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry and playing both association football and cricket for the school first teams. He was called for Lancashire youth team cricket trials as an off-spinner but was not selected. He obtained a BSc Tech. in Chemistry at the University of Manchester and an MSc Tech. in Organic Chemistry (with a thesis on steric inhibition of mesomerism) in 1960. He was a keen walker and mountaineer, on one occasion completing half the Cuillin ridge by himself after his companion decided that the task was too challenging. After university, he was employed at Crown Paints as a research and

Gordon Hanson in his garden of alien plants, Ware, Hertfordshire, September 2017. June Crew

Foley, M.J.Y. 2006. Christopher Merrett’s Pinax rerum naturalium britannicarum (1666): annotations to what is believed to be the author’s personal copy. Archives of Natural History 33: Foley,191–201.M.[J.Y.] & Clarke, S[.J.] 2005. Orchids of the British Isles. Griffin Press, Cheltenham. Jermy, A.C., Simpson, D.A., Foley, M.J.Y. & Porter, M.S. 2007. Sedges of the British Isles (3rd edn). Botanical Society of the British Isles, London. Porter, M.[S.] & Foley, M.[J.Y.] 2017. Violas of Britain and Ireland. Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, Bristol.

Michael’s many other interests were mainly in the field of natural history and were wideranging – hares, waxcaps, birds, butterflies, bees and orthopterans. As with his botanical interests, he was a great communicator, administering several Facebook sites and writing local guides to the insects of north-west England, as well as a short volume of poetry Forsinard and Other Memories in 2019. In all these fields and in others new to him he rapidly gained a high level of knowledge, testimony to a quick and retentive brain and an ability to assimilate and synthesise information. He retained these qualities to the end of his life and, even when health problems had greatly reduced his mobility, he never lost his enthusiasm for wildlife and for getting out in the field – only days before his death, he was making plans to re-visit a site for Neotinea ustulata in Wensleydale and

Mike Porter

Gordon (as he was always known) Hanson’s name may not be familiar to many presentday botanists, but his passion for and commitment to studying the nature and origins of our alien flora has made huge contributions both regionally and nationally. In later years his attendance at indoor and field meetings was constrained by prolonged bouts of ill health, with the result that few local contemporaries had the chance to interact with him personally. However, the number of records for exotic and introduced species attributed to Gordon in successive Floras of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, alongside his research papers and a vast amount of herbarium material, is ample testimony to his achievements, enthusiasm and expertise.Gordon was born on 7 September 1938 at Langley near Slough and grew up in that area, CHARLES GORDON HANSON (1938–2021)

young cricketers. He devoted much of his life to this, being awarded an MBE for services to sport in 2003. One of the many young cricketers he had coached later said of him ‘One thing that really stood out about him was that he wasn’t just interested in the good players. He wanted everyone to do well’.

References

OBITUARIES

Michael wore his scholarship lightly, never forcing his views on others and always at pains to ensure that the opinions of fellow enthusiasts were taken into account. His great number of friends in Britain and Europe, in various fields of activity, are a testament to his warmth, his enthusiasm and his readiness to share his knowledge – he will be greatly missed.

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even arranging a trip by plane to the Outer Hebrides to see the Great Yellow Bumblebee. Michael died, from heart failure, on 21 February 2022.

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 77

obtaining a scholarship to Slough Grammar School. At school he developed a reputation as something of a prankster, but secondary education must also have helped to develop the passions and rigour that characterised both his subsequent professional and amateur careers. He served briefly as a laboratory assistant at the renowned Fulmer Research Institute before embarking on a part-time threeyear HND physics course at Kingston Polytechnic. Having then obtained a teaching certificate at Huddersfield Polytechnic, he was appointed in 1964 to a lecturership in physics and engineering at the Mid-Herts College of Further Education in Welwyn Garden City. His lectures were reputedly rather unorthodox and hands-on, involving such props as sledgehammers and drain covers, but no doubt very memorable as a consequence. He also produced a physics textbook to accompany his teaching (Hanson, 1971). Gordon married Jill at her home town of Norwich in 1960, and they had a son Andrew and daughter Philippa, born in 1964 and 1966, respectively. In 1966 the Hansons moved to a house in Coltsfoot Road, Ware, where Gordon and Jill lived ever since.

Aside from his day job, Gordon had many consuming passions including music (he sang with the Ware Choral Society), railway history, Meccano (an enthusiasm nurtured in childhood that prevailed though his adult life) and gardening. The garden at Coltsfoot Road acquired widespread fame for its collections of plants obtained on overseas holidays, cultivated from bird seed (see below), or encompassing specialised taxonomic groups. As an example of the latter, his assemblage of Cotoneaster species proved a valued resource for Peter Sell when producing descriptions of flowers and fruits for Volume 2 of Sell & Murrell’s Flora of Great Britain and Ireland

Gordon’s passion for alien plants was absorbing and infectious. June Crew, a staff colleague at the Mid Herts College and a fellow naturalist, recalls his talks on this subject to the Cheshunt Natural History Society where he circulated specimens from such exotic genera as Amaranthus, Datura and Nicandra. His associated field meetings focused on

Perhaps his most significant botanical contribution and enduring legacy was painstaking research on the occurrence of alien plants originating from seed sold for wild and caged birds, based both on documenting the presence of such plants in the ‘wild’ as well as cultivating material from commercial seed mixes. Gordon’s son Andrew recalls ‘ah yes, the bird seed! I recall being trained from an early age to sort through packets of the stuff, and remember being particularly impressed to be told I’d found seed of Cannabis sativa’. A landmark paper in Watsonia (Hanson & Mason, 1985) presented a list of 425 species believed to have been imported by this means, of which 318 had actually been cultivated by the authors from birdseed mixtures. A follow-up paper (Hanson, 2000) added a further 44 taxa to the list. As editor of BSBI’s new online journal British & Irish Botany, one of us (ID) had the pleasure of working with Gordon on a further paper (Hanson, 2019) dealing specifically with plants originating as impurities in batches of Niger (Guizotia abyssinica)

OBITUARIES

alluring habitats such as sewage works and rubbish tips, and most excitedly also included fields in south Bedfordshire where farmers had incorporated, as soil fertiliser, shoddy from sheep fleeces imported from Australasia and South America. Some of the material collected on these forays was cultivated for further inspection in greenhouses at the University of Hertfordshire’s (then Hatfield Polytechnic’s) field station at Bayfordbury, a site that itself has generated some interesting botanical discoveries. In its disused glasshouses, Gordon found a mystery species of Solanum that became increasingly frequent as the glasshouses became increasingly derelict, and has since even spread outdoors. This plant was assigned a number of incorrect names until Sandy Knapp at the Natural History Museum diagnosed it as Solanum chacoense. This is a South American species only ever recorded in Europe in the vicinity of research institutes involved in potato improvement and utilising S. chacoense as a source of resistance to potato blight. Mystery solved: before it was acquired by Hatfield Polytechnic, Bayfordbury was the site of the original John Innes Institute, which at the time was undertaking work on potato breeding!

Hanson, C.G. & Mason, J.L. 1985. Bird seed aliens in Britain.

Clement. Material remaining at Ware following Gordon’s death on 13 December 2021 has been transferred to the Bayfordbury campus for sorting and eventual rehousing. In its entirety this material represents an astonishing legacy of what was a purely amateur pursuit.

Hanson, C.G. 2000. Update on birdseed aliens (1985–1998). Watsonia 23: 213–220.

t is with great regret that we have to report the sudden and unexpected death of our friend and colleague Clive Lovatt on 1 March 2022, at the age of 67. Clive was born on 15 February 1955 in Coventry, where his father was a bank manager, whilst his mother later ran an antiques shop in Tewkesbury. His older sister, Wendy, became a general medical practitioner. Clive’s father was a keen walker and naturalist and encouraged Clive’s interest from an early age. Clive attended primary school in Kenilworth and then Warwick School, despite having a fight with a friend on the entrance exam day and not completing the afternoon’s paper. At school he also enjoyed dancing which led to a keen interest in Morris dancing and folk music. He was a squeeze box player and owned a large collection of melodeons. He belonged for a time to a Morris group in Shepton Mallet.

Hanson, G. 1971. Problems and Examples in Physics for ONC/ OND. McGraw Hill, Maidenhead.

Clive Lovatt. Liz McDonnell

seed imported as wild bird food from Ethiopia and south Asia. The paper includes the (no doubt) considerable understatement ‘sorting through 1kg packets of Niger seed with a hand lens and tweezers to separate out the impurities is a laborious task but is necessary because the product is normally well over 99% pure’! The obscurity of many species retrieved and cultivated required expert assistance with identification provided by one of the current authors (EJC) among others. This paper is also notable for including images of specimens from Gordon’s herbarium that leave no doubt about the great care taken in their preparation.

Hanson, C.G. 2019. Birdseed aliens originating from Niger (Guizotia abyssinica) wild bird food. British & Irish Botany 1: 292–308.

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Watsonia 15: 237–252.

References

I

Clive obtained a place at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1974 to read chemical engineering but transferred to botany in his second year. On graduation he moved to Bristol University in 1977 to work for a PhD under Dr Lewis Frost. His thesis The history, ecology and status of the rare plants and the vegetation

CLIVE MARTIN LOVATT (1955–2022)

Ian Denholm and Eric J. Clement

Material collected and preserved by Gordon is held at the Natural History Museum, National Museum of Wales, University of Reading, North Herts Museum and the personal herbarium of Eric

OBITUARIES of the Avon Gorge, Bristol (1982) ran to two volumes and 722 pages. Dr Frost, he later wrote, ‘in his own way, let me get on with my historical researches even though some were regarded as peripheral’ (Nature in

unique flora. He pursued botany with increasing enthusiasm. We remember that in April 1985 whilst square bashing for the Flora of the Bristol Region on Worlebury Hill, Weston-super-Mare with Liz McDonnell and Captain Roe, author of the 1981 Flora of Somerset and who was probably on one of his last field meetings, Clive announced that we had to record absolutely everything as we might never return to that locality again. Clive would often carry on botanising long after the rest of the party had worn themselves out and returned home or gone to the pub. His botanising would continue until the arrival of dusk. If the botany at a site was good Clive could become completely engrossed in his pursuit and he would lose all sense of time. This is best illustrated when a quick stop at a motorway service station revealed some fine arable weeds. This quick stop turned into a three-hour stay and resulted in a fixed penalty parking fine.

In 2014 the BSBI approached him to become the Vice-county Recorder for West Gloucestershire following our retirement. He gladly accepted this role and recorded many first county and vice-county records during his botanical exploration. Lately he had been assisting in the county wildlife trust’s Habimap Project.

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From almost the moment he arrived in Bristol Clive was wedded to the Avon Gorge and its

Once back in England Clive had resumed more active botany with the Bristol Naturalists’ Society and became the President of the Botanical Section and chaired the library committee; he was also the honorary archivist. Over the years he contributed many well researched and erudite historical articles for the society’s monthly newsletter. He also joined the Gloucestershire Naturalists’ Society, eventually becoming a joint author of the annual county botanical report in The Gloucestershire Naturalist. At about the same time Clive joined the Somerset Rare Plant Group and recently became their treasurer. He led many immensely enjoyable field meetings and workshops for these societies. He was in the process of writing an ‘Historical Flora of the Avon Gorge’ at the time of his death.

Shortly after the completion of his thesis he married Pam. At the age of 26 Clive became a teacher at Wells Cathedral School, teaching science and enjoying Saturday rugby. This was the last year teaching was allowed without a diploma. After a short time he changed career to train as an accountant with David Pearman’s old firm in Shepton Mallet, eventually being employed by Deloittes in Kenya. His move to Africa meant leaving behind many botanical books with friends for safe custody. He spent 25 years there, mainly in Malawi where he kept a large number of Alsatian dogs. Before returning to Britain he maintained his correspondence with local botanists and he agreed in 2004 to write the annual ‘Bristol Botany’ report for Bristol Naturalists’ Society, following the retirement of Professor Willis.

Avon 67: 57, 2007). Whilst undertaking his research he joined Bristol Naturalists’ Society and we first met him on their field meetings. The most memorable occasion was a meeting Clive was leading in the Gorge on 25 April 1981 when he turned up late, having rescued a woman who was in imminent danger of drowning in the nearby Bristol Docks. For this feat he received a Royal Humane Society award and certificate.

Clive was a prolific collector of botanical books which occupied several floors of his town house. He particularly enjoyed his collection of annotated

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Clive returned to Britain in 2010 and after his divorce he briefly lived at Mountain Ash in the South Wales valleys before buying a house in Shirehampton, close to his beloved Avon Gorge. In 2011 he joined the staff of BSBI as part-time Administrative Officer, working from home. His role included administering the contracts with the country conservation agencies and keeping the books for the Honorary Treasurers. He was present during the tortuous change from an unincorporated charity to a charitable company, becoming Company Secretary after the transition. On inheriting money from his mother and an aunt he was able in 2016 to retire gracefully from these posts that he had found increasingly uncongenial. He was also able to buy a town house in Stroud which was large enough to accommodate his botanical library and gave him views over Rodborough Common.

He endeavoured to make botany more interesting to those with a love for wild flowers, who were willing to learn more, respecting the natural riches that surround them. He was a very patient teacher. With friends he enjoyed many delightful experiences that fall to the lot of a field botanist wherever he may bend his steps. If there be any lesson to learn or advantage to gain from studying the doings of people of botany it must be the same that is taught or conferred by his example as the mark he has left upon the world. Namely we should emulate his diligence and that the desire to rank with him in good repute should be stimulated and strengthened. In any case it is surely fitting that we should sometimes pause and turn aside from the occupations of today, thankfully to remember and acknowledge what Clive has done for us.

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Clive was very active in his final days, leading a Bristol Naturalists’ meeting at Portishead, delivering our joint county botanical report for 2021 for publication and he spent his final day studying Sphagnum species in the Forest of Dean with three friends.

Mr J.E Aslett of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, a member for 63 years; Mrs P. Clark of Holyhead, Anglesey, a member for 5 years; Mr B. Goater of Chandlers Ford, Hampshire, a member for 62 years; Dr G.S. Joyce of Sevenoaks, Kent, a member for 21 years; Mrs P. E. Popely of Scarborough,

North Yorkshire, a member for 16 years; Prof. R.O. Robinson of Amberley, West Sussex, a member for 24 years; Mr T. Swainbank of Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, a member for 30 years; Mr F.M. Tulley of Coupar Angus, Perth & Kinross, a member for 15 years; Mr C. Walker of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, a member for 54 years.

We have lost our treasured and valued great friend of more than 40 years. He was our go to botanist, someone we could share our plant identification doubts with, someone who would appreciate and share our great botanical moments and finds with and he shared his doubts and triumphs with us. In travelling around the county there is nowhere that either we have fond memories of botanising with our kind friend or that we wished to take him and show him some botanical treasure. He is sorely missed.

OBITUARYOBITUARIES

ince we compiled the last Obituary Notes, news has reached us of the death of the following members or former members, including several of very long standing. We send our sympathy to their families and friends.

NOTES

Chris D. Preston, Obituaries Editor

county Floras which included multiple copies of J.W. White’s The Flora of Bristol (1912) and the Flora of Gloucestershire by Riddelsdell et al. (1948). Latterly he would spend hours trawling eBay and whenever a copy of White’s Flora was offered for sale, either with annotations or even just with the signature of a notable botanist on the fly leaf, he would snap it up. He collected all manner of botanical ephemera and announced one day with great glee that he had secured several medicine bottles from the pharmacy of one of his botanical heroes, G.C. Druce of Oxford. He kindly shared the hoard with his friends. Whenever he saw a painting of the Avon Gorge, usually in watercolour, Clive would snap it up eagerly and these covered the walls of his home. These views of the Gorge together with his large herbarium of pressed plants contained in three cabinets originally owned by J.W. White have been donated to Bristol Museum, as has the bryophyte herbarium of R.M. Payne which Clive had custody of.

Assisted by the Membership Secretary, Gwynn Ellis. Date of compilation 3 August 2022.

We make no apology in selecting quotes, with some slight adaptation, from Clive’s botanical hero James Walter White’s Flora of the Bristol Region, his favourite historical flora, and incorporating our own

words. Clive strove to emulate the standards of this botanist and his publication throughout his own botanical research and field work. In the words of White:

Clare and Mark Kitchen

S

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 81

REVIEWS

species) and lichens (8 pages, 160 species) are well documented; algae were sampled from a few locations, and include four stoneworts.

ver 360 years after Ray’s Cambridge Catalogue, the range of county, district and site Floras has grown steadily, and been joined by hundreds of accounts of breeding birds, butterflies, dragonflies and other wildlife. Comprehensive accounts of the whole flora and fauna of an area remain rare, with single volumes about a few sites, and series of papers for a few more. Woodward, Ikin and the Loughborough Naturalists’ Club have produced the best-illustrated and most wide-ranging single-site survey I have seen. It includes 3403 taxa from flowers and birds to gall-wasps and tardigrades.

The vascular flora is the longest chapter: 54 pages, 619 species, 140 photographs. Grace Dieu has attracted botanists since the 18th century. Churchill Babington lived next to the site. His cousin, Charles Cardale Babington, visited occasionally with Rev. John Stevens Henslow. Many other 19th and 20th century botanists knew Grace Dieu, so the authors can illustrate changes through time. The 2008–12 survey re-found Lathraea squamaria (Toothwort) and Viola palustris (Marsh Violet). A tiny population of Equisetum hyemale (Rough Horsetail) has survived since at least 1838. Aliens are treated thoroughly, including planted trees. Critical genera are covered more patchily, with a few historical records of Rubus, a few modern Rosa. All Hieracium were checked by the BSBI referee, but no Taraxacum microspecies are recorded. Bryophytes (14 pages, 143 species), fungi (22 pages, 528

Grace Dieu, named from a ruined priory, comprises 176ha on the edge of Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire. It includes broadleaved woodland, some of it ancient, plantations, ponds, a fen, a gravel-bottomed brook, acid and neutral grassland, acidic rock outcrops and limestone quarries. The introduction describes the geology and landscape history. Twenty-two taxonomic chapters outline recording history and field techniques, identification literature and websites, before listing the species. Historical records have been updated by many Club field trips in the five years 2008–12.

More Than Meets the Eye. The Wildlife of Grace Dieu, StephenLeicestershireWoodward & Helen Ikin Loughborough Naturalists’ Club, Loughborough, 2022; pp. 310, with many colour photographs and other illustrations; pbk £18.00. Obtainable via www. loughboroughnats.org ISBN 9780956281517

Compiled by Clive Stace, Book Reviews Editor Appletree House, Larters Lane, Middlewood Green, Stowmarket, IP14 5HB cstace@btinternet.com

The work ends with a brief analysis of the results, a gazetteer, glossary and index. The A4 softback volume seems sturdily bound. Printing and colour rendition are excellent. It has clearly been carefully proofread, and I have so far found no misidentifications, quite an achievement for a work of such breadth.Nosite study can be comprehensive, but this is probably as thorough as a determined group of skilled fieldworkers can produce. Midlands naturalists will find it fascinating. Anyone who has pondered how many species they might find in their local area should be provoked into wider recording. For beginning naturalists, it is also a ‘how-to’ guide introducing the study of almost all of British biodiversity.

REVIEWS

Brian Eversham

O

The zoological chapters reflect the availability of local specialists, historical data and identification guides. For most groups, the larger and more abundant species are well recorded, with interesting ecological details and often striking illustrations. Where species identification proved impossible, genus or family records are included.

There are some very pleasing features such as a helpful photographic index on the inside flaps; a really nice map showing the British distribution of Limonium binervosum agg. group members, and a lovely explanation of the Spartina anglica story.

82 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 REVIEWS

William Collins, London, 2022; pp. x + 502, with many coloured figures, mainly photographs; hbk £65. ISBN 9780008304515

as restricted to the drier, upper reaches of saltmarshes whilst the photograph shows it growing on top of a sea wall.

Colin French Trees

Following the short introductory pages which set the coastal scene, the bulk of the book comprises the species accounts. Most plants are given a half page spread with a superb photograph showing the plant’s jizz; a cropped photograph depicting key features, and a brief description under the headings of Height, Ecology & Natural History, Habitat, Flowers, Fruits and Leaves. There is also a panel describing status, including a thumbnail map of Britain with the overall distribution shaded in green. The thumbnails have to be taken with a pinch of salt

From the briefest flick through, this field guide is obviously a quality production and stands out from the crowd. The layout is very pleasing and clear, the photographs are excellent, very skilfully taken, and the colours are true. Furthermore, the printing standard and paper quality is very high and the cover has a slight waxy feel which appears suitable for fieldwork.

Clearly a huge amount of time and effort has gone into producing this book, but proof reading by a very experienced field botanist would have been helpful in order to tighten up the descriptive text and iron out the niggly little things, such as describing Malva neglecta as upright or Lysimachia vulgaris as similar to Lysimachia arvensis Nevertheless, for budding botanists visiting the coast, I would recommend carrying Francis Rose’s The Wild Flower Key in one pocket and this book in another. Use the keys and descriptive text in Rose in conjunction with the photographs in this field guide and you have the perfect combination!

Field Guide to Coastal Wildflowers of Britain, Ireland and Northwest PaulEuropeSterry & Andrew Cleave Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford, 2022; pp. 352, with over 1500 coloured photos; pbk £20.00. ISBN 9780691238456

Cochlearia danica has white petals according to the text and yet they are clearly their characteristic pale pink colour in the photographs. Frankenia laevis is described

Trees (New Naturalist no. Peter145)A.Thomas

The nomenclature follows Stace ed. 4 (2019), apart from Cotoneaster from which Chaenopetalum has been split. The taxonomic order is a little wayward. The species descriptions begin with trees and shrubs and end with non-flowering plants. A selection of seaweeds, mosses and lichens is also included, although just three bryophytes seem pointless and certainly not worth highlighting on the back cover.Ina few instances the photographs do not match the descriptive text. Potentilla erecta is described as having four yellow petals whilst the main photograph shows one flower with five.

Over 600, predominantly native, species are included, although I totted up 30 missing coastal plants with little difficulty.

– Volume 145 in the New Naturalist Library – is a very short title for a particularly large subject. (Having read it, I now know that the combined mass

as some of the maps are very misleading. For example, Lathyrus aphaca is depicted as widespread in Cornwall whereas, in reality, only one plant has been found in the last 30 years. Nevertheless, thumbnails are a good idea and mostly helpful. Some plants also have a panel showing a similar species. More use could have been made of this feature for plants that people frequently mistake, such as Trifolium dubium for Medicago lupulina, or to alert the reader to plants not otherwise covered, such as Reseda luteola

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 83

of the Earth’s trees is nearly 700 gigatons, or 60% of all life-forms.)

ISBN 9780901158567

To be more precise, this is a book about tree physiology – how they live, die and generally regulate themselves as organisms. It is not a book about the natural and cultural history of trees (a subject treated magisterially by the late Oliver Rackham in the series’ 100th volume, Woodlands). Nor does it cover in any detail such subjects as tree identification, or the evolutionary relationships between the world’s trees.

All this has the effect of making Trees a less engaging bed-time read than some of its slightly more populist rivals, such as Colin Tudge’s The Secret Life of Trees (Penguin, 2005). But it does make for an invaluably comprehensive textbook, from which even the most erudite reader seems bound to take away fascinating new facts. More than 500 references make it easy to explore any subject further, though inevitably a few of the things which most surprised me happen not to be referenced. (Did you know that a walnut, unlike other hardy trees, can lose 95% of its fine roots in a cold winter, or that alders, rather than being simply deciduous, continually replace their leaves, each of which may live for little more than a month?)

As such, this volume represents a departure within the New Naturalist Library, scarcely prioritising the small range of the world’s trees which grow wild in the UK. To have drawn exclusively on UK examples might actually have made for a more satisfyingly and practicably circumscribed book, but this would have been at the cost of omitting many mind-opening exotic examples of tree behaviour, and would have depended on the unlikely circumstance of our wild trees having each been subject to the relevantReadersresearch.areprobably bound to spot the odd misprint whenever they turn to their own areas of expertise, suggesting that Trees has not benefited from such a meticulous process of editorial review as additions to the New Naturalist Library might deserve. But it can still be wholeheartedly recommended for the elegance with which its prose elucidates some often complex science, and for the efficiency with which it turns to so many topics where we’ve discovered the answers (why is oak timber strongest when grown fast, and spruce timber when grown slowly?) without skipping those puzzles we’re yet to solve. Why do some trees turn red in autumn?

Alchemilla. Lady’s-mantles of Britain and Ireland Mark Lynes

Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, BSBI Handbook No. 24, Durham, 2022; pp. 221, with many diagrams and coloured photographs; pbk £20.00.

Collection of flowering cherries on the campus). He is also widely travelled, and Trees draws again and again on personal observations and the author’s own photos of tree physiology from across the globe.

This said, the subject matter remains unusually broad for the New Naturalist Library, and, printed as it is on the customary heavy-gauge paper, I was continually aware of just how much carbon the hardback version locks up. And there is still a slightly frantic sense of hastening from one sub-topic to the next: trees and climate change, diseases such as Ash Dieback, best practice when planting trees, or how trees cooperate with mycorrhizal fungi or with each other.

Owen Johnson

REVIEWS

BSBI Handbooks are getting ever more expansive, and this latest in the series, with 221 pages and covering just 20 species, is much more a monograph than a Handbook in the sense of an easily portable field identification manual that the series was originally intended to provide. As a monograph, it is generally extremely detailed and interesting, lavishly illustrated with photographs and with ingenious diagrams of leaf and stem pubescence by Jeremy Roberts. In several respects its taxonomy differs from the existing recent accounts of the genus in Britain. Lynes considers British records of A. acutidens, given with reservations in both Stace’s New Flora ed. 4 (2019) and Sell & Murrell’s Flora Vol. 2 (2014), and not mentioned in Hogarth’s Alchemilla Field Guide (2020), to belong to A. wichurae, and that the true species is confined to France. Of three species recently described by Hogarth but not validly published,

Peter Thomas is perfectly qualified to have written this book, both as a botanist (Emeritus Reader in Plant Ecology at Keele) and as an arboriculturist (he curates the comprehensiveremarkablyNational

become increasingly less used throughout the Handbook series. The numerous photos for each species are, though, very helpful in showing the range of variation, especially of leaf shape and toothing. For the Alchemilla hunter in the right area, Hogarth’s Alchemilla: a Study of the Alchemilla Micro-species found in Northern Scotland (2019, nearly A4 with 58 pages) is brilliantly illustrated with mixed drawings and scans and is very useful, but the current Handbook is strongly recommended to anyone interested in the genus in Britain as a whole and will be an essential reference work for future Alchemilla taxonomy. It would be nice, though probably impossible because of the problems of the amount of variation within the species covered in the book, to have in addition a compact, shortened and pocketable version, with a corrected key, in the old Handbook format.

84 BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022

Along time in gestation, Stace’s Field Flora or ‘Baby Stace’ has now been reborn as the Concise Flora. True to its name, users should not expect lavish descriptions; it’s a strippedout version of the familiar Big Stace (Stace Ed. 4, 2019) but its advantages are apparent as soon as you pick it up. The lightweight paper is thin yet opaque for compactness and with a yellowed hue. This will prevent stooped backs and dazzled eyes in the sun whilst the tough plastic cover will ensure stalwarts can carry it on a wetAtday.the front of the book there is a dedication to Margaret, Clive’s late wife, who clearly did so much to bring it to fruition.

A. ‘cairnwellensis’ is equated with Lynes’s recently described A. sciura, and her A. ‘caledonica’ and A. ‘angusensis’ are synonymised under A. glabra Three other species recently described by Lynes are treated: A. neomanifesta, A. mebii and A. falsadenta. Ten pages of discussion on A. minima conclude that it is not worthy of recognition.

Naturally, additional spacesavers have been employed; acknowledgements are excluded, the number of illustrations is reduced (those of Montia and Nasturtium seeds have been relocated to just before the glossary), there is no index to species (only genera and families, the latter in bold). In the keys the country of origin is omitted as are chromosome numbers (but let’s remember this is intended as a fieldOneFlora).extra taxon has been added, the recently discovered fern Stenogrammitis myosuroides,

ArthurConciseChaterFlora

The chief sections of the Handbook are a history of Alchemilla studies in Britain, including notably those by Max Walters and Margaret Bradshaw, ten pages on identification techniques, a key to species, and then, after the extremely detailed species accounts covering five to ten pages each, a stimulating appendix on potential species that one might hope to find in Britain, lists of synonyms, references and an index.

I regret the absence of drawings, so valuable in giving the reader an idea of the gist of a species, but they have

of the British

As with Big Stace, it is first necessary to decide whether your specimen is a pteridophyte (fern or ally), gymnosperm (conifer) or angiosperm (flowering plant) and then follow a ‘general’ key leading to either genera in pteridophytes and gymnosperms, or families in angiosperms. The species identification keys remain intact but descriptions are omitted, so some botanical knowledge is required to avoid painstakingly keying out from first principles. However this should encourage, not deter, first time users!

The species key seems unedited and contains several small incongruities and at least three confusing dichotomies: 2a should read ‘Central leaflets separate at base’ (the word ‘separate’ is missing); 13a reads perplexingly ‘Petioles with some or many deflexed hairs (both rare)’ and 13b says the petiole hairs are ‘not deflexed’, yet the description of A. subcrenata that 13a leads to says ‘Distinctively, at least some of the petioles on a plant will have a proportion of deflexed hairs’. In dichotomy 16, A. wichurae is separated from A. glomerulans and A. glabra by the leaf veins ‘angled at 45°’ versus ‘not routinely angled at 45°’, but this is compromised by most of the photos and partly by the descriptions. In addition, five rare species are unhelpfully not fully keyed.

REVIEWS

CliveIsles Stace C & M Floristics, Middlewood Green, Suffolk, 2022; pp. xii + 804, with 32 monochrome plates and illustrations; plastic flexicover £30.00. ISBN 9781399919609

which has its own page at the back with an illustration by Fred Rumsey. I imagine that to rewrite the keys and repaginate would have unacceptably delayed publication.Nomenclature follows the second reprint of Big Stace Ed. 4. Mercifully, there appears to be only a small number of scientific name changes from the first print run. These include, for example, Erodium aethiopicum which is back to E. lebelii (Sticky Stork’sbill) and Festuca brevipila which is now F. trachyphylla (Hard Fescue). Consequently, the Concise Flora is now the best reference for new plantFornames.English names, perhaps due to a habitat misnomer, Chalk Knapweed (Centaurea debeauxii) is now Slender Knapweed but less obvious is that Silver Knapweed (Centaurea cineraria) is now Silvery Knapweed (a plant already with many names).

By necessity, only the most diagnostic identification characters are given which aren’t always the easiest to see, measure or interpret. This means some backtracking in keys may be required when faced with morphologically similar species and consultation with Big Stace for additional clues where identification is debated.

Errors are few and insignificant. Typos such as a missing ‘y’ in Crataegus rhipidophylla or authority errors (e.g. two Bromus hordeaceus subspecies lack naming authorities) do not detract from use. Two familiar synonyms are missing from the index (Haloragis and Sutera).

Perhaps, as an abridged version of Big Stace, an opportunity to update some of the keys has been missed. The key to goosefoots is very confusing but we can blame the taxomonists here for jumbling up the many Distributionsgenera.(andrarity status) have been helpfully kept but are sometimes dated. Gamochaeta purpurea (American Cudweed) is not naturalised in Surrey (although an increasing casual) and Herniaria ciliolata (Fringed Rupturewort) subsp. subciliata hasn’t been recorded in Jersey

for years. The occasional use of a question mark can be found but this may have been useful in more cases, if only to encourage others to refind long-lost rarities. Habitat information is also retained in a reduced form.

In summary, this is a longawaited and much-welcome standard field guide for the serious identification of plants. A whole generation of botanists seem unfamiliar with the last version published in 1999 so buy this without delay!

BSBI NEWS 151 | September 2022 85 REVIEWS

John Poland

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