A puzzling unrecorded herbarium and some related mysteries Philip Oswald

Having received a mobile call whilst waist-deep I recommend stowing the phone (and GPS) in an outer pocket unless you have contortionist’s skills. A further caution: very hot weather can make them a personalised sauna, rather defeating their intended purpose.

Some of our rarest natives rely upon seasonally fluctuating water levels to grow, flower, and set and spread seed or other propagules, e.g. Damasonium alisma (Starfruit), Eleocharis parvula (Dwarf Spike rush), Pilularia globulifera (Pillwort). Management of watercourses, lakes and ponds for decorative and leisure purposes favours a small draw-down zone and no open mud. Trench cutting of banks truncates the diversity of riparian habitat zones and canalisation destroys entirely those habitats dependent upon river meanders. In the New Forest the return of a watercourse to its original bed, after Victorian canalisation, has brought back a population of Wahlenbergia hederacea (Ivy-leaved Bellflower) and in recent BSBI News articles the discovery of Lythrum hyssopifolia (Grass-poly) demonstrates the degree to which many species rely upon the traditional historical management and uses of ponds and ditches. Seed banks present in anaerobic conditions can, particularly for opportunistic short-lived species, survive for many years. Pilularia globulifera, for instance, turned up in a heathland pond here in 2002 after an absence of 80 years, following clearance by the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust the previous year.

My son tells me that, if I have a super-power it is that of stating the completely obvious. I am hoping this is not entirely the case here and that these notes will, at least in part, prove helpful, particularly to those beginning botanical recording.

References

Jermy, A.C., Simpson, D.A., Foley, M.J.Y. & Porter, M.S. 2007.

Sedges of the British Isles, BSBI Handbook No. 1 (3rd edn).

Botanical Society of the British Isles, London. Lousley, J.E. 1950. Wild Flowers of Chalk and Limestone, New

Naturalist 16. Collins, London. Morey, F. (ed) 1909. A guide to the Natural History of the Isle of

Wight, F. section ‘Flowering Plants’. Stratton. Riddelsdell, H.J. 1948. Flora of Gloucestershire. The Cotteswold

Naturalists Field Club, Buncle & Co.

Geoff Toone

geoff.toone@mail.com

A puzzling unrecorded herbarium and some related mysteries

PHILIP OSWALD

The purpose of this article is twofold. Principally it is to draw British botanists’ attention to a complex and puzzling collection of plant specimens stored in Cambridge University Herbarium (CGE) which is currently unrecorded. It has long been intended that the specimens included in it should be integrated into the Herbarium’s British collection, but this has not yet happened owing to a shortage of labour to achieve it, and the collection’s contents have not yet been fully examined. The second objective is to give some account of the life of the Revd Thomas Stephenson (1866–1948), who has proved of particular importance in connection with the collection and is the subject of an intriguing mystery of his own.

The collection of several hundred specimens, stored in folders for each botanical family, was discovered in a cupboard in the former butler’s pantry at Adcote School in Little Ness, five miles from Shrewsbury, but its source and contents pose many problems that are as yet unsolved. As a result of the current Coronavirus restrictions it is not at present possible to look at it, but in due course a full examination of it will, I am sure, reveal many