Plant identification apps – five years on Hamlyn Jones 3
BSBI data and the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Atlas Sam Thomas 10
Working together: a VCR team’s approach
Andrew Malcolm 14
Flora of roadside verges at Hightown, Merseyside Philip H. Smith, Steve Cross, Robert Freeth & Daniel Argent 16
Re-evaluation of the Yellow Bird’s-nests – a novel
Hypopitys hypothesis Fred Rumsey 20 Is the phenology of Sabulina verna (Spring Sandwort) changing with climate?
Neil Forbes & Lindsay Maskell 25
Making a molehill out of a mountain: scale, frequency and heterogeneity greatly influence perceptions of extirpation rate
Richard Bateman 28
BEGINNER’S CORNER
Speedwells (Veronica) Part 2 Mike Crewe 35
INTRODUCING MY VICE-COUNTY
Alderney, Channel Islands (v.c. 113c)
Lindsay Pyne 39
ADVENTIVES & ALIENS
Adventives & Aliens News 35
Compiled by Matthew Berry 47
Triticum aestivum L. (Bread Wheat): a confused grass! Michael Wilcox 58 Collections of newly-reported alien plants David Pearman 60
News, events and updates on the work of the BSBI and its members, including: results of the New Year Plant Hunt 2025; latest BSBI Award winners; call for nominations for Honorary Members and President; Panel of VCRs; contents of British & Irish Botany 7:1. 63
Cover photo: Limonium normannicum (Alderney Sea-lavender), Houmet Herbé, Alderney. Lindsay Pyne (see Introducing My Vice-county, p. 39)
I write this note the unmistakable signs of spring are emerging. The Blackthorn has just opened, the leaf buds are almost imperceptibly fattening and the walk home from my local railway station is now punctuated by the pungent smell of Wild Garlic. The promise of the return of colour to our landscapes and the lengthening daylight invariably quickens the pulse. There is nothing like the promise of the spring flora to get a botanist’s heart racing.
It’s also time to dust off the Floras, upload your apps and plan your expeditions – even if the expedition is simply a walk around your local patch. For those planning something further afield the BSBI field meetings list presents opportunities to explore areas you might not have enjoyed before, all in the company of supportive leaders. You might think about developing a new expertise this year. That group that you have always intended to get to grips with but never quite managed? Ferns? Sedges? Umbellifers? Again the meetings list offers opportunities to explore some of these potentially intimidating groups. Another approach is through the BSBI Handbooks series. I was fortunate to serve as Handbooks Editor for a spell. It was one of the most enjoyable and educational roles I have had – simply by working alongside such knowledgeable authors as Tim Rich, Alan Gray and Tom Cope. That expertise is yours too via the various handbooks.
In this issue you will read of the latest BSBI Handbook; ‘Brambles of Scotland’ by Angus Hannah, and the back page features a pre-publication offer. As with all handbooks it is available in paper and digital
EDITORIAL
For this issue I would particularly like to thank Clive Stace for his compilation of the Reviews section which I know involves a lot of time corresponding with publishers and review writers – and occasionally with miffed authors of the publications featured! The review of Charophytes of Europe (p. 76) is the 100th that Clive has commissioned since his first published in January 2020 in issue 143.
After what seems like a long delay, spring is finally here, so I hope you will all be spending more time in the field armed with your ID books or perhaps
format. Brambles are one those fascinating groups whose diversity is due to its complex reproduction system whereby seed development requires a trigger (but not fertilisation) from viable pollen. This system is known as ‘agamospermy’. The confusion doesn’t end there, various ploidy levels are found in the group. With this complexity it isn’t surprising that the brambles have something of a reputation. Ultimately they are still distinguished by their morphology, the same as any other plants. Angus’s book just might be your gateway to the group.
While fieldwork never loses its appeal, other aspects of botany are also of fundamental importance. One of our most useful botanical tools is the herbarium. While local herbaria housed in museums are an invaluable resource, the spread of that resource becomes global with digitisation. A nationwide effort to digitise natural history collections will include herbaria, both large and small is being planned (dissco-uk.org/post/2024/disscoannouncement). The organisation involved – DiSSCo UK (Digitised System of Systematics Collections UK) –have invited expressions of interest in having collections digitised – so BSBI members can help their local herbaria by encouraging them to contact the DiSSCo UK team (dissco-uk@nhm.ac.uk). Find out more on our News blog and eNewsletters. Sandy Knapp is hoping to provide more information about the programme and how to be involved in the next BSBI News.
Paul Ashton Ashtonp@edgehill.ac.uk
your mobile phone apps (see following article) as well as your BSBI Recording App of course. With the holiday season approaching there is lots on offer from our advertisers (see back pages), which I should also like to thank for their support of BSBI, and in this issue we have the overdue return of Introducing my Vice-county, with a trip to the sunny holiday island of Alderney in the Channel Islands.
John Norton john.norton@bsbi.org
Plant identification apps – five years on
HAMLYN JONES
It is now five years since I reviewed the status of plant identification (ID) apps for BSBI News (Jones, 2020a). For that article I tested nine of the free apps available at that time, showing that five of them were surprisingly good (to me at least) at identification of a good range of vascular plants, achieving what I then thought was an amazing 50% success rate at identification to species. Since that time there has been increasing interest in, and adoption of, these apps with many botanists now regularly using one or more apps.
Improvement over the past five years
It is widely recognised that the availability and performance of plant ID apps has improved substantially since 2020, both with new apps, and by enhancement of existing ones. At the latest count I found over forty different apps on Google Play that aim to identify plants automatically from photographs; many of them are specifically targeted to garden plants and many require payment. I have only tested a small subset of these concentrating on the free apps most widely used by UK botanists interested in our native flora.
Botanists testing ID apps on Isolepis, Cuil Bay (v.c. 98), June 2024. Hamlyn Jones
As a direct test of the improvement of apps over time, in late 2023 we retested (Jones & Jones, 2025) some of the apps I reported on in my earlier studies (Jones, 2020a; 2020b) using the same original images. Some of these results are shown in Table 1 which confirms the widespread impression that ID apps are continually improving, both as algorithms improve and as the training databases expand with continuing addition of crowd-sourced and/ or carefully curated images. In this study, both Flora Incognita and PlantNet showed particularly impressive improvements, with the former attaining 97% accuracy to species for this dataset. This improving trend has been confirmed by several more extensive evaluations of plant ID apps (including Campbell et al., 2023; Hart et al., 2023; Jones & Jones, 2025, Rzanny et al., 2024). The best apps in these studies, including Flora Incognita, PlantNet and iNaturalist, together with another app (Picture This), have all, on occasions, achieved better (and
Plant identification apps – five years on
Table 1. Improvement in performance of some popular plant id apps between 2019 and late 2023 using images from Jones (2020). There are substantial improvements in both the % identification to species and to genus, though the improvements are somewhat less for Google Lens than for the other apps.
sometimes substantially better) than 80% accuracy to species for the largely common European species studied (Table 2). The percentage of samples that at least gave a species within the correct genus was also high in our recent study of urban flora (Jones & Jones, 2025), with both Flora
Incognita and PlantNet, for example, naming at least 97% of samples as a species in the correct genus. It is worth noting, however, that even an accuracy of 95% means that one in twenty IDs is incorrect; this can lead to users on occasions being seriously misled, unless they make substantial effort to check the IDs provided. Achieving a high accuracy does largely depend on using good photographs, which are notoriously difficult to obtain especially for straggly plants such as grasses and sedges, however the current apps are surprisingly robust to poor pictures as shown for the examples in Figure 1. Interestingly, Flora Incognita actually recommends that photos are taken in a natural environment and not with an artificial background. There have also been suggestions that errors may be more frequent with rarer species, and it is also widely recognised that particular difficulties arise within critical groups such as Rubus or Hieracium where there are many rather similar (micro)species, or where diagnostic characters may not be present in the pictures.
Use
outside
Europe
Figure 1. Examples of some ‘awful’ photos with poor lighting, poor focus or confusing backgrounds where Flora Incognita (FI), PlantNet, iNaturalist, Obsidentify and Picture This all successfully identified the main species in each image (with the exception that FI failed with the Coriandrum image): Erigeron karvinskianus (Mexican Fleabane), Coriandrum sativum (Coriander), Polypogon viridis (Water Bent), Anthriscus sylvestris (Cow Parsley).
– a case study on the Australian flora For British botanists, perhaps the most obvious use for ID apps is when they travel to areas with an unfamiliar flora with very different genera and indeed totally different families. I took advantage of a trip to Australia
Plant identification apps – five years on
Table 2. Some recent evaluations of the success of id apps at identifying correctly to species. Here Campbell refers to Campbell et al. (2023), Hart refers to Hart et al. (2023) and Jones refers to the new urban study in Jones & Jones (2025). Note that Hart et al. (2023) did not test Flora Incognita and the figure shown comes from Rzanny et al. (2024) (the figure in brackets after correction of some of Hart’s labelling). Campbell Hart Jones
in November 2024 to test a range of apps on the highly diverse Australian flora, which is very different from the European and North American floras on which the apps are most commonly used. An initial commentary on the preliminary results from this study appeared in the BSS Spring Newsletter (Jones, 2025a); here I present a fuller analysis. For this study I investigated the performance of six of the more widely-used free apps. Altogether we tested 165 images of 160 species found in the wild or in botanic gardens in New South Wales and the ACT and in South Australia around Adelaide and Kangaroo Island. Many of the samples were labelled plants in botanic gardens; I identified the other plants using a range of floras and distribution lists (often aided by taking suggestions from the apps!). I accept that there may be a few misidentifications in this study.
A sample of the images used from the Asteraceae are shown in Figure 2, together with the results for the four best apps tested. I could see little obvious pattern as to why some specimens were identified to species by a majority of apps and others not. Nevertheless there was a slight tendency for more common or widespread species to be more readily identified with very local or restricted species having a higher failure rate.
Interestingly, the performance of apps in this study (Table 3) was not as good as has been found in recent comparable studies in Europe and North America and equates more to the results obtained in 2019. In this case the two best apps only achieved about 65% accuracy to species, even when only counting cases where they offered an ID. Several factors probably contribute to this poorer performance. Firstly, I would guess that less effort has been put into studies
of the Australian flora, but secondly, and probably more crucially however, the Australian vascular flora shows substantially more local endemism and consequently an extremely high diversity with over 21,000 accepted species (Mesaglio, 2023). For example, there are approaching 1000 Australian species of Acacia (Maslin, 2018), many of which are extremely limited in distribution, or hard to distinguish. A key problem is that the various ID apps have only a fraction of these species in their databases (at the time of writing, iNaturalist covers 810 Acacia species but Flora Incognita currently has only 187 species and PlantNet only 77 species). The same applies to other families and genera with a high degree of diversity and local endemism such as the Myrtaceae. It is not surprising therefore that these apps were not able to identify all of these samples correctly to species. As expected from its rather smaller relevant species database, PlantNet performed less well than iNaturalist and Flora Incognita for Australian plants. The ranking of the apps was similar when restricting results to particular families, though iNaturalist was found to be particularly good for the Proteaceae (Table 3).
Use of confidence levels
Apps such as Flora Incognita, PlantNet and Obsidentify all now provide a percentage confidence in their IDs, while iNaturalist either states a genus or other taxonomic grouping to which it is confident and then gives a series of suggestions, or else admits that it is not confident and provides some guesses.
One of the criticisms that I and others have been making is that many apps (such as Google Lens and Picture This) give no indication of their confidence
Plant identification apps – five years on
Figure 2. Some of the images used in the tests on Australian species (Asteraceae), with the results for each of the best four apps: Flora Incognita (FI), PlantNet (PN), iNaturalist (iN) and Google Lens (GL). Results correct to species (sp), genus (g) or incorrect (x). The numbers in parentheses indicate the number of records on the Atlas of Living Australia website (bie.ala.org.au).
Arctotis stoechadifolia –scattered garden escape from South Africa (265). Accuracy: FI sp; PN sp; iN sp; GL sp.
Olearia tenuifolia –Endangered endemic to south-eastern Australia (716). Accuracy: FI g; PN x; iN g; GL sp.
Olearia argophyllya – common endemic to south-eastern Australia (10875). Accuracy: FI sp; PN g; iN sp; GL g.
Senecio odoratus – reasonably common coastal endemic to southern Australia and Tasmania (1815). Accuracy: FI sp; PN sp; iN sp; GL x.
in the result. In my view this is a serious limitation. Seek remains the only app that only identifies to a taxonomic level at which it is confident, often only going as far as the family. The availability of a confidence level associated with an ID is an extremely helpful guide as to where extra confirmatory effort by the user may be needed.
It is worth asking, however, how reliable are the quoted confidence levels for those apps that provide them? I tested the reported confidence levels and their relation to accuracy in the Australian study (Table 4). This table does indeed show that for those results where a ‘high’ confidence is expressed (here taken as >80% confident for both Flora Incognita and PlantNet) the proportion of correct results was, as one might hope, much higher than across all samples. This confirms that the chance of a correct ID is indeed much greater where the app has a high confidence in the result, with the results for PlantNet being especially impressive. It is worth noting that confidence scales differ significantly between apps. Flora Incognita reported much higher levels of confidence (with 24% samples reporting 100% confidence – of which three were an incorrect species) than did PlantNet (with only 5% samples reaching 96–98% confidence – of which one was incorrect). Although a high confidence quoted by the app is a useful indicator it still does not guarantee an accurate result and user care is still required.
Tendency to ‘over-promise’
In most cases current apps tend to ‘overpromise’ by suggesting IDs to the species level, even when such suggestions may be very speculative. In my view it is much worse to give an incorrect answer to species than to provide an answer only to genus or even family level. The lack of any measure of uncertainty in apps such as Google Lens or Picture This is a serious limitation to their value, especially for beginners. A corollary is that an ideal app should only give an answer to a level that it is confident (i.e. not give a species if it is only confident to the genus
level), though it can still be useful to provide a list of (clearly labelled) suggestions. The app that suffers least from ‘overpromising’ is still Seek, even though its overall ability to identify to the species level is not among the highest. Almost all other apps currently overpromise, giving answers when uncertain (often without clearly indicating these as guesses). Unfortunately, even giving a low confidence level for a given ID is often not enough to discourage many users from automatically assuming that the top suggestion is correct. In my experience, very few users rigorously check the IDs given. I would strongly recommend that app developers improve this aspect of result presentation.
My favourite apps
The statistics about the performance of the apps is only part of the story. What is more important is how they feel to the user and the degree of confidence that one can have in the results. When using apps in earnest I usually use a combination of different apps to give me guidance which I can then check against other information (image databases, keys, distribution maps, etc.). The following is my personal view of the best free apps for UK field botanists, all
Plant identification apps – five years on
of which can be used in the field or on previously stored photos.
Flora Incognita has been developed by an academic group in Germany specifically for plant identification. It is straightforward to use and guides the user by asking in sequence for photos of flowers, leaves and other organs, though it usually can give an ID with only one photograph (by skipping through other requests if necessary). The output then ascribes a confidence level (%) for the single ID usually produced, together with links to further information on distribution, taxonomy, etc. Where it is less certain it sometimes produces a shortlist of possibilities. A feature of Flora Incognita is that it attempts to treat some similar-looking species as species aggregates, as it does for taxonomically critical genera such as Rubus and Pilosella
PlantNet is another app developed by academics and specifically targeted to plant identification. This is also easy to use. In this case you assign your photo to a category such as flower, leaf, fruit, etc.; you also have the option to add additional photos, though an answer (again with an associated % confidence level) is usually produced with one photo. An advantage of this app for me is that it provides a ranked list of
Table 3. Accuracies of six apps tested on Australian plants in November 2024, where ‘Species’ and ‘Genus’ refer to % attempts correct to species or to genus respectively. The table also shows the % accuracy to species for families with 20 or more samples.
Table 4. A test using the Australian dataset of whether ‘high confidence’ means more accurate results. The results show % accuracies (to species or to genus) either for all results (columns 1 and 3) or for results where the app reported a high confidence in the id (>80% for Flora Incognita and for PlantNet, and ‘confident of genus’ for iNaturalist) (columns 2 and 4).
Plant identification apps – five years on
potential matching species, each with a confidence level. To aid crowdsourcing improvements there is a convenient button for the user to confirm the ID given, but it is more difficult to provide a correction.
iNaturalist is a crowdsourced general natural history species identification system based in the USA, but widely used worldwide. This is another easy app to use. Uniquely, and very usefully, where it is confident of the genus it indicates that as the first return, followed by a ranked list of possible species (but without individual confidence levels).
All three of the above apps give some measure of confidence in the identification and allow one to store one’s observations, building up a personal database over time. Unfortunately Flora Incognita only gives one suggestion by default, but where the ID is uncertain it can also produce a list of possibilities. It is also worth mentioning Obsidentify which is another free app produced by an academic group in the Netherlands. This is also well worth considering, though I did not use it in the Australian study because it is focused on Dutch plants, however the latest version of this app, Observation, does have international plant lists. This app gives the clearest presentation of confidence level in the results of any of the apps.
So which apps to use? In my view there is no need to pay for an app as the free apps discussed here are among the best, though some such as Picture This can be used for free if one bypasses the adverts each time. In the end one’s choice comes down to personal preference and it is often useful to try a combination of apps.
Choice of app depends on one’s
application
How apps are used has an important impact on their optimal design and the way in which they should be employed.
1. Casual users and training. Apps can be an invaluable tool for enthusing people about nature as being able to put a name to something is a great stimulant for interest in nature. If one knows the species one can readily seek out further information. Problems arise where users too naïvely
accept results without further checking. Where used appropriately apps can also be a great tool as part of a training course, but I am concerned that their use can divert users from actually learning the key botanical principles underlying classification.
(2) More experienced botanists mostly use ID apps as an aid to guide them towards the correct species for further confirmation, especially when the plant is unfamiliar. For such users it is particularly valuable to have a range of suggestions, even where ID is uncertain. It is also useful to have a ready range of certified images available in app to check against one’s sample.
(3) Ecological surveys. For this application a high accuracy is essential, and in this case particularly, it would seem better to give the correct genus than to give the wrong species in the correct genus. Although accuracy is improving, apps are not yet at the stage where they can be relied on to undertake rigorous ecological surveys without further human moderation, though this may be achieved in the not too distant future.
(4) Verification and other reviewing of IDs in image collections. Plant ID apps can already function as a means of reviewing and rectifying identifications within collections of plant images, though user input is still crucial (Rzanny et al., 2024).
Some final discussion points
Although accuracy of apps has increased rapidly over the past five years, there remains scope for improvement that I would hope app developers would consider in any revamps or new apps. For example, confidence in results should always be clearly indicated. Most apps need to better indicate those suggestions that are uncertain and speculative. As long as one recognises the likelihood of getting the wrong species one can still use the genus, especially as a training tool. A good feature of Flora Incognita is that it tends to lump critical species groups. Other features that could usefully be more generally adopted, would include immediate presentation of a good range of certified images to aid checking of results for any species suggested, and the more general provision of a range of alternative
suggestions (clearly marked as guesses), especially where the app is uncertain of the ID.
While plant ID apps are achieving high levels of accuracy for the more common vascular plants, they still have a long way to go for rarities and for bryophytes (Jones & Jones 2025); though in that study Google Lens did achieve a success rate of around 50% for common UK bryophyte species.
As a postscript it is worth considering whether recent advances in Generative AI could provide an alternative ID tool. A direct question to a system such as ChatGPT can elicit useful answers, but in my experience (though mostly with mosses) this can be rather unreliable, with the answers given being either very incomplete (missing many relevant species) or obviously incorrect. Nevertheless this facility is likely to improve rapidly over time. A related approach is to upload a database with all the relevant diagnostic information about a range of species into an AI system such as Google’s NotebookLM and ask for species with particular character combinations. Unfortunately when I have tried this on a limited set of species, although useful species may be extracted, the results have again been incomplete.
References
Campbell, N., Peacock, J. & Bacon, K.L. 2023. A repeatable scoring system for assessing Smartphone applications ability to identify herbaceous plants. PLoS ONE 18(4): e0283386
Hart, A.G., Bosley, H., Hooper, C., Perry, J., Sellors- Moore, J., Moore, O. & Goodenough, A.E. 2023. Assessing the accuracy of free automated plant identification applications. People and Nature 5: 929–937.
Jones, H.G. 2020a. Artificial Intelligence for plant identification on smartphones and tablets. BSBI News 144: 34–40.
Jones, H.G. 2020b. What plant is that? Tests of automated image recognition apps for plant identification on plants from the British flora. AoB Plants 12: 1–9.
Plant identification apps – five years on
Jones, H.G. 2025. Update: How good are plant ID apps now? BSS News (in press).
Jones, H.G. & Jones, A.J. 2025. Application and pitfalls of the use of Plant ID apps for urban flora and citizen science studies. Plant Ecology and Diversity (in press).
Maslin, B.R. (coordinator) 2018. WATTLE, Interactive Identification of Australian Acacia. Version 3. (Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra; Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Perth; Identic Pty Ltd, Brisbane).
Mesaglio, T., Sauquet, H., Coleman, D., Wenk, E. & Cornwell, W.K. 2023. Photographs as an essential biodiversity resource: drivers of gaps in the vascular plant photographic record. New Phytologist
Rzanny, M., Bebber, A., Wittich, H.C., Fritz, A., Boho, D., Mäder, P. & Wäldchen, J. 2024. More than rapid identification – Free plant identification apps can also be highly accurate. People and Nature 6: 2178–2181.
Hamlyn Jones joneshamlyn@gmail.com
The author testing out a phone ID app on Carduus
nutans (Musk Thistle), Cleeve Hill (v.c. 33), June 2024.
BSBI data and the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Atlas
SAM THOMAS
TheNational Biodiversity Network (NBN) and the NBN Atlas in the UK may be familiar to most members but many may not be aware how the NBN interacts with the BSBI. This article seeks to outline how we share data with NBN across the UK and show how more open data sharing is beneficial to the BSBI and nature recovery more generally.
The National Biodiversity Network (Figure 1) is a collaborative project run by the NBN Trust in partnership with organisations that collect and use biodiversity data. This partnership includes many of the UK’s wildlife conservation organisations (e.g. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Butterfly Conservation), biological recording societies (e.g. BSBI, British Trust for Ornithology), government agencies (e.g. Environment Agency, Natural England, NatureScot, Natural Resources Wales, Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Northern Ireland), local environmental records centres (LERCs) as well as many voluntary groups.
BSBI recorders at the 2024 Recorders’ Meeting in Shropshire. Sam Thomas
All these organisations are committed to making biodiversity information more widely available and, more importantly, making these data work for nature. The NBN is overseen by the NBN Trust, an independent charity.
Most members will be familiar with the NBN Atlas (nbnatlas.org). This is a ‘data warehouse’ for biodiversity information which allows users to access and view biodiversity data online. It covers everything from plants to mammals, birds and invertebrates and records can be displayed, mapped, analysed or downloaded on the website. The Atlas covers Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands but does not cover the Republic of Ireland.
The BSBI has been involved with NBN since its inception in 2000. However, as anyone who has
Figure 1. Composite image of the NBN Atlas landing page, the species page for Poa annua (Annual Meadowgrass) and a map showing BSBI data for P. annua. Note that data from the 2025 BSBI data transfer is not shown. For Wales, the map includes hectad summary data from the New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora, Preston et. al. 2002.
looked at an NBN distribution map for a common plant, with the exception of Scotland, the coverage is very patchy. As a consequence, there has been a push by BSBI, with funding from Natural England, to increase coverage. This started with a consultation with all British and Northern Irish Vicecounty Recorders in 2015. The responses to this consultation were mixed and highlighted differing attitudes in each country to more open data with concerns raised in England over damage to sensitive sites and species, illegal trespass and commercial use of data by consultants.
Due to these differing views, as well as funding arrangements with country conservation agencies, different approaches were taken in each country.
Scottish Vice-county Recorders decided as a country to share all data with NBN at full (capture) resolution excluding records less than five years old (recently changed to two years) as part of our funding arrangement with NatureScot (formerly Scottish Natural Heritage). In England, no immediate action
was taken but since 2018 a proportion of English counties have submitted data to the NBN Atlas (following a further consultation in 2018) as part of our funding arrangement with Natural England. In comparison to Scotland, a range of restrictions have been applied to the England data including blurring of resolution and removal of site and recorder names in some counties. Data sharing hasn’t been pursued further in Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, due to a lack of funding agreements.
Regardless of the level of restriction imposed at the vice-county level, recorders also have the ability to mark any record as sensitive/confidential if they do not have permission to share or they are concerned that the site/population might be sensitive to increased numbers of visitors that might result from publicising it on an open data repository such as the NBN Atlas. Restrictions are also applied to all records of a small number of sensitive species, mainly very rare ferns and orchids, for which
disclosure of details might threaten populations. In addition, all records are available under a CCBY-NC licence which means that records can be downloaded and used with attribution to BSBI but not for commercial purposes.
Sharing of vice-county data with NBN is undertaken centrally by the BSBI data team annually although some vice-counties also share their data direct to NBN via other routes most notably by LERCs, where Vice-county Recorders have longstanding relationships and/or agreements with them, as well as directly via iRecord where this is used by BSBI recorders (note that currently only records verified by trusted recorders on iRecord are sent to the NBN Atlas).
Why should BSBI recorders share their data with the NBN Atlas?
While there have been concerns around data sharing there are many advantages to making BSBI data more widely available via the NBN Atlas. Crucially, access to biodiversity data is needed to inform decisionmaking around land management, development and planning as well as contributing to scientific research and government analysis and reporting against biodiversity targets. Many recorders will be aware of important populations being lost because they were unknown to the organisations developing a site or changing land management, such as planting trees on species-rich grasslands or blanket bog supporting important assemblages. Often organisations making such decisions have systems that incorporate data from NBN and so if the data are not available there then the site or population may become threatened due to an absence of evidence. Increasing the openness of such data therefore prevents these situations arising. It also allows our data to be used in more positive ways for nature recovery, for example in helping to better target positive land management such as agri-environment scheme options, as well as habitat restoration and management as part of large and small-scale nature recovery schemes. All of the UK country nature conservation agencies regularly use the NBN for their work, so making sure that our
data are available there will maximise its use for nature recovery.
Sharing with NBN can also act as a ‘shop window’ for the hugely important data that BSBI members generate. Its international reach via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), which provides global distribution maps, makes BSBI data visible to people who wouldn’t otherwise have known it existed. Increased visibility to the international research community via NBN also means that our data will be used more widely and will generate more citations. This can help build the profile of the BSBI and generate increased recognition of the work we undertake.
Given the open nature of the NBN, it is also accessible for general public use. Users such as beginner botanists and naturalists who mostly focus on other taxon groups may access botanical distribution data initially via NBN, helping them to become more involved with botany, increase their skills and, potentially leading to them becoming members of the BSBI.
The NBN does not and should not replace direct data queries and requests either to the BSBI and VCRs or to LERCs, although it might make some simple non-commercial queries obsolete. More complex queries, commercial queries and the local knowledge of VCRs can’t be provided via the NBN. In addition, records of the rarest and most sensitive species will never be openly available via the NBN.
Sharing data with NBN also has some more direct advantages to the BSBI and its members. As part of the agreement to share all data with NBN in Scotland, NatureScot has funded a BSBI Scotland Officer post. In addition, the current funding for the BSBI England Officer is provided via Natural England partly with the aim of increasing data sharing with NBN.
What data do we currently share with the NBN Atlas?
Of the 118 vice-counties covered by the NBN, 77 currently share their data at some resolution (Figure 2). This follows a push for increased data sharing in England alongside the already established BSBI
sharing in Scotland. Of these, 19 English and all 41 Scottish vice-counties share their data at full resolution, 17 English vice-counties share data with some restrictions and 22 English vice-counties currently share no data with NBN. None of the Welsh and Northern Irish vice-counties currently share data with NBN via the BSBI; however, as explained above, there hasn’t been any central effort to promote NBN sharing in these areas. Some vicecounties that don’t currently share data with NBN via BSBI are already sharing via their LERC. This includes several vice-counties in Wales and Northern Ireland (although see above re sharing via LERCs).
The future
BSBI staff recently met with NBN and Natural England to discuss how we could continue to work together and, potentially, increase data sharing in England. NBN is developing new access controls that will allow organisations that share data to decide the visibility of their data on the Atlas (as it did before 2015). The implementation of these controls is still at the trial stage but once they are in place they should address most of the concerns that Vice-county Recorders and other recorders have expressed concerning sharing data with NBN.
In addition to considering NBN access controls we’re also hoping to work with NBN to improve the metadata on the current BSBI dataset to include information about the data that is being shared. NBN are also working on implementing customisable data partner dashboards which would offer the possibility to see how BSBI data on NBN is being used. In addition, NBN will be bringing in data quality filters which will allow users to filter data based on its quality. This should further highlight BSBI data as a well curated dataset and prevent it being mixed with some other, less reliable, datasets in analysis of NBN data. Finally, BSBI are hoping to share two important datasets with NBN over the coming year. First is the Plant Atlas 2020 dataset, including all the hectad records underpinning the maps. All these data are currently available on the Zenodo open data repository but putting them on NBN means that the maps can be viewed alongside other data sources. Second, we are hoping to be able to share all capture resolution records of around 150 of the most invasive non-native species in Britain and Ireland so that the data is more widely available to help with eradication and control.
Figure 2. Vice-counties in the UK that are sharing their data with NBN Atlas (as of March 2025). Green = full (capture resolution); orange = restrictions applied; light grey = not sharing via BSBI; dark grey = outside the geographic scope of NBN. Note that the Channel Islands are not mapped but would be light grey.
Sam Thomas BSBI England Officer sam.thomas@bsbi.org
Working together: a VCR team’s approach
Working together: a VCR team’s approach
ANDREW MALCOLM
When I was first approached by Cliona Byrne (at the time, Chair of the Irish Steering Group and Waterford native) who asked me if I might be interested in becoming a Vice-county Recorder (VCR) for Waterford I was more than just a little surprised by this offer. My only botanical experience came from wandering around looking for edible plants as part of my job as a forager for kitchens in various establishments, most particularly The Cliffhouse Hotel in Ardmore. Indeed, somewhat embarrassingly to say now, when accompanied by my wife Ann (Trimble), I would ask her what a particular plant was that I’d found, and she’d identify it; my first question would nearly always be ‘Can you eat it?’!
During these excursions I did occasionally stumble upon something unusual that neither Ann nor I were certain of identity, and we would ask Paul Green for help. Some of these plants turned out to be quite rare, for example in 2021 I found the first Dactylorhiza purpurella (Northern Marsh-orchid) recorded in the county since 1973, so perhaps I had developed some sort of (I felt) undeserved reputation
within the botanical community. Anyway, that first time I was asked to become a VCR I was certainly a little daunted and told Cliona that ‘I’d think about it’.
I discussed the idea with Ann later, suggesting that it was something she might be interested in doing as she had a great interest in the subject, and certainly more knowledge than myself, but she too initially baulked at the idea, feeling, like me, that she didn’t have enough (any!) qualifications.
We arranged to meet Cliona in April 2022, where she ran through a recording sheet with us and explained what being a VCR would entail. We both still felt a little intimidated but I tried to persuade Ann that, as identifying plants was something that she had huge enthusiasm for, she would really enjoy it and that if I helped her we should be able to muddle our way through. Eventually we decided such an arrangement might work so we notified Cliona accordingly that we would take on the assignment!
A few months later we attended a rare plant monitoring field outing. It was probably the wettest day of that summer as we scrambled through woods, down steep slopes and across quite a wide stream in order to see some real rarities. By the end of the day everyone was soaked to the skin, but I think, happier for the experience and delighted to find some nice plants. Ann and I got talking to one of the other participants, Julie Larkin, and discovered that she was a massive plant enthusiast and, unlike both of us, had high educational qualifications and was working in the field of ecology. We also got on very well from the start, so, with the blessing of Paul Green (who was the leader of the field outing), we asked Julie if she would like to join us as a joint VCR for Waterford. She immediately agreed and we were delighted to have such a genuinely smart and affable person become part of the ‘team’.
The division of work just happened naturally with us. We all record and do plant lists, sometimes
Dactylorhiza purpurella (Northern Marsh-orchid), Moneygorm, Co. Waterford. Andrew Malcolm
alone, sometimes Ann and I together and every now and then all three of us get together to record plants at a particular site. I still feel comparatively unknowledgeable compared to the ‘girls’ but I feel my main contribution comes from ‘finding things’, probably my spotting abilities being developed from years of looking for edibles. An example of this came in the spring of 2021 when Ann and I were walking in a local forest, when looking down, I declared ‘What are all of these leaves?’ Ann immediately, tentatively (but as it turned out) correctly, identified them as a huge colony of Neottia cordata (Lesser Twayblade). As these were growing in a spruce plantation, through Julie’s contacts we found an ecologist within Coillte to come and map where the majority of these plants were growing with some protection being accorded as a result.
We have organised a couple of BSBI Field Meetings and have another scheduled for this summer. Once we choose a site, Julie takes the reins in organising these, writing up a description of the proposed outing and liaising with the BSBI field meetings Secretary, so the field meetings can be advertised on the website. Participants contact Julie and she manages the bookings, keeping everyone apprised of the details of the day. She also leads these meetings, with Ann and I as backup and entertainment, respectively!
When it comes to writing up reports for BSBI News I’m happy to do this and often submit photographs of anything I think of particular interest.
We have set up a WhatsApp group between the three of us so we can seek each other’s assistance when we come across anything we’re having any difficulty in identifying.
All three of us load records onto the BSBI Database, with Ann and I working together and verifying the records as we go, and Julie filing hers separately. We often liaise, however, checking the identity of any unusual plants we find. Now that MapMate is no longer in use, we are learning how to use the new BSBI Recording App, and we hope to ease our way into this mode of uploading records onto the Database this year.
Working together: a VCR team’s approach
We have also gathered a small informal group of local plant enthusiasts, and last year we had several plant recording outings during the summer months to different locations throughout County Waterford which was great fun and we all learned from each other. We are planning to continue with these local monthly meetings this year, starting hopefully in April.
In conclusion, mine and Ann’s initial qualms regarding becoming VCRs have certainly been quashed … but only from being able to share the responsibilities with Julie!
Andrew Malcolm
Joint Recorder for Co. Waterford oxmoron@gmail.com
Many thanks to Andrew for writing this note. If any VCRs are interested in pursuing a team approach or finding assistants to help with any aspects of the role, please contact their Country Officer.
Bridget Keehan, BSBI Ireland Officer
Ann and Julie – my co-recorders. Alan Welsh
Flora of roadside verges at Hightown, Merseyside
PHILIP H. SMITH, STEVE CROSS, ROBERT FREETH & DANIEL ARGENT
Thornbeck Avenue verges after mowing, Hightown, June 2024. Philip Smith
According to Bromley et al. (2021), there are about 400,000 km of public road verges in Britain, supporting 700 species of wild flowers. If managed appropriately, these verges could become a network of wildflower-rich grassland. An example at Thornbeck Avenue, Hightown, Merseyside (v.c. 59), was described by Smith & Lockwood (2013). Covering only about 0.6 ha, these verges originated in the late 1960s to early 1970s when a housing estate was built on sand dunes about 200 m from the shore. The soils are sandy, well drained, susceptible to drought and apparently of low fertility. In spring 2013, the verges supported 77 vascular plant taxa, especially winter annuals, such as the Northwest England rarity Trifolium glomeratum (Clustered Clover) and the regionally notable T. striatum (Knotted Clover). Recording visits were made most years after 2013 but spring droughts occurred almost annually, meaning that the vegetation was invariably suppressed or burnt off. However, in 2024, there was no spring drought and recording season began on 26 April, when SC unexpectedly discovered two flower spikes of Anacamptis morio (Green-winged Orchid) on the verges. This is a highly localised, Red-listed ‘Vulnerable’ taxon on the Sefton Coast, the only large colony being confined to damp meadows on Altcar Training Camp about 1.5 km to the north-west (Smith & Cross, 2016). It had not been previously recorded at Hightown. Several visits were made by the authors from late April to
early July to list the verge flora, while a Liverpool Botanical Society field trip on 1 June 2024, led by SC, added further records. Fortunately, the verges were not mowed until about 7 June. Sefton Council’s Highways Department marked the area supporting A. morio with signs but these were stolen on two occasions. Five sub-surface (2–5 cm) soil samples were taken at intervals along the verges, pH being determined using a Lutron PH-212 soil pH meter buffered at pH 4 and 7.
morio (Green-winged Orchid), Hightown verges, April 2024. Philip Smith
Anacamptis
In 2024, an impressive total of 131 vascular taxa was identified on the Thornbeck Avenue verges, 10 (8%) being regionally or nationally notable (Table 1) and 36 (27%) non-native. Sixty-three (82%) of the 77 taxa recorded in 2013 were also listed in 2024. They included as many as 23 species of grass (Poaceae), while 14 taxa were considered to be typical winter (dune) annuals (Table 1). Eight taxa of Trifolium (clover), included T. glomeratum and T. striatum, as in 2013, but both species had increased considerably to the point where ankle-deep patches dominated large parts of the verges. Several areas of bare ground caused by maintenance work had been colonised by ruderals, such as Arabidopsis thaliana (Thale-cress), Capsella bursa-pastoris (Shepherd’s-purse), the rather local hybrid pansy Viola × contempta and a selection of aliens. Application of road salt in the winter accounted for the presence of Catapodium marinum (Sea Fern-grass) and Cochlearia danica (Danish Scurvygrass). Ellenberg Indicator Values for ‘reaction’ (R) and ‘nitrogen’ (N) for the recorded taxa were obtained from Hill et al. (2004).
Reference to descriptions and keys in Rodwell (2000) showed that the verge vegetation had similarities to SD8: Festuca rubra-Galium verum fixeddune grassland, possibly SD8c, the Luzula campestris sub-community, though several of the characteristic components, such as Ammophila arenaria (Marram) and Carex arenaria (Sand Sedge), were missing. Patches of disturbed ground supported ‘weedy’ vegetation, resembling some of the many open (OV) communities described by Rodwell (2000), though none was a close match. The verge soil type was a pararendzina, classed by Hall & Folland (1967) as the ‘Formby Series’ and by Ragg et al. (1984) as the ‘Sandwich Association’, in which an organically enriched ‘A’ horizon, 7–20 cm deep, gradually gives way to a ‘C’ horizon of unaltered calcareous dune sand. Ellenberg R values had a mean and standard deviation of 6.24 ± 0.58, being associated with weakly acidic to weakly basic conditions. This finding was supported by the soil pH results, mean and standard deviation being 6.87 ± 0.34. James (1993) gives an average pH of about 6 for the upper 10 cm of fixed-dune soils in Sefton. Mean Ellenberg
N values for the vascular plants recorded in 2024 was 4.9, indicating adaptation to sites of intermediate fertility (Hill et al., 2004).
Discussion
A total of 131 vascular taxa on only 0.6 ha of road verge represents an impressive species-richness of 218 taxa/ha. This compares favourably with 85 taxa/ha on the Sefton Coast’s ‘New Green Beach’, described as having a ‘high species-richness, with considerable nature conservation value’ (Smith & Lockwood, 2021). However, the Hightown verges supported only 10 (8%) ‘notable’ taxa, compared with 41 (17%) on the ‘New Green Beach’ and 17% for the sand dune system as a whole (Smith, 2015). This discrepancy is probably due, in part, to the
Markers indicating position of Anacamptis morio on verge with abundant Aira caryophyllea (Silver Hairgrass), May 2024. Philip Smith
Table 1. Notable vascular plants and winter (dune) annuals on Thornbeck Avenue verges, Hightown, April-July 2024.
* = non-native neophyte or introduced native; Frequency: r = rare; o = occasional; f = frequent; a = abundant; v = very; l = locally;
Status: VU = GB Vulnerable; NT = GB Near Threatened (italics = England Red List); SCI = Species of Conservation Importance in North West England; NS = Nationally Scarce; N & R value = Ellenberg Nitrogen & Reaction values. Flora of
verges lacking slack habitat, dune wetlands having a high proportion of notable species (Smith, 2015).
While the composition of verge flora in 2024 was similar to that in 2013, there was a 70% increase in species-richness between the two surveys. The greater manpower and time spent recording in 2024, together with the presence of disturbed ground following road maintenance, may have contributed to this increase. The Hightown verges closely resemble those at Kenilworth Road, Ainsdale, described by Smith & Lockwood (2012). Covering 0.7 ha, these verges supported 84 vascular taxa (120/ha) in spring 2011, seven (8%) of which were regionally or nationally notable, the same proportion as at Hightown. This study also concluded that the Ainsdale verge vegetation was similar to the NVC’s SD8b, though some areas with more acidic soils had accordance with SD12: Carex arenaria-Festuca ovinaAgrostis capillaris dune grassland, a community not
found at Hightown. In 1990, the Ainsdale verges were designated as part of a Local Wildlife Site.
As noted above, the Hightown verge habitat has similarities to calcareous fixed-dune, from which these verges were created about 50 years ago and which still occurs on the nearby Hightown sand dunes, part of the Sefton Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Protection Area (SAC). Fixed (grey) dune is a ‘Priority habitat’ for conservation under the Habitats Directive. Historically, grazing has been the most important management activity for maintaining the open condition of fixed dunes (Houston, 2008). Where conservation grazing is impracticable and topography allows, as on road verges, mowing can be an effective alternative, provided that it is appropriately timed and arisings removed (Bromley et al., 2019; Kooijman, 2004). ‘Scalping’ by mowing machinery and verge maintenance that create
patches of bare ground are important for early successional species, as at Hightown, while regular mowing prevents invasion by competitive grasses, such as Arrhenatherum elatius (False Oat-grass). For dry verges with short vegetation, regular cuts from January to March and September to December are recommended, avoiding the main flowering season (Bromley et al., 2019). ‘Cut-and-collect’ over time will reduce soil fertility, so that fewer cuts are needed and the flora will ‘improve’ (Bromley et al., 2019). However, at Hightown, verge species-richness seemingly increased over time, despite regular cutting from spring to autumn, with no removal of arisings. Annuals and low-growing species, such as Trifolium, seemed to benefit from this management regime, though reduced mowing frequency and collection of arisings might produce further benefits.
Flower-rich verges are becoming increasingly popular with local communities but can be viewed as untidy and neglected by some residents and road users. To reduce negative perceptions, it is important to raise awareness of verge flora and its active management for conservation (Bromley et al., 2019). The Thornbeck Avenue, Hightown, verges have been proposed as a Local Wildlife Site under the Sefton Local Plan.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to John Dempsey for arranging for signs to mark the area supporting Anacamptis morio plants on the Hightown verges. Mike Wilcox made helpful comments on a draft manuscript.
References
Bromley, J., McCarthy, B. & Shellswell, C. 2019. Managing grassland road verges. A best practice guide. Plantlife, Salisbury. Hall, B.R. & Folland, C.J. 1967. Soils of the south-west Lancashire coastal plain. Soil Survey of England & Wales, Harpenden. Hill, M.O., Preston, C.D. & Roy, D.B. 2004. PLANTATT Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life History,
Flora of roadside verges at Hightown, Merseyside
Geography and Habitats. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Monks Wood, Cambridgeshire.
Houston J. 2008. Management of Natura 2000 habitats. 2130 *Fixed coastal dunes with herbaceous vegetation (‘grey dunes’). European Commission, Brussels.
James, P.A. 1993. Soils and nutrient cycling In: Atkinson, D. & Houston, J. (eds) The sand dunes of the Sefton Coast, 47–54. National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool.
Kooijman, A.M. 2004. Environmental problems and restoration measures in coastal dunes in the Netherlands. In: Martinez, M.L. & Psuty, N.P. (eds) Coastal dunes, ecology and conservation. 243–258. Springer.
Ragg, J.M., Beard, J.R., George, H., Heaven, F.W., Hollis, J.M., Jones, R.J.A., Palmer, R.C., Reeve, M.J., Robson, J.D. & Whitfield, W.A.D. 1984. Soils and their use in Midland and Western England. Soil Survey of England & Wales, Harpenden.
Rodwell, J.S. (ed) 2000. British Plant Communities , Volume 5. Maritime communities and Vegetation of Open Habitats. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Smith, P.H. 2015. A revision of the inventory of vascular plants for the Sefton Coast, north Merseyside (v.c. 59, South Lancashire), with particular reference to the 2014 Red List for England. BSBI News 129: 36–40.
Smith, P.H. & Cross, S. 2016. Effect of mowing regime on abundance of green-winged orchid Anacamptis morio on coastal grassland in Merseyside, England. Conservation Evidence 13: 79–81.
Smith, P.H. & Lockwood, P.A. 2012. Floral diversity of road verges at Ainsdale, Merseyside. BSBI News 119: 34–36.
Smith, P.H. & Lockwood, P.A. 2013. Occurrence of Trifolium glomeratum (Clustered Clover) in northwest England. BSBI News 124: 35–36.
Smith, P.H. & Lockwood, P.A. 2021. Fifteen years of habitat, floristic and vegetation change on a pioneer sand-dune and slack system at Ainsdale, north Merseyside, UK. British & Irish Botany 3: 232–262.
Philip H. Smith Formby, Liverpool philsmith1941@tiscali.co.uk
Steve Cross, Robert Freeth & Daniel Argent
Re-evaluation of the Yellow Bird’s-nests – a novel Hypopitys hypothesis
Re-evaluation of the Yellow Bird’s-nests – a novel Hypopitys hypothesis
FRED RUMSEY
For much of the 19th and 20th centuries the Yellow Bird’s-nest was known under the binomial given it by Linnaeus, Monotropa hypopitys L. Usually regarded as a single circum-boreal amphi-atlantic species, the taxonomic treatment of the variation within this has long proved contentious, with over 90 binomials and infraspecific epithets published. Work by Cullings (1994) established that the genus Monotropa, as it had been recognised, was split in his molecular tree, as it had been in a morphological tree by Copeland (1941). Both data sets are nearly, but not completely, congruent. The N. American and Asian Monotropa uniflora L., the type of the genus, appears in a different clade to M. hypopitys, despite their many similarities. Copeland had advocated this split based on stem anatomy, flower number and palynological characters. This division is also supported by an analysis of flavonoid profiles (Bohm & Averett, 1988). Consequently, the genus Monotropa was rendered polyphyletic, and a new generic name was required for Monotropa hypopitys. The earliest generic name available was Hypopitys. As tautonyms are not permitted under the ICBN the Linnean specific epithet is unavailable, and the earliest valid binomial was Hypopitys monotropa Crantz. A neat inversion, or a rather confusing situation depending on your viewpoint! This name had been used by Druce (1908) and so had had some currency in British circles.
For over a century there has, however, been the recognition in Britain, by most authors, of two distinct entities within Hypopitys monotropa, treated at levels from variety to species, but currently by Stace (2019) as subspecies: subsp. monotropa and subsp. hypophegea (Wallr.) Tzvelev. It has been apparent for some time following evidence gathering for red-listing that the recording of the subspecies was often not being attempted, or was being done inconsistently,
or inaccurately. Fewer than a quarter of all records on the BSBI DDb are given to subspecific level and for those made over the last 30 years that has fallen to c.15%. As Stace et al. (2015) comment, the absence of critical studies in recent decades probably reflects an unfortunate combination of taxonomic uncertainty and a marked decline of the species. Consequently, our knowledge of the taxa and ability to analyse changes in their abundance are severely hampered.
A need for a taxonomic re-assessment?
There is a growing body of evidence from molecular studies that there are distinct entities within Hypopitys monotropa sensu lato. Alongside palynological evidence Takahashi (1987), who found Hypopitys monotropa, was basically characterised by pollen grains with two apertures in the New World vs. three apertures in the Old World, the molecular studies of Broe (2014) indicated that N. American plants were distinct from Eurasian. Broe (2014) also, based on this work, considered there to be six cryptic species within N. America alone. These could be differentiated by their colour, phenology, pubescence and geographical distribution, although not all were allopatric. The colour range in America is far greater than seen in Britain and Europe and colour has not hitherto been considered a useful discriminatory character here but should be investigated further. Whitish-cream plants in Britain and Ireland have all been subsp. monotropa, although colour is often not noted on specimens and this may have no taxonomic significance. Elsewhere in the sub-family molecular studies by Tsukaya et al. (2008) have revealed that glabrous and hairy variants of Monotropastrum humile should be regarded as distinct species.
The most comprehensive monographic study of Hypopitys monotropa was by Domin (1915). He
Re-evaluation of the Yellow Bird’s-nests – a novel Hypopitys hypothesis
recognised eight varieties: three N. American, one Asian/American, two eastern European and two more widely distributed throughout Europe, the latter considered to be the British plants. Monotropa hypopitys var. hirsuta (Roth.) [= Hypopitys monotropa subsp. monotropa] and Monotropa hypopitys var. glabra Roth [= Hypopitys monotropa subsp. hypophegea (Wallr.) Tzvelev]. Within the former he recognised seven forms, with six forms and two sub-varieties recognised in the latter. Of these perhaps the most significant is the sub-var. piligera Domin. This sits intermediate between the hirsute and glabrous forms, in most morphological regards closer to subsp. hypophegea (hence Domin’s placement under glabra) but resembling hypopitys in the possession of some bristly pubescence within the flower, particularly on the filaments and to a lesser degree on the petals. It is this plant which is the cause of recording difficulty and whose nature and relationships are still uncertain.
Early recorders saw an association between the forms of Hypopitys and the trees that they were growing under, reflected in their epithets relating to pine (Pinus spp.) and Beech (Fagus sylvatica). Thanks to the detailed molecular studies by Bidartondo & Bruns (2001; 2002; 2005) and Leake et al. (2004) we now have a much better understanding of the intimate relationship and dependence the plants have on their fungal partners, which have been shown to be species of the genus Tricholoma These Hypopitys myco-heterotrophs are effectively parasitic on the fungus and as in plants parasitic on other angiosperms speciation driven by host specificity is highly likely. Bidartondo & Bruns (2005) demonstrated that germination was only induced by the same fungal species associated with the mature plants, or closely related congeners, in which case seedlings developed better on the maternal fungus. So, host specificity clearly matters. Because the particular Tricholoma species with which the distinct cryptic Hypopitys entities are associated are sometimes more catholic/generalist in the mycorrhizal associations they form, we do not see a clear pine/willow/Beech pattern of association with the Hypopitys. This apparent lack of consistent
association with a particular tree genus which had been stressed in early taxonomic considerations I believe has played a part in undermining confidence in the distinction between the British Hypopitys taxa.
The other major factor has been the lack of morphological discontinuity between the two recognised subspecies, which has led to recorder uncertainty. In such reduced plants there are few morphological characters available to the taxonomist. Of these those relating to aspects of the plant’s vigour: shoot height, flower number, etc., suffer from being under climatic control, or the control of other non-genetic factors, such as nutrient supply and host vigour, which hampers their reliability.
The regular detection of plants showing intermediacy in morphological characters and with no consistent arboreal associations led to the belief that we may be dealing with a single variable entity, with a range of continuously varying characters. The development of cytological techniques in the early/ mid-20th century, however, revealed the existence of different cytotypes (Hagerup, 1944). This work has formed the basis of the belief that we were not dealing with a single variable entity but still leaves many questions when trying to interpret additional information. Implicit in most interpretations is that the hexaploid (2n=48) count relates to the hirsute plant we now know as subsp. monotropa. I would contest this is not necessarily the case! If one reads what Hagerup (1944) said it is clear that his count was from a plant that lacked hairs on the internal surfaces of the petals and gynoecium (although it was pubescent externally). This cannot be equated with subsp. monotropa sensu stricto. It is also clear that Hagerup considered the plant may in fact be of hybrid origin.
One of the great difficulties we face is that there are remarkably few subsequent chromosome counts, and as with the molecular studies mentioned below much has been inferred from very limited evidence. The only British chromosome count was made from a morphologically intermediate plant from Tentsmuir in Fife (Miller, in Stace, 1975), which gave 2n=48 and had a normal meiosis with 24
Re-evaluation
monotropa
bivalents and had pollen fertility >50%. The only other count of n=24 for a plant described by the authors as var. hirsuta Roth (Huang et al., 2006) is from Asia, and based on what limited molecular evidence is available is unlikely to be synonymous with subsp. monotropa. The only other explicitly documented count for the species aggregate I can find relates to the N. American externally pubescent plant described by Michaux as Monotropa lanuginosa Michx. [= Hypopitys lanuginosa (Michx) Nutt.], which Löve (1954) records as 2n=32, i.e. tetraploid.
An alternative interpretation
So, in summary the oft quoted statements that subsp. hypophegea is diploid and subsp. monotropa hexaploid are probably based on single, or too few counts and that in fact the hexaploid counts refer to plants which might be considered intermediate, but which are fully fertile.
Intermediate plants, i.e. those showing limited pubescence to the filaments, style or petal interiors, but with other characters ascribed to subsp. hypophegea (globose ovary, short style, fewer flowered) are apparently fairly frequent within the British Isles,
occurring throughout the British (although not Irish?) range of the species and in both Beech wood and dune slack habitats. The most detailed study of these was by D.J. Miller (nee Wicks) whose work has only in part been published: as a distribution map in Perring & Sell (1968) and the account prepared for Stace (1975). It is interesting to note that potential hybrids have not subsequently been recorded on the BSBI DDb since the Critical Atlas. They certainly still exist, and I think are responsible for the uncertainty which leads to recorders predominantly using H. monotropa sensu lato and not the subspecies. The intermediates are clearly regarded as hybrids by Stace (1975) and later in Stace et al. (2015). There is, however, an alternative interpretation which might be deduced from the evidence we have.
Of the 40 hectads from which the ‘hybrid’ has historically been reported (Stace et al., 2015) in only 25% have both ‘parents’ been recorded (and this at a hectad, not site-based level … far fewer sites have supported both, and from these there are almost no records of both morphs actually present in the same place in the same year. In addition, some of these records may result from misidentification of one or
Hypopitys
(Yellow Bird’s-nest): subsp. monotropa (left), Lambridge Wood, Oxon (v.c. 23), Chris Thorogood; probable ‘intermediate’ type (middle), Ketton Quarry, Rutland (v.c. 55), Pete Stroh; subsp. hypophegea (right), Brown’s Folly, N. Somerset (v.c. 6), Fred Rumsey.
other morph; 37.5% of the records are from hectads (15) where neither ‘parent’ has been recorded.
We cannot guarantee that the presumed ploidy levels of the ‘parents’ are actually an accurate reflection of their ploidy, but we do know that fertile intermediate plants are polyploid. I believe a far more parsimonious explanation of the situation we see is that the majority of intermediate plants are the fertile allopolyploid derivative of a past cross between subsp. monotropa and subsp. hypophegea. This might even be able to exploit one or both of the fungal partners of the parents – further blurring the ecological/habitat-based differences. F1 hybrids might occur in those few sites where the parents are sympatric, but I would expect them to be extremely rare and distinguishable by their sterility.
Cytometric studies of a greater range of material would be necessary to establish that subsp. monotropa does exist at the diploid or tetraploid level, as would be required by this hypothesis, and that intermediate plants are all polyploid, but all other evidence is congruent with this interpretation.
This would give us three taxa to be properly discriminated and recorded. To do this we need a clearer circumscription of their boundaries, and an integration of molecular, cytometric, phytochemical, palynological and morphological data is necessary to achieve that. This complicated situation might be clearer if those who had performed the molecular studies which have demonstrated diversity and hinted at phylogeographic structure (Beatty & Provan, 2011; Filyushin et al , 2017), or differences in mycorrhizal partner (Bidartondo & Bruns, 2001; 2002; 2005; Leake et al., 2004) had documented the morphology of the entities they studied, or indeed given any consideration to infraspecific taxonomy. We might infer that the major observed dichotomy in both Cp & ITS haplotypic phylogenies reported by Beatty & Provan (2011) relates to the two major taxonomic entities hitherto recognised, but sadly we have no way of validating that. They reported a largely east/west split which doesn’t clearly equate to the British distributions of subsp. monotropa/ hypophegea but their density of sampling within the British Isles (from just two Irish and one English
population) does not allow meaningful taxonomic conclusions to be drawn.
If clear cytological and molecular distinctions and consistent host specificities can be demonstrated, recognising these entities at specific rather than infraspecific rank would seem most appropriate. Pragmatically this is a difficult step to propose when most recorders are obviously struggling to differentiate the taxa, although clearer guidance should overcome this.
Conclusion
Much work is still required to fully understand the relationships and delimitation of possible cryptic taxa and hybrids in this group, both here and globally. In the absence of this it is still useful to attempt to categorise and better record the plants that are found, rather than to just record to aggregated level. A key to assist in recording the taxa is given below. While the approach taken below may eventually be shown to be artificial and untenable (if for instance it is shown that subsp. hypophegea may be anything other than glabrous) it hopefully provides a framework which can consistently be followed, giving greater recorder confidence and a dataset better suited for conservation purposes.
References
Beatty, G.E., Provan, J. 2011. Comparative phylogeography of two related plant species with overlapping ranges in Europe, and the potential effects of climate change on their intraspecific genetic diversity. BMC Evolutionary Biology 11: 29.
Bidartondo, M.I. & Bruns, T.D. 2001. Extreme specificity in epiparasitic Monotropoideae (Ericaceae): widespread phylogenetic and geographical structure., Molecular Ecology 10: 2285–2295.
Bidartondo, M.I. & Bruns, T.D. 2002. Fine-level mycorrhizal specificity in the Monotropoideae (Ericaceae): specificity for fungal species groups. Molecular Ecology 11: 557–569.
Bidartondo, M.I. & Bruns, T.D. 2005. On the origins of extreme mycorrhizal specificity in the Monotropoideae (Ericaceae): performance trade-offs during seed germination and seedling development. Molecular Ecology 14: 1549–1560.
Bohm, B.A. & Averett, J.E. 1989. Flavonoids in some Monotropoideae. Biochemical Systematics & Ecology 17: 399–401. Re-evaluation of
Re-evaluation of the Yellow Bird’s-nests – a novel Hypopitys hypothesis
Key to British and Irish taxa of Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest)
1 Floral parts glabrous subsp. hypophegea
1 Floral parts with some hairs 2
2 Stem and external surfaces of flower finely pubescent var. tomentosa*
2 Stem and external surfaces of flower glabrous 3
3 Inner petal surfaces, style and ovary conspicuously prickly hairy, ovary taller than wide, style equalling to exceeding ovary, flower narrowly urceolate, petals usually 11–13 mm subsp. monotropa
3 Inner petal surfaces and other floral parts with scattered prickly hairs, showing various combinations of the characters given above but not all, flower shorter and more campanulate, petals usually 10 mm or less ‘intermediate’ [? sub-var piligera]
* Herbarium studies at BM have revealed a single densely pubescent individual in a gathering of subsp. hypophegea from Cawdor Woods, Nairnshire, 29/08/1841, W.A. Stabler. A later gathering of 11 plants in 1846 had only glabrous individuals. This is the most northern British site for Hypopitys. A similar plant was responsible for the chromosome count of 2n=48 made by Hagerup (1944) from Danish material and it may be more frequent in Norden. Domin (1915) recognised two varieties with external pubescence: one, var. lanuginosa is N. American, has red stems and bracts and has been shown to be tetraploid (Löve, 1954), the other, var. tomentosa Velen was described from Bulgaria. It is as yet unclear whether the Scottish plant is identical to the latter.
Broe, M.B. 2014. Phylogenetics of the Monotropoideae (Ericaceae) with special focus on the Genus Hypopitys Hill, together with a novel approach to phylogenetic inference using lattice theory. PhD thesis, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
Copeland, H. F. 1941. Further studies on the Monotropoideae. Mandroňo 6: 97–119.
Cullings, K. 1994. Molecular phylogeny of the Monotropoideae (Ericaceae) with a note on the placement of the Pyroloideae. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 7: 501–516.
Domin, K. 1915. Vergleichende Studien liber den Fichtenspargel mit Bemerkurjgen íiber Morphologie, Phytogeographie, Phylogenie und systematische Gliederung der Monotropoiden. Sitzungsberichte Der konigl. Bóhmischen gesellschaftder wissenschaften: 1–111.
Druce, G.C. 1908. List of British Plants. The Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Filyushin, M.A., Kochieva, E.Z. & Skryabin, K.G. 2017. Polymorphism of the Chloroplast Gene rps2 in Parasitic Plant Monotropa hypopitys L. from the European Russian Populations. Genetika 53 (3):390–396.
Hagerup, O. 1944. Notes on some boreal polyploids. Hereditas 30: 152–160.
Leake, J.R, McKendrick, S.L., Bidartondo, M. & Read, D.J. 2004, Symbiotic germination and development of the myco-heterotroph Monotropa hypopitys in nature and its requirement for locally distributed Tricholoma spp. New Phytologist 163: 405–423.
Perring, F.H. & Sell, P.D. 1968. Critical Supplement to the Atlas of the British Flora. Thomas Nelson Ltd., London.
Stace, C.A., ed. 1975. Hybridization and the Flora of the British Isles. Academic Press, London.
Stace, C.A. 2019. New Flora of the British Isles (4th edn). C & M Floristics, Middlewood Green, Suffolk.
Stace, C.A., Preston, C.D. & Pearman, D.A. 2015. Hybrid Flora of the British Isles. BSBI, Bristol.
Takahashi, H. 1987. Pollen Morphology and Its Taxonomic Significance of the Monotropoideae (Ericaceae). Bot. Mag. Tokyo 100: 385–405.
Tsukaya, H., Yokoyama, J., Imaichi, R. & Ohba, H. 2008. Taxonomic status of Monotropastrum humile, with special reference to M. humile var. glaberrimum (Ericaceae, Monotropoideae). Journal of Plant Research 121(3): 271–278.
Fred Rumsey Rumsey2021@outlook.com
Is the phenology of Sabulina verna (Spring Sandwort) changing with climate?
NEIL FORBES & LINDSAY MASKELL
Over the past few decades there has been a growing awareness of phenological changes amongst the UK’s flowering plants in relation to climate change. For example, Büntgen et al. (2022) reported that from the mid-1980s mean first flowering dates in the UK had advanced by almost one month compared to all preceding years from 1753.
In the autumn of 2023 we started to notice a distinct trend of late-flowering species on several limestone sites in South Cumbria and West Lancashire. On 8 October 2023 we had noted 13 clumps of the nationally scarce and Near Threatened (GB) Sabulina verna (Spring Sandwort) in flower on the National Trust reserve at Heathwaite (Arnside Knott). We had also recorded this species in flower here on the 2023 BSBI New Year Plant Hunt. The species account in the online BSBI Plant Atlas 2020 (Stroh et al. 2023) states that the main flowering period for S. verna is May to June, whereas Rose & O’Reilly (2006) and Clapham et al. (1987) (cited on ecolflora.co.uk , 2024) give the flowering period as May to September. Given the prolonged drought conditions experienced in late spring and early summer of 2023, and the relative scarcity of flowering plants on many local calcareous grasslands in June and July of that year, we decided to track the flowering trends of this population over the following 12 months. We were interested to see how late in the year we would be able to find plants with open flowers, and also to examine the trends through the following spring and summer.
Sabulina verna (Spring Sandwort) in flower on 11 April 2024. Neil Forbes
The small (c. 3 m × 5 m) study site at Heathwaite (Figure 1) has a healthy population of S. verna and also a high degree of species richness. The habitat consists of limestone grassland with extremely shallow soils adjoining a small area of exposed limestone, surrounded by scattered scrub. The site is approximately 63 m above sea level, southfacing and is partly protected from strong winds by the surrounding scrub habitats. The area is cattle grazed (light conservation grazing) and deer and rabbits are also locally important grazing animals. Shallow standing water is frequently present in a hollow during the winter months, and occasionally at other times of the year. The combination of very shallow soils, fluctuating hydrology and grazing maintains a very open sward that is ideal for S. verna Observations on other local sites such as Warton Crag, Lancashire seems to indicate a preference for humid areas where bryophytes are prominent. From November 2023 we recorded the total number of flowering clumps of S. verna and also the total number of species in flower within the study plot. Surveys were carried out around the middle of each month (with some variation where this was not possible). As it can be difficult to separate individual plants of S. verna when they are growing close together we decided to record the number of flowering clumps that were distinctly spaced from their nearest neighbours. Figure 2 shows how the
number of flowering clumps and the total number of species in flower over the course of 12 months from November 2023.
Sabulina verna was recorded flowering in 9 out of the 12 months. No flowers were located between January and March 2024 but a single open flower was recorded on the BSBI New Year Plant Hunt on 1 January 2024 outside of the survey window, showing that the record from the 2023 Hunt was not a one-off occurrence. The maximum number of flowering clumps was recorded in August (35), closely followed by June (33). The June count corresponded with the peak abundance for flowering species (20). In contrast, the number of species in flower had halved to 10 by the time of the August survey. There was a strong decline in the abundance of flowering S. verna by mid-September but another pulse of flowering then occurred with 10 clumps in flower recorded on 15 October.
Over the course of the 12-month survey period a total of 50 associated species of plants were recorded from the study site (36 forbs, 12 grasses, 1 sedge and
1 rush). Of these, 18 are county axiophytes, including Aphanes arvensis (Parsley-piert), Geranium columbinum (Long-stalked Crane’s-bill), Leontodon saxatilis (Lesser Hawkbit) and Sherardia arvensis (Corn Spurrey). The maximum number of species in flower was 20 in June 2024, the minimum was 2 in December 2023, and the peak period for flowering across all species can clearly be seen to lie between May and July as would be expected (Figure 2). The area is also rich in bryophytes but these were not recorded.
The mean annual maximum temperature at the closest weather station in Morecambe (Met Office, 2025) has reportedly increased by 0.77°C between 1961–1990 and 1991–2020 with the largest discrepancies occurring in October (1.15°C), April (1.14°C) and February (1.12 °C). The corresponding mean annual minimum temperature has also increased over this period (0.61°C), with the biggest differences recorded in November (0.96°C) and February (0.91°C).
At present it is not possible to say if the extended flowering season recorded over the 12-month
Figure 1. The study site at Heathwaite (v.c. 69), 19 May 2024. Neil Forbes
monitoring period is a short-term response to recent weather patterns; early evidence of adaptive phenology which could potentially help S. verna to adapt to climate change, or a purely local phenomenon that is more influenced by the microclimate at this location and the local environmental conditions, which may be particularly favourable for S. verna . We have, however, also recorded late-flowering specimens of S. verna at other local limestone grassland sites and can find no evidence of this being a frequently recorded phenomenon in the past. We also note that S. verna was recorded on the BSBI New Year Plant Hunt in 2025, with a single record from Underbarrow, near Kendal. This along with the Heathwaite records from 2023 and 2024 are at present the only records of S. verna from the New Year Plant Hunt. We would therefore encourage recorders to survey known populations in the autumn and winter months to help to build up a modern picture of the phenology of this fascinating species.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Lynne Farrell for additional information and comments on a draft.
References
Büntgen, U., Piermattei, A., Krusic, P., Esper, J., Sparks, T. & Crivellaro, A. 2022. Plants in the UK flower a month earlier under recent warming. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 289: 20212456.
Clapham, A.R., Tutin, T.G., Moore, D.M. 1987. Flora of the British Isles (3rd edn). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (cited on ecoflora.co.uk).
Met Office, 2025. Location-specific long-term averages –Station: Morecambe No 2. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk [accessed 15/2/2025]
Stroh, P.A., Walker, K.J., Humphrey, T.A., Pescott, O.L. & Burkmar, R.J. (eds) 2023. Plant Atlas 2020: Mapping Changes in the Distribution of the British and Irish Flora. Princeton University Press, Princeton. https://plantatlas2020.org
Rose, F. & O’Reilly, C. 2006. The Wild Flower Key (revised edn). Penguin, London.
Neil Forbes
tyr.botany@gmail.com
Lindsay Maskell
Figure 2. No. of flowering clumps of Sabulina verna (blue bars), Total no. of species in flower (green line).
Making a molehill out of a mountain: scale, frequency and heterogeneity greatly influence perceptions of extirpation rate
RICHARD BATEMAN
Platanthera bifolia (Lesser Butterfly-orchid), New Forest, Hampshire (v.c. 11). John Norton
Stimulated by recent articles published in BSBI News by the late Michael Braithwaite (2024) and David Trudgill (2024), I decided to perform a small desktop experiment designed to explore the impact of scale on our perceptions of extinction rate. Most attempts to estimate the rate of decline of a species involve contrasting distributions that represent two or more successive time-periods (e.g. Braithwaite et al., 2006; Trudgill, 2022b, 2024; Stroh et al., 2023). However, I opted to impose a known artificial extinction rate on known distributions of three species of native plants occurring during the last quarter-century in the 100 × 100 km grid square SU, an area that was intensively recorded for Atlas 2020 (Walker et al., 2023). Rich in chalk downland, the area stretches north to south from Abingdon to Portsmouth and west to east from Devizes to Guildford (Figure 1). Few readers will be surprised that I chose to sample my exemplar species from among the orchids – a family that offers the advantage of attracting specialists supplementary to core BSBI field workers, collectively achieving an unusually thorough recording effort.
The three native orchid species chosen for analysis, listed in order of decreasing frequency, were Orchis mascula (Early-purple Orchid), Gymnadenia conopsea s.s. (Chalk Fragrant-orchid) and Platanthera bifolia (Lesser Butterfly-orchid). These species were selected because they differ considerably in habitat preference and, more importantly, in density of recent records for national grid square SU. The hectad-based relative frequency trends calculated for the British Isles in Atlas 2020 (Stroh et al., 2023; Walker et al., 2023) judged all three species to show similar, more or less linear declines since 1930 that were categorised as Moderate. Using hectad-level data and a regression technique designed to better accommodate background variability, Charitonidou et al. (2025) identified statistically significant decline only in P. bifolia. In contrast, Trudgill (2023) used negative exponential regressions of tetrad-based occurrences in England to identify intermediate-level declines for O. mascula and, at a somewhat greater rate of diminution, G. conopsea s.l.; however, he identified P. bifolia as the fastest declining of all English native orchids. The tetrad-based survey resurvey approach
Scale, frequency and heterogeneity greatly influence perceptions of extirpation rate
of Braithwaite et al. (2006) suggested that in Britain G. conopsea s.l. was stable (Change Factor = +3 ± 33), O. mascula gradually declining (CF = −27 ± 23) and P. bifolia rapidly declining (CF = −50 ± 40). The contrasting results among these three studies hint at the significance of the spatial scale selected when attempting to determine the ecological rise or fall of individual species.
Spatial units of contrasting scale
Aiming to better understand perceptions of frequency and decline, I downloaded from the
BSBI Distribution Database (DDb) all native records available at the level of monads (1 × 1 km grid squares) for square SU from the period 2000–2024 for the three chosen orchid species. Focusing on a single 100 × 100 km square minimises the regional variations in recording effort reported by Pescott et al. (2019) and Trudgill (2022b). Having generated maps based on those monads (Figure 1a–c), I recorded the number of tetrads (2 × 2 km grid squares), quadrants (5 × 5 km grid squares) and hectads (10 × 10 km grid squares) that were populated by at least one monad. This allowed me to calculate for a single time period
Scale, frequency and heterogeneity greatly influence perceptions of extirpation rate
Table 1. Effect of 50% random extinction on actual 2000–2024 distributions of Orchis mascula, Gymnadenia conopsea s.s. and Platanthera bifolia for 100 × 100 km square SU, as perceived at four contrasting spatial scales.
*After slight adjustment to accommodate the effects of the random number table used to extinguish monads
the percentage occupancy perceived for square SU at each of the four chosen geographic scales (Table 1). Unsurprisingly, each species showed a massive increase in perceived occupancy from monad to hectad level: 0.7% to 23% for P. bifolia (a 35-fold difference), 2.3% to 45% for G. conopsea (a 20-fold difference) and 6.4% to 85% for O. mascula (a 13fold difference).
The intermediate spatial levels of tetrad and quadrant inevitably showed intermediate values, resulting in near-linear relationships among the four scales for occupancy as determined for each of the three species (Figure 2). These similar patterns were found despite the contrasting densities of occupancy among the three species when analysed at any one scale. The significant difference actually resides in the absolute occupancy values: the rarer the species, the greater is the difference in perceived frequency between coarse and fine mapping scales.
Monads versus populations
As is often noted, an ideal dataset to address the issue of changes in the frequency of species would be based on the number of discrete populations in
2. Effect of the scale of mapping unit (‘cell’) on the perceived occupancy of three orchid species, transitioning from monad to tetrad to quadrant to hectad within grid square SU for the period 2000–2024.
existence and, even more ambitiously, the numbers of plants constituting each population. In an attempt to estimate the former, I examined in detail the individual DDb records for each of the 66 monads
Figure
Scale, frequency and heterogeneity greatly influence perceptions of extirpation rate
occupied by P. bifolia (Figure 1c). Aided by the fact that almost all of the sites were reported at the resolution of at least six-figure grid references (i.e. hectares), I was able to (somewhat arbitrarily) define a discrete population as a record that was separated from any other record by a radius of at least 400 m. My expectation was that the number of monads containing multiple populations would at least equal the number of populations that spread across more than one monad. However, only one monad spanned two discrete populations, whereas three populations each extended across four contiguous monads (Cherhill Downs, Wiltshire; Warburg Reserve, Oxfordshire; Wilverley Plain, Hampshire). And a slightly more liberal definition of a population would allow Pewsey Downs in Wiltshire to constitute a single population spread across five monads (in contrast, only one population spanned a boundary separating hectads rather than monads). There was a predictably strong positive correlation between populations per hectad and monads per hectad (r2 = 0.93: linear regression superimposed on Figure 3).
Overall, the 66 monads and 51 tetrads (Table 1) were resolved as 43 populations, suggesting that monads, and more surprisingly, tetrads provide a reasonable numerical proxy for populations when
assessing standing occupancy. Admittedly, the ratio will be influenced, often heavily, by density (and heterogeneity) of occurrences: a very rare species represented by few, small, compact populations evenly distributed across the landscape will likely have roughly equal numbers of populations versus monads and tetrads. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a truly ubiquitous species present in all monads across Britain and Ireland would, by my (admittedly simplistic) definition, constitute a single population. But between these two extremes, contrasts in scale, frequency and heterogeneity interact in a far more complex way to influence our perception of change at these fine resolutions.
Of course, monads cannot inform us on numbers of individuals present in each population. For example, the four contiguous monads recorded for the Warburg Reserve actually also represent four contiguous tetrads, thereby ostensibly indicating a Butterfly-orchid hotspot up to 16 km2 in extent (top right in Figure 1c). However, in my experience, anyone who has sought flowering plants of P. bifolia in the Warburg Reserve in recent years will have struggled to find any; the DDb reports only three sightings of single plants made sporadically during the last decade, and I have made only one.
Figure 3. Relationship between the number of number of occupied monads in each occupied hectad and number of populations in each occupied hectad for Platanthera bifolia in grid square SU during the period 2000–2024. Bubbles indicate the logarithmically scaled numbers of hectads which show that particular combination of monad numbers and population numbers.
Scale, frequency and heterogeneity greatly influence perceptions of extirpation rate
Figure 4. Contrasting perceived amounts of decline in occupancy for each species at the spatial levels of tetrad, quadrant and hectad, following random deletion of 50% on the monads occupied in grid square SU during the period 2000–2024.
Modelling extirpation
Having established a baseline for a static perspective on occupancy, I decided to model a moderate level of regional extirpation in order to explore its consequences for declining occupancy – a phenomenon widely considered to be affecting the great majority of British and Irish orchids today (Braithwaite et al., 2006; Bateman, 2022a; Stroh et al., 2023; Trudgill, 2022a, 2024; Charitonidou et al., 2025). At present, monad-based distributions are the closest approximations to individual populations that can conveniently be extracted from the DDb. Working systematically from bottom left to top right through each of the three maps shown here as Figure 1, I randomly deleted 50% of the occupied monads (as, for example, would likely occur when a climate change tipping point was reached affecting the entire region). I then recalculated occupancy at the three successively coarser spatial levels of tetrad, quadrant and hectad. Comparison of occupancy levels as calculated before and after the artificial extinction rate of 50% was imposed yielded figures for percentage decrease as perceived at each of the three ‘emergent’ spatial units (Table 1), which could then be plotted against their respective linear dimensions
(Figure 4). Inevitably, percentage perceived extirpation decreased considerably between monad and hectad levels: results showed a four-fold decrease in the relatively widespread O. mascula, a three-fold decrease in G. conopsea, and a more modest 1.5-fold decrease in the appreciably rarer P. bifolia. Thus, we perceive the same fundamental rate of local extinction rather differently, depending on the initial frequency of the species under scrutiny. It is when calculating rate of change for moderately frequent species such as O. mascula that monads offer the strongest advantage over tetrads (Table 1).
In terms of trends among the four spatial scales, the two more frequent species show broadly similar curves that depict a relationship that arguably leans slightly toward the negative-exponential side of linear (Figure 4; see also Trudgill, 2024), but this is not the case for the rarer P. bifolia, where the reduction in perceived frequency is entirely confined to the transition from tetrads to quadrants; the calculated rate of decline is stable between monads and tetrads, and between quadrants and hectads (i.e. the induced 50% reduction in occupied monads leads to an apparent 50% reduction in occupied tetrads). Admittedly, these two scales of transition involve only a four-fold increase in areal extent, whereas the intervening category of transition between tetrad and quadrant involves a 25-fold increase. Nonetheless, the contrast of the P. bifolia curve with those of the two more frequent orchid species is striking. At least some of the difference could arguably be ascribed to increased sampling error, given the smaller numbers of squares occupied by P. bifolia both before and especially after artificial extirpation. However, I suspect that the comparatively strong clustering (i.e. greater heterogeneity) of P. bifolia monads and tetrads has also contributed to this pattern. As shown in Figures 1c and 4, 29 of the 66 recorded monads (44%) occur in just two of the 100 hectads that constitute square SU, located on the chalk downs near Cherhill and the heathland flushes around Burley in the New Forest. In contrast with these two wellpopulated hectads, 14 of the 23 hectads (61%) that yielded post-2000 records of P. bifolia in square SU contain only a single occupied monad (Figure 1c).
Table 2. Losses of hectads and tetrads in square SU following 50% random extinction of monads, broken down to show the initial number of occupied quadrants per lost hectad and occupied monads per lost tetrad.
mascula
conopsea
P. bifolia
Which categories of spatial unit are most likely to be extirpated?
This observation segues us neatly into the intriguing topic raised by Braithwaite (2024); what effect does the proportion of occupied monads within a tetrad and within a hectad have on perceived levels of extirpation? Braithwaite argued from first principles that, given the extirpation of 25% of the observed monads, tetrads that previously contained a single occupied monad would on average become empty 25% of the time, but that this would decrease to 6.3% for tetrads previously containing two occupied monads, 1.6% for tetrads previously containing three occupied monads and just 0.4% for tetrads previously containing four occupied monads. Given the higher extirpation rate imposed here, the comparable theoretical figures should be 50%, 25%, 12.5% and 6.3%. Were figures similar to these obtained during the present experiment?
Scale, frequency and heterogeneity greatly influence perceptions of extirpation rate or declining (e.g. Braithwaite, 2024). In the present experiment, for tetrads hosting three filled monads rather than just one, estimated extinction rates fell from c.90% to less than 2% for O. mascula and G. conopsea , while no tetrads previously containing four occupied monads became extirpated for any species (Table 2). We might presume that a similar mathematical relationship would apply to the transition from quadrants to hectads, given that here too, the larger spatial unit contains four subunits. Unfortunately, the relatively low numbers of hectads lost here through 50% extirpation of monads (seven each for P. bifolia and G. conopsea, ten for O. mascula) do not provide an adequate statistical sample size, though there are hints that the results for the quadrant–hectad transition may more closely approximate the theoretical percentages predicted by Braithwaite (2024).
The short answer is ‘No’. Those tetrads containing just one occupied monad are disproportionately vulnerable to extirpation; losses under a fixed 50% overall rate of extirpation range from 85% in O. mascula through to 92% in P. bifolia (Table 2). The vulnerability of squares that encompass only one record at a smaller spatial scale has been noted by several previous authors, most commonly in the context of the margins of distributions where the density of populations is often relatively low. This ‘edge effect’ applies irrespective of whether the species areal extent is expanding (e.g. Trudgill, 2024)
Do these conclusions apply in the real world?
This desk experiment left me with not only a stronger sense of the complexities involved in attempting to monitor biotic change but also an even greater appreciation for the value of the DDb and the sterling efforts continually made by BSBI members to better populate it. But it also reinforced my belief that our assessments of species decline often make an apparent molehill out of what could actually prove to be a seriously threatening mountain. In short, things are surely far worse than they seem
when viewed through the undeniably crude lens of hectads.
There exists a near-linear relationship between occupancy as assessed at the levels of monad, tetrad, quadrant and hectad, involving percentage increases from the first of these scales to the last that are reliably huge but are even greater for rarer species, particularly where records are clustered. It is clear that, for most species, analyses performed at the scale of hectads or quadrants fail to detect the majority of losses or gains of populations that are evident at the monad level, though the degree of the inevitable error is less for species that are either very common or rare. As a general rule, when assessed at the coarse level of hectad, it is the rarer species that yield the most misleading figures for biologically meaningful (i.e. population-level) occupancy but, ironically, they yield the least misleading figures for rate of change of occupancy.
For all but common, widespread species, occupied monads represent a reasonable proxy for population numbers. But whether even monads have the ability to detect all kinds of significant ecological change seems to me highly questionable. I have written elsewhere (Bateman, 2022a, 2022b) about my perception, based on 50 years of field observations, that climate change is presently causing the centres of gravity of local orchid populations to shift at scales typically between 1 m and 100 m. I believe its impact is at present most apparent where it has increased spring moisture deficits in the thin porous rendzina soils of south-facing chalk and limestone slopes. I suspect that the affected orchids, perturbed by the combined effects of decreasing rainfall and increasing insolation, are seeking to (a) increase their moisture intake through preferentially occupying deeper soils on slopes that are shallower or face directions other than south, and (b) to conserve what moisture they do possess through seeking shade amongst taller grasses or under scrub (conservationists still pursuing the standard 20th century practice of routinely clearing scrub from chalk grassland please take note). If I am right, I would argue that resampling of permanent quadrats,
say 100 × 100 m in scale, would offer the most effective method of monitoring floristic change for now (admittedly, much more radical biotic responses will surely ensue when particular climatic tipping points are reached). This hypothesis now requires proper testing, alongside many others, if we are to develop appropriate responses to a rapidly changing environment.
References
Bateman, R.M. 2022a. Systematics and conservation of British and Irish orchids: a “state of the union” assessment to accompany Atlas 2020 [Kew Review]. Kew Bulletin 77: 355–402.
Bateman, R.M. 2022b. Out of the frying pan? Predicting the British and Irish orchid flora of the late 21st century. Journal of the Hardy Orchid Society 19: 119–132.
Braithwaite, M.E. 2024. Species population decline at tetrad and hectad scales. BSBI News 155: 7–10.
Braithwaite, M.E., Ellis, R.W. & Preston, C.D. 2006. Change in the British flora 1987–2004. BSBI, London.
Charitonidou, M., Mouratidis, S., Stara, K., Kougioumoutzis, K., Bateman, R.M., Walker, K.J., Pescott, O.L. & Halley, J.M. 2025. Analysing patterns of change in the orchid flora of the British Isles with correlated environmental variability. Biological Conservation [in review].
Pescott, O.L., Humphrey, T.A., Stroh, P.A. & Walker, K.J. 2019. Temporal changes in distributions and the species atlas: How can British and Irish plant data shoulder the burden? British & Irish Botany 1: 250–282.
Stroh, P., Walker, K.J., Humphrey, T.A. & Pescott, O.L. & Burkmar, R.J. (eds) 2023. Plant Atlas 2000–2019: mapping changes in the distribution of the British and Irish flora. BSBI, Durham/Princeton Univ. Press, New Jersey.
Trudgill, D. 2022a. Orchids in Scotland: changes in their occurrence since 1950. British & Irish Botany 4: 34–41.
Trudgill, D. 2022b. An exploration of orchid records in the BSBI Database in four regions of the British Isles over five periods of time. BSBI News 149: 16–22.
Trudgill, D. 2023. Changes in orchid numbers in England since 1950. Journal of the Hardy Orchid Society 20: 28–35.
Trudgill, D. 2024. Atlas 2020 and orchid population decline, and increase, at all scales. BSBI News 157: 24–27.
Walker, K.J., Stroh, P.A., Humphrey, T.A., Roy, D.B., Burkmar, R.A. & Pescott, O.L. 2023. Britain’s changing flora: a summary of the results of Plant Atlas 2000. BSBI, Durham.
Richard M. Bateman
Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, TW9 3DS r.bateman@kew.org
BEGINNER’S CORNER
Speedwells (Veronica) Part 2
MIKE CREWE
In the previous Beginner’s Corner, we started looking at speedwells and used the style of dichotomous keys to break up the sizeable number of species into more manageable chunks. Having covered the species that bear solitary flowers in the leaf axils, we now look at species where the flowers are carried in spikes. Again, we could divide this group to aid identification by using the flower arrangement. Some species have the flower spikes arising from leaf axils, while others have the flowers in a terminal spike at the tip of the shoot itself. However, for the purposes of achieving an even balance of species, I have split the remaining speedwells by habitat. Thus, Part 2 here covers speedwells with spiked flowers that are found in non-wetland habitats, most typically grassland and open ground. In a later issue the final part will look at speedwells of wetland habitats.
Thyme-leaved Speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia). Mike Crewe
Five more speedwells
As in Part 1, our selection divides into a group of five species, all of which are native to Britain and Ireland. Four of these are perennial species, forming creeping mats of vegetation from where the flowers arise in vertical spikes (either from the leaf axils or from the end of the shoot), while one is a smaller, annual species that doesn’t form creeping mats. Most of these can be separated rather easily by the colour of their flowers, but more attention to stem detail is required to tell Germander and Wood Speedwells apart – you may find a hand lens useful for this. Typically, the species with terminal spikes of flowers have larger, leaf-like bracts attending the flowers. When using your field guides or keys, you may find it useful to understand two technical words for parts of the flower spike: a common stalk that carries several flowers is a ‘peduncle’, while the
BEGINNER’S CORNER: Speedwells (Veronica) Part 2
individual stalks of each single flower are known as ‘pedicels’. Note that all the species shown here can have variable-sized flowers and even the field guides do not agree about the exact dimensions of the corolla, but approximate ranges are given for the species with the smallest diameter (Wall Speedwell) and the largest (Germander Speedwell).
Four of the five speedwells covered here can be found throughout Britain and Ireland and should be
easy to find locally for most of us. The one exception is Wood Speedwell (Veronica montana), which is absent from much of the northern half of Scotland (except some lowland coastal areas) and rather patchily distributed in western Ireland; it is also largely absent from lowlying wetland parts of eastern England.
Mike Crewe mikedcrewe@gmail.com
Germander Speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys). For me, this is the royal member of the speedwells! The intense, deep blue flowers of Germander Speedwell are a common sight in a wide range of grassland habitats including churchyards, roadside verges and old commons. This species has relatively large flowers, around 10 mm across, carried in spikes arising from the leaf axils, while the leafy stems are distinctive in having all of the stem hairs arranged in two lines, one each side of the stem. Be a little careful as this can be somewhat less obvious towards the stem tips but should be very obvious lower down. Leaves are deep green. Flowers March–July. Photos: Mike Crewe (top left, bottom middle and right); John Norton (top right, bottom left).
Wood Speedwell (Veronica montana). Like Germander Speedwell this is a perennial species and the two are rather similar at first glance. The flowers are similarly arranged in the leaf axils but are a lighter, violet-blue and typically more obviously veined. The leaves are clearly a lighter green and the stem hairs are arranged evenly around the stems, not compacted into two lines. Wood Speedwell can be rather more local, preferring grassy rides in woodland or shady hedge bottoms rather than open grassland and it is usually regarded as an indicator of ancient woodland. Flowers April–July. Photos: Mike Crewe; John Norton (top right).
Heath Speedwell (Veronica officinalis). A widespread species, found in grassy places typically on sandier or acidic soils. Often a shade-lover, it does well in areas where heathland is scrubbing over or in open forestry plantations and woodland rides. The flowers appear in terminal spikes and may be either pale lilac-blue or pink and are clearly veined. The stems and leaves are rather coarsely hairy and the relatively large leaves have shallow but well defined teeth along their margins. Flowers May–August. Photos: John Norton (left); Mike Crewe (middle, right).
Thyme-leaved Speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia). A very common species, though perhaps often overlooked as it can be rather small and tucked away beneath taller plants. Found in a wide range of usually damp grassy habitats from woodland rides and cliff tops to urban lawns. In the latter it often does well in shadier places, growing amongst thick mats of moss. The tiny flowers, 5-6 mm across are carried in stiff, upright spikes and have white petals with lilac veins. Non-flowering shoots creep flat to the ground and have hairless, rounded leaves. The leaf toothing is very shallow in this species, hence the English name. Flowers typically any time from March–October. Photos: Mike Crewe (see also photo on p. 35).
Wall Speedwell (Veronica arvensis). The odd one out here in being the only annual species and thus rather smaller than the others in this group. A plant of a wide range of dry, open or disturbed habitats, from gardens and arable fields to rabbit-grazed grasslands, cliff tops and urban pavements and walls. The flowers are brilliant blue (sometimes with a reddish ring towards the centre) but are tiny and inconspicuous, just 4–5 mm across (or less in stunted specimens) and often nestled deep within the large flower bracts. If you are lucky enough to be within reach of Breckland habitats, there’s another three, rather similar but very rare species to be found, too! Flowers any time from March–November. Photos: John Norton (left); Mike Crewe (right). BEGINNER’S
INTRODUCING MY VICE-COUNTY
Alderney, Channel Islands (v.c. 113c)
LINDSAY PYNE
Alderney is part of the wider Channel Islands vice-county (v.c. 113). Less well known than our larger neighbours, Jersey and Guernsey, we are an island of some 2,000 residents, just 3.5 miles (6 km) long and less than 1.5 miles (2.2 km) wide, with a total land area of just over 3 square miles (c. 9 km2). The south-west coast of the island is cliff and to the west these look out across our Ramsar site and our internationally important colonies of Northern Gannet; the north, east and south-east are flatter with sandy beaches. The only town and majority of the dwellings are in the centre of the island, and this is where most of our woodland is too – there are relatively few buildings outside this area other than forts and bunkers.
Alderney is the northernmost of the Channel Islands and much closer to France (approximately 9.5 miles/15 km) than we are to the UK (55 miles/90 km). Guernsey, our closest Channel Island neighbour, is some 18 miles/30 km away. This has
View of Tete de Judemarre across to Telegraph Tower with display of Armeria maritima (Thrift). Lindsay Pyne. All photographs by the author except where stated.
had an impact on our flora, with many species considered common in the UK being rare or even absent here, and conversely species we consider commonplace can promote excitement amongst our UK colleagues. Two plants are rare enough elsewhere to have been named for the island –Limonium normannicum (Alderney Sea-lavender) and Geranium herrerae (Alderney Crane’s-bill), a naturalised South American species.
Even within our own Channel Islands vice-county there are variations, both in species presence and abundance. The islands became separated from the continental mainland at the end of the last Ice Age, but at different times, which explains the differences in species present, not just flora, but other taxa too. For example, on Alderney we have moles, but no
INTRODUCING MY VICE-COUNTY: Alderney, Channel Islands (v.c. 113c)
magpies and our largest mammals are rabbits and hedgehogs. Guernsey has magpies, but no moles! None of the islands have badgers or foxes.
The attraction of the Alderney flora to botanists is well summed up in the Alderney section of E.D. Marquand’s Flora of Guernsey and the Lesser Channel Islands published in 1901 ‘… a visitor will find here in a day’s botanising a larger variety of really rare plants than in either of the other [larger] Channel Islands. There are certainly not many places in England where, within an area of four square miles, a dozen plants may be found in equal rarity to the following …’ He also noted that there were 11 species found on Alderney that did not exist on the other islands at that time.
Alderney’s environment is not natural and much of its most interesting features, species and habitats have been brought about by human scarring of the landscape – agriculture, fortification, quarrying, war. Alderney was inhabited for some two thousand years before the time of the Romans, and the Blaye, the plateau of rich soil in the centre and western end of the Island, still shows the form of the ancient open-field system of agriculture.
Quarries and fortifications
Quarrying reached its peak on the island in the 1840s. Some 70 quarries were built, of which the seven largest covered more than 6% of the island’s total land area. Mannez Quarry, at the eastern end of the island, was the largest, established to supply stone for construction of the Breakwater. By the time of its closure some 100 years later most of the hillside that once ran down to the lighthouse had been removed. The quarry floor provides an ideal habitat for a number of rare or endangered plants. Many of these are minute members of the pea family – Ornithopus pinnatus (Orange Bird’sfoot), Lotus angustissimus (Slender Bird’s-foot-trefoil), L. subbiflorus (Hairy Bird’s-foot-trefoil), Trifolium subterraneum (Subterranean Clover), T. suffocatum (Suffocated Clover), T. striatum (Knotted Clover), and T. ornithopodioides (Bird’s-foot Clover) as well as more common species such as Ornithopus perpusillus (Bird’s-foot) and T. dubium (Lesser Trefoil).
Corblets Quarry, a short walk from Mannez Quarry also provides a rich habitat. Here you may find early flowering species such as Myosotis discolor (Changing Forget-me-not), Erodium maritimum (Sea Stork’s-bill) and Linum catharticum (Fairy Flax), and a bit later in the season Ononis reclinata (Small
Mannez Quarry. Sandy Robertson
Ornithopus pinnatus (Orange Bird’s-foot).
Restharrow), Hypochaeris glabra (Smooth Cat’sear) and Pilosella peleteriana (Shaggy Mouse-ear Hawkweed). There are many more small quarries dotted along the south and west coasts of the island. Beyond Vau du Saou, as you travel westwards along the outer coastal track, one of these contains our population of Tuberaria guttata (Spotted Rock-rose) with its beautiful yellow petals with reddish-brown centres, growing with Hypochaeris glabra and Rumex acetosella (Sheep’s Sorrel).
Alderney has been heavily fortified over the centuries. The most notable of these buildings is the Roman fortlet at Longis known as the Nunnery, but in Victorian times alone some 18 forts and batteries were constructed, as well as the Breakwater, and these forts remain one of the most dominant features of the island’s landscape. In 1940 the Germans invaded the Channel Islands. Alderney was fortified to a greater degree for its size than the other islands and concrete buildings became part of the island’s heritage. On the coastline opposite Les Etacs (known as ‘the Guns’) you can find the remnants of the German coastal artillery Battery Annes, situated in the heart of the Giffoine, a wonderful area of lowland coastal heath. This has partly brought about by the physical movement of soil caused by the building of the defence works. The Germans also stripped the soil in places to use as camouflage and the soil in these areas is now poor and thin and provides an excellent growing medium for gorse and heather, plants which are perfectly adapted to deal with such difficult conditions. Elsewhere the thin soil on the top of bunkers has created ideal growing conditions for some of our rarer small plants, including Romulea columnae (Sand Crocus) and Ornithopus pinnatus – the
Ononis reclinata (Small Restharrow).
Tuberaria guttata (Spotted Rock-rose).
Romulea columnae (Sand Crocus).
INTRODUCING MY VICE-COUNTY: Alderney, Channel Islands (v.c. 113c)
‘Wildlife Bunker’ on the south coast just east of Vau du Saou is a good example of this. The Mannez Garenne, site of Flak Battery Höhe and the naval direction-finding MP4 tower, locally known as the Odeon, has the island’s best displays of Anacamptis morio (Green-winged Orchid) in April, and in late summer, Spiranthes spiralis (Autumn Lady’s-tresses).
Cliffs and headlands
Alderney’s south-western cliffs are a spectacular sight in spring. Brilliant yellow swathes of Cytisus scoparius subsp. maritimus (Prostrate Broom) appear from April and soon after the first spikes of Orobanche rapum-genistae (Greater Broomrape), which parasitises it. This is our tallest and earliest broomrape and can be quite variable in colour. A wonderful mosaic of colour is provided across this stretch of coast by a wide variety of plants including Armeria maritima (Thrift), Leucanthemum vulgare (Oxeye Daisy), Jasione montana (Sheep’s-bit), Ulex spp. (Gorse), Rumex acetosa (Common Sorrel), R. acetosella, Sedum anglicum (English Stonecrop), Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima (Sea
Beet), Silene uniflora (Sea Campion), S. dioica (Red Campion) and Senecio sylvaticus (Heath Groundsel).
Heading west, past the top of Telegraph Bay, you will come to the Tệte de Judemarre headland. The soils here are very fine and covered with lichen, and in spring the whole headland turns pink with carpets of Armeria maritima. Continue onwards and you will reach the remains of more German gun emplacements and a wonderful view across to Les Etacs, the larger of our two Gannet colonies. Ortac, home to the smaller colony, is a bit further out, and Casquets Lighthouse, the furthest point of Alderney’s territorial waters, beyond that still. In this area of the Tệte de Judemarre, in early spring, you may find Teesdalia nudicaulis (Shepherd’s Cress), growing alongside an abundance of Cochlearia danica (Danish Scurvygrass).
The steep valley between here and the Guns is Trois Vaux. It is not the easiest access, often rather wet, and the climb out up to the Guns is very steep; however, it is well worth the effort. A stream runs down the eastern branch of the valley
Cliff-top grassland at the south cliffs with Ulex europaeus (Gorse), Armeria maritima (Thrift) and Leucanthemum vulgare (Oxeye Daisy), with patches of Cytisus scoparius subsp. maritimus (Prostrate Broom) on the steeper slopes (left of centre). Bill Black
and along the bottom where it tumbles over the cliffs to the beach below. In strong southerly gales this waterfall is spectacularly blown back up the valley! In the stream bed on the eastern side, you may find Anagallis tenella (Bog Pimpernel), the only site for this plant on the island. Pulicaria dysenterica (Common Fleabane), Hypericum tetrapterum (Square-stalked St John’s-wort), Cirsium palustre (Marsh Thistle), Lotus pedunculatus (Greater Bird’s-foot Trefoil) and a few straggly plants of Silene flos-cuculi (Ragged-Robin) also grow here. On the steep valley sides you will find Umbilicus rupestris (Navelwort), Potentilla erecta (Tormentil), Digitalis purpurea (Foxglove) and in early summer, Calluna vulgaris (Heather). In May and early June you may well catch a glimpse of a Green Hairstreak butterfly, usually on Gorse here, and Glanville Fritillaries are a common sight between late May and July. The western slopes of the valley are covered with Armeria maritima, Daucus carota subsp. gummifer (Sea Carrot), Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima and various species of Orobanche (broomrapes).
Coastal habitats and commons
From the Guns there is an excellent cliff walk through the west coast heathland, down to Clonque and then
on to Platte Saline, with views across the Swinge, one of the island’s two tidal races, to Alderney’s Ramsar site and the island of Burhou where Puffins and Storm Petrels come to breed. Platte Saline is our only shingle beach, and a good place to watch Ringed Plover and other small waders. Above the high tide line, a number of deep-rooted plants form an attractive display, including Glaucium flavum (Yellow Horned-poppy) and Crambe maritima (Seakale). On the grassy bank above grows Silene gallica (Small-flowered Catchfly), usually flowering much earlier here than elsewhere, and a little further on, towards the eastern end of the beach, there is a lovely stretch covered in Eryngium maritimum (Sea-holly), Euphorbia paralias (Sea Spurge), Crithmum maritimum (Rock Samphire), Calystegia soldanella (Sea Bindweed) and Orobanche spp. These grow on other north coast beaches too, at Saye, Arch and on Braye where you will also find Salsola kali (Prickly Saltwort) and Cakile maritima (Sea Rocket).
In early spring Braye Common is a sea of golden Ranunculus bulbosa (Bulbous Buttercup) and pale blue Linum bienne (Pale Flax) but come the beginning of June it is home to more exciting things as Phelipanche purpurea (Yarrow Broomrape) appears. This attractive
broomrape is relatively common in the island’s coastal grasslands, often growing with Anacamptis pyramidalis (Pyramidal Orchid), our most common orchid. Across from Braye Common is an area known as the Scramble Tracks and this is where you will find Centaurea aspera (Rough Star-thistle). Echium vulgare (Viper’s-bugloss) and the spectacular, but nonnative Echium pininana (Giant Viper’s-bugloss or Tree Echium) also grow here, as does the attractive Briza media (Quaking-grass).
Heading up to Fort Albert you will find an abundance of Orobanche hederae (Ivy Broomrape) from early June; for many years believed to be limited to just a couple of sites, it is now much more commonly found. From here you can walk down to Bibette Head and then on to Saye, Arch and Corblets bays. In grassland above Saye Campsite you may find a few plants of Ophrys apifera (Bee Orchid), and a little further towards Chateau à l’Etoc, Vicia bithynica (Bithynian Vetch), one of only two island sites for this species.
The Common on the south of the island is Longis. Historically grazed, this fell away post war leading to a rapid encroachment of bramble and bracken. Since 2004 the Alderney Wildlife Trust
has been grazing a small herd of Guernsey cattle on part of the Common to reverse this trend. Thymus drucei (Wild Thyme), Lotus corniculatus (Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil), Euphrasia agg. (Eyebright), Anagallis arvensis (Scarlet Pimpernel), Ononis repens (Common Restharrow), Geranium molle (Dove’s-foot Cranesbill) and Galium verum (Lady’s Bedstraw) now create colourful and fragrant swathes with brightly coloured patches of Cuscuta epithymum (Dodder) dotted here and there; in the less grazed areas Raphanus raphanistrum subsp. maritimus (Sea Radish) can dominate. Butterflies abound, particularly Common Blue, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Small Heath and Glanville Fritillary, as well as Emperor Dragonflies. Here is our only natural freshwater pond and associated reedbed, with a small bird hide
Phelipanche purpurea (Yarrow Broomrape).
Echium pininana (Tree Echium) with Mount Hale and Fort Albert in background.
at the pond’s western edge from which you may see Little Grebe and hear Water Rail calling.
Although Alderney is small, it contains a wide variety of habitats in miniature. The smallest of these is probably the tiny saltmarsh area at Houmet Herbé on the east coast. Here grows one of our two endemic plants, Limonium normannicum (Alderney Sea-lavender) on rocky ledges on the edge of the splash zone, not far from a community of Limonium binervosum subsp. sarniense (Rock Sea-lavender). Next
to this is our only site for Lysimachia maritima (Seamilkwort) and close by, flowering later in the year, is a colony of Tripolium pannonicum (Sea Aster): our plants tend to be white-flowered, rather than the more usual pale purple, and often have reddish stems.
The short turf along this section of the east coast contains several interesting species. Heading west from Fort Quesnard you may find Isoetes histrix (Land Quillwort) in a small depression, often flooded. Further on, in several areas on the seaward side
Limonium normannicum (Alderney Sea-lavender).
Silene gallica (Small-flowered Catchfly) behind Fort Tourgis.
Bupleurum baldense (Small Hare’s-ear).
Tripolium pannonicum (Sea Aster).
INTRODUCING MY VICE-COUNTY: Alderney, Channel Islands (v.c. 113c)
of the main coastal path, grow Silene gallica, Ononis reclinata, Bupleurum baldense (Small Hare’s-ear), Thesium humifusum (Bastard-toadflax) and Lotus subbiflorus, alongside the more common Euphorbia portlandica (Portland Spurge), Anthyllis vulneraria (Kidney Vetch) and Trifolium occidentale (Western Clover). In late summer it is now one of the few sites to find Cirsium acaule (Dwarf Thistle), and Carlina vulgaris (Carline Thistle) also grows nearby. Our primary site for Fulgensia fulgens (Scrambled Egg Lichen) is in this area too. On sunny days in late March/early April the Houmet Herbé headland itself is a good place to see Romulea columnae and in late summer, Spiranthes spiralis and Scilla autumnalis (Autumn Squill). There is a small pocket of heathland here, primarily composed of Erica cinerea (Bell Heather) with Centaurium erythraea (Common Centaury), Jasione montana and Sedum anglicum (English Stonecrop). On the rocky ledges on the western side of the headland you will find Limbarda crithmoides (Golden-samphire) alongside Crithmum maritimum
Woodland
Woodland on Alderney is sparse. It is the least wooded of all the main Channel Islands, and one of the most denuded territories in Europe as a whole. The creation of the Alderney Community Woodland, in the centre of the island, has seen more than 12,000 native trees planted since 2010; however, this is a young and still developing woodland. Vau du Saou is the island’s only coastal wooded valley with a mix of deciduous native trees and large nonnative conifers. It supports Hyacinthoides non-scripta (Bluebell), the variegated Arum italicum (Italian Lordsand-Ladies) and a small area of heath and scrub. A variety of migratory birds, especially birds of prey, are often spotted here and it is the most likely place to find the island’s only reptile, the Slow-worm (Anguis fragilis). The Bonne Terre is the largest valley on the island, sloping down from the south towards the sea in the north. This valley contains a small freshwater stream which feeds the pond behind the dam and the water mill at the northern end of the valley which has been lovingly restored by the Alderney Society and is certainly worth a visit. Naturally
regenerating woodland extends up the valley and throughout March and April the valley turns white with Prunus spinosa (Blackthorn), Crataegus monogyna (Hawthorn) and Sambucus nigra (Elder). In early spring the valley provides one of the best displays of bluebells and Primula vulgaris (Primrose), and is also the principal island site for the giant Carex paniculata (Greater Tussock-sedge).
Visiting
I would highly recommend Alderney as a fascinating location for off-island experts to explore, record and hopefully pass back records, an opportunity to make a difference to the island and also possibly make a name for themselves! It may not be the easiest, or cheapest, place to get to – there are direct flights from Southampton or flights via Guernsey from other UK airports, including London, Birmingham and Manchester, and in the summer months there is a small ferry between Guernsey and Alderney, weather permitting, but no direct ferry from the UK – nevertheless, once you are here you won’t be disappointed. You could always take the opportunity to visit the other Channel Islands too, each very different with so much to offer.
Bonnard, B. 2008. The Wildflowers of Alderney www.flora.org. gg/A498AldFlorAllflowersfinal2008.pdf
Bonnard, B. 2017. The Illustrated Wildflowers of Alderney, a revised and updated list with notes
Davenport, T.G. 2016. Alderney’s Fortifications from Roman times to WWII.
Ewen, A.H. 2005. An Outline of Island History (revised edn). Diebel, J. & Gander, T. (eds) 2006. Alderney – an Introduction to the delights of this very special Channel Island. Barnes Publishing Ltd, Jersey (available from the Alderney Wildlife Trust).
Marquand, E.D. 1901. Flora of Guernsey and the Lesser Channel Islands.
Lindsay Pyne
Vice-county Recorder for Alderney (v.c. 113c) lindsay@alderneywildlife.org
In November of last year, Andy Shaw sent me news of two interesting alien plant species he had found effectively growing as epiphytes on tree ferns at a Brecknock garden centre. One will be familiar to members (see v.c. 42), while the other is a Hydrocotyle species, the exact identity of which awaits final confirmation. While neither has escaped the precincts of the garden centre as yet (or even the ‘trunks’ of the tree ferns), Andy thinks these occurrences are of significance for the light they might shed on the ways that such accidentally introduced species get spread around more widely. I absolutely agree with him. In a similar vein, I have included some recent records for ‘naturalised’ Callitriche terrestris (Terrestrial Starwort) found in three different garden centres by Fred Rumsey (see v.c. 6).
I end this short preamble with a gentle request to contributors. Where pressed specimens of alien plant finds have been retained and lodged with any public herbaria, I would be very grateful if that information could be included as part of the details of the record sent to me (and see David Pearman’s article on p. 60). Thank you.
V.c. 2 (E. Cornwall)
Bergenia × schmidtii (Ciliate Elephant-ears). Downderry (SX31585389), 31/12/2024, D. Steere et al. (comm. D. Steere): found on a New Year Plant Hunt at base of cliff amongst native species with no gardens nearby; it is none the less thought to be a garden throw-out, possibly ‘assisted’ by recent coastal erosion. The first v.c. 2 record. An evergreen, herbaceous garden perennial (Saxifragaceae) with thick scaly rhizomes to c.50 cm tall, the artificial cross of the Siberian B. crassifolia
and the Himalayan B. ciliata; the large, thick, shiny dark green, denticulate leaves are exclusively basal and the inflorescences many-flowered panicles, each cup-shaped flower with five purplish-pink petals and five sepals. The hairy leaf margins and more or less orbicular-cordate leaf shape are inherited from the B. ciliata parent, while the petal shape is more or less that of B. crassifolia, but the flowers becoming erect rather than remaining pendent. Stace (2019): 136.
Euphorbia myrsinites (Glaucous Spurge). Polruan (SX12805072), 12/1/2025, D. Steere (comm. D. Steere): one seedling established in pavement near civic planting by edge of pavement. This seems to be the first record for Cornwall. Adventives & Aliens News 32, v.c. 28.
Euphorbia myrsinites, Polruan, East Cornwall (v.c. 2). David Steere
V.c. 4 (N. Devon)
Cotoneaster divaricatus (Spreading Cotoneaster). Langtree (SS44881574), 24/5/2024, R.I. Kirby (conf. J. Fryer): at top of the eastern hedge bank of
Latch Lane; below the outer branches of a Crataegus, so likely bird-sown. New to to v.c. 4. A spreading deciduous shrub (Rosaceae) from central China; rather distinctive in having oblong, deep red fruits (9–12 mm long), each containing two stones. Stace (2019): 247.
Euonymus fortunei (Winter Creeper). Barnstaple (SS57513224), 6/2/2024, R.I. Kirby (conf. M. Duffell): layering its way for c.5 m along the bank of a stream, Rose Lane; it is a landscaping feature on a nearby commercial estate. A low growing occasionally climbing evergreen (sub)shrub (Celastraceae) from China, grown as ground cover in gardens, often with variegated leaves. The dull upper surfaces of the leaves (vs shiny) and the twigs with adventitious roots (vs without adventitious roots) distinguish it from E. japonicus (Evergreen Spindle). Stace (2019): 321.
Eryngium bourgatii Gouan (Pyrenean Eryngo). Westward Ho! (SS440293), 1/6/2024, R.I. Kirby (conf. B. Pike): tiny plant growing in the gutter of a block-paved road. The first v.c. 4 record. Adventives & Aliens News 21, v.cc. 6, 16, 29 and 107.
V.c. 5 (S. Somerset) Glandora diffusa (Lag.) D.C. Thomas (Scrambling Gromwell). Minehead (SS9646), 18/4/2024, G.E. Lavender: the second v.c. 5 and Somerset record. Quite similar to Aegonychon purpureocaeruleum (Purple Gromwell) in its terminal clusters of purplish-blue to bright blue flowers, but a spreading, shrubby plant with smaller corollas (1–1.5 cm × 1 cm vs 1.1–1.6 cm × 1.5–2 cm) and shorter leaves (c.1 cm vs c.7 cm) that are narrowly elliptic (vs narrowly lanceolate). A garden escape (Boraginaceae) from south-western Europe. Lithodora diffusa and Lithospermum diffusum are synonyms.
Miscanthus nepalensis (Trin.) Hack. (Nepalese Silver-grass/Himalayan Fairy-grass). Minehead (SS96984679), 26/6/2024, G.E. Lavender (comm. D. Leadbetter): one clump growing between wall and pavement, Weirfield Road, North Hill. The first v.c. 5 record and seemingly the first British and Irish record too. A deciduous, caespitose perennial grass with short rhizomes to c.200 cm tall and leaf blades of 15–60 cm × 0.3–2.5 cm. It is a native of eastern Asia and a garden plant in Britain. The inflorescence is a more or less digitate head of c.10–50 racemes, c.5–20 cm long. The spikelets are paired, 2–3 mm long, dorsally compressed and fall entire; the spikelets have one basal sterile floret and one fertile floret and lack a rhachilla extension; the fertile florets have two stamens, the anthers 1.4 mm long. M. sinensis (Chinese Silver-grass) and M. sacchariflorus differ in having larger spikelets (4–6.5 mm long) with three stamens, the anthers 2–2.5 mm long. In addition, M. sacchariflorus has long rhizomes and is not at all caespitose. The main ornamental value of M. nepalensis seems to be the bronze autumnal colouring of the leaves and subtly changing colour of the persistent inflorescences, pale yellow in summer, yellow in autumn and brownish-yellow in winter.
V.c. 6 (N. Somerset)
Callitriche terrestris Raf. (Terrestrial Starwort). Brent Knoll (ST344499), 24/7/2023, F.J. Rumsey (det. R.V. Lansdown): locally abundant between paving blocks, Sanders Garden Centre. The first v.c. 6 record. Fred Rumsey found another v.c. 6
Eryngium bourgatii, Westward Ho!, North Devon (v.c. 4). Bob Kirby
population in Shepton Mallet at Dobbies Garden Centre (ST630425, 7/9/2024), where fairly frequent in a small area of uncovered paving; and in v.c. 5 at Monkton Elms Garden Centre in Monkton Heathfield (ST262274, 3/10/2024). It was still present at the Shepton Mallet location on 20/1/2025 (record P.R. Green). A monoecious annual (Callitrichaceae) that has creeping, little branched, greenish-white stems, and opposite more or less oblong leaves (3–4 mm × 1.5–2 mm), tapering basally to a short petiole. The green flowers (3.2 mm long) lack a perianth and occur in the leaf axils –the male flowers with one stamen and the female flowers with a four-celled ovary bearing two styles. The double ovoid fruit is carried on a short stalk, has persistent styles and resembles a tiny Galium fruit, 0.5–0.7 mm × 1 mm. As well as reproduction by seed, and although an annual, the plant can spread vegetatively by means of axillary rootlets. It is a native of the Americas, where it is found in a variety of dampish marginal habitats; to date the (very few) British records have been associated with garden centres/nurseries. Adventives & Aliens News 7, v.c. 39. Melica ciliata L. (Silky-spike Melick). Frome (ST77754752), 4/6/2024, H.J. Crouch & D.E. Green (conf. O. Pescott): one clump on pavement on north side of Woodland Road. The first Somerset record. It is a rather variable, often glaucous, stiffleaved, tufted, perennial grass to c.100 cm. The narrow, contracted panicle is 4–20 cm long. The spikelets are 5–7 mm long, laterally compressed and have one fertile floret and an apical cluster of two to three reduced sterile florets. The subequal glumes are glabrous, ovate and 4–5 mm long. The fertile lemmas are lanceolate and have long-ciliate margins, the hairs being silvery-white or yellowish and silky. This last characteristic gives the flowering grass a distinctive appearance, at least at maturity. While Ryves et al. (1996) tells us that there were only pre-1930 records, there are only post-2003 records in the DDb, for v.cc. 21 (2023, a deliberate introduction) and v.c. 44 (2004). It is a garden plant from Europe, northern Africa and south-western and central Asia.
V.c. 11 (S. Hants)
Gamochaeta cf. purpurea (an American spicate cudweed). Southampton (SU42661127), 23/9/2024, T. Norton (det. T. Norton): several flowering plants in kerb drain, Central Bridge, St. Mary’s; exact taxon unclear. Tristan Norton also found plants on 28/9/2024 at SU42761112, where hundreds of spikes and basal rosettes were observed on brick paving, Solent Sky, St. Mary’s. Philip Budd recorded G. purpurea at Ampfield (SU3823) in 2001, the first v.c. 11 record; he also recorded it at Southampton (SU4712) in 2020 and at Town Quay/Southampton (SU4110) on 10/1/2024 (det. J. Poland); presumably with the same proviso applying as to the exact species in all cases. Tristan Norton delves into the complex taxonomic revisions in this genus with particular reference to the most recent Southampton records in BSBI News 158, pp. 40–44. Former records of G. pensylvanica now appear in the DDb under G. purpurea , which might be misleading if ever any referred to plants with concolorous leaves. Adventives & Aliens News 16, v.c. 39.
V.c. 12 (N. Hants)
Euphorbia stricta (Upright Spurge). Crawley (SU43103468), 22/8/2024, T. Norton (comm. A.R.G. Mundell): single fruiting plant on sparsely vegetated verge. A new hectad record. An erect glabrous well-branched annual (Euphorbiaceae) to 80 cm, best distinguished from E. platyphyllos (Broadleaved Spurge) by well-defined capsule characters. Its seeds are reddish-brown when ripe (vs olive-brown in E. platyphyllos). As a native restricted to v.cc. 34, 35 and 41, otherwise a naturalised garden escape. Adventives & Aliens News 28, v.c. 83.
Amaranthus powellii (Powell’s Amaranth). Micheldever (SU528411), 21/8/2024, J. Shanklin (comm. A.R.G. Mundell): a few plants on wheat field margin, one flowering. There are no other v.c. 12 records in the DDb. A variably hairy or subglabrous American annual (Amaranthaceae) to 100 cm, with dense terminal spike-like panicles and transversely dehiscent fruits. It can be told from A. hybridus (Green Amaranth) by the stiff inflorescences (vs lax), the longer bracts (5–5.5 mm vs 3–5 mm) with stout
midribs (vs slender midribs), the thickened bases of the styles (vs not thickened) and the perianth of three to five tepals (vs five tepals). Stace (2019): 528.
Verbascum chaixii (Nettle-leaved Mullein). New Alresford (SU57353275), 6/9/2024, D. Pearson (det. A.R.G. Mundell from photos): one plant in flower on grass verge by entrance to vineyard. A hairy, yellow or sometimes white-flowered, biennial garden plant (Scrophulariaceae) from southern and central Europe. It differs from V. nigrum (Dark Mullein) in the bases of the basal leaves being rounded to truncate (vs cordate), and all the pedicels being about the same length as the calyces (vs of variable length with at least some greater than twice length of calyces).
Clement et al. (2005): 243; Stace (2019): 641.
perennial (Saururaceae) from N. America. The c.20 cm × 8 mm racemes are whitish at first turning brown, and range from more or less upright to distinctly arching; the flowers lack petals or corollas, have whitish stamens and inconspicuous, whitishgreen, spathulate bracts. The alternate, cordate leaves are said to have a citrus aroma. There are (extant?) records for v.cc. 2, 5, 12, 38, 40, 54, 56 and 63 in the DDb. Adventives & Aliens News 21, v.c. 35. Saururus chinensis (Lour.) Baill., a bog garden plant from Asia, is rather like it but the upper surfaces of its upper leaves have extensive areas of white.
Hibiscus syriacus L. (Syrian Ketmia). Eastbourne (TV61329865), 2/10/2024, M. Berry: seedlings at wall base, Burlington Place. The third record for v.c. 14 and Eastbourne but the first for the town centre. A commonly cultivated garden shrub (Malvaceae), a native of east Asia. It is unlikely to be confused with H. trionum (Bladder Ketmia) but for the record the latter is an annual herb, has pale yellow petals with a violet basal spot (vs lilac or white petals with a darker basal spot), deeply palmately lobed leaves (vs shallowly three-lobed) and 10–13 epicalyx segments (vs 7–9). Adventives & Aliens News 21, v.c. 16.
V.c. 14 (E. Sussex)
Saururus cernuus L. (Lizard’s-tail). Firle (TQ48910782), 28/7/2024, P.A. Harmes (det. A.C. Leslie): naturalised around edge of farm duck pond, Middle Farm. The first Sussex record. A tallish rhizomatous
Digitaria ciliaris (Tropical Finger-grass). Eastbourne Seafront (TV61759895), 5/10/2024, M. Berry (conf. E.J. Clement): several plants in road gutter outside entrance to Pier Hotel, Marine Parade. The second v.c. 14 record. The identification was based on the smooth nerves of the lower lemmas and the
Saururus cernuus, Firle, East Sussex (v.c. 14). Paul Harmes
Verbascum chaixii, New Alresford, North Hampshire (v.c. 12). Dave Pearson
upper glumes consistently being at least two-thirds as long as the spikelets. BSBI News 83: 38; Adventives & Aliens News 31, v.c. 16.
V.c. 15 (E. Kent)
Tetragonia tetragonioides (New Zealand Spinach). South of Jury’s Gap (TQ99861791), 4/8/2024, A. Lockton & R. Dix: three plants on the beach, west end of Lydd Ranges. A fleshy, branched, procumbent to ascending perennial (Aizoaceae) (but probably often behaving as an annual in Britain), a native of Australasia and south-east Asia. The alternate leaves (1.5–8 cm × 1–6 cm) are dark green or yellow-green above, paler below, ovate-rhombic to triangular, and densely but finely papillose on both surfaces. The very inconspicuous subsessile flowers are yellow or yellow-green and 7–8 mm across. The indehiscent fruit is obconical, angled, woody, with two to four apical horns, it is 8–10 mm long and contains three to eight seeds. As well as being spread by tides, it is a garden escape and birdseed alien; mostly an uncommon casual in southern England, rarer elsewhere, it has been established on sandy beaches in v.c. 1b, Clement & Foster (1994). The RHS comments on its vitamin-rich leaves, like a milder tasting spinach, recommending it for home-made health drinks and as a stir-fried leaf vegetable. Even in New Zealand, where it is naturally a species of the coastal strand zone, apparently wild occurrences near coastal settlements can actually have a horticultural origin. Clement et al. (2005): 47; Stace (2019): 535.
V.c. 16 (W. Kent)
Vaccinium ovatum Pursh (California Huckleberry). Ightham (TQ579553), 2/7/2024, G. Kitchener & S. Kitchener: large bush on acid sands of Folkestone formation, with V. myrtillus (Bilberry), Fishponds Wood. As well as being the first record for v.c. 16 and Kent as a whole, it does not seem to have been recorded in Britain or Ireland before. A slow-growing, evergreen shrub (Ericaceae) to c.3 m, often with reddish stems, native to British Columbia, California, Oregon and Washington. The narrowly ovate, alternate leaves have a waxy, leathery texture,
with lustrous dark green upper surfaces, the lower surfaces paler green and glandular, sharply serrate and 2–3(5) cm × 0.8–1.2 cm. The pinkish urn-shaped flowers occur in short racemes and are followed by blue-black berries. The N. American V. corymbosum (Highbush Blueberry) is deciduous, with longer (up to 8 cm), less leathery leaves that are serrate or entire, longer flowers (7–12 mm vs 3–5 mm), and broader berries (5–12 mm across vs 6–8 mm across). The berries of V. corymbosum also have a well-developed whitish bloom (vs usually absent in V. ovatum?). It might well have been originally bird-sown from a nearby nursery, Reuthe’s The Lost Gardens of Sevenoaks. Geoffrey Kitchener explains that this nursery business has long specialised in ericaceous plants and the firm’s 1958 catalogue offered V. ovatum (at 7s/6d), as well as 15 other Vaccinium species. Kent Botany 2024: 43.
Salvia forskaehlei L. (Indigo Woodland Sage). Trottiscliffe (TQ652613), D. Chambers & M. Easterbrook: several plants in a semi-natural area at least 40 m from a garden bank where the same recorders had seen it in cultivation in 2023, Pilgrim’s Way; it is thought it might have spread to the second location from deposited garden waste. The first v.c. 16 record and for Kent as a whole. There are several alternative spellings of the specific name. Kent Botany 2024, p. 41 (whose spelling of the specific name I have adopted here). Adventives & Aliens News 22, v.c. 9 (where the alternative spelling Salvia forsskaolei is used!).
Ehrharta erecta Lam. (Panic Veldtgrass). Blackheath (TQ40197648), 11/9/2022, P. Robinson: numerous plants escaped onto pavement from a garden where growing in quantity (but not definitely as a garden plant), Kidbrooke Gardens. The first v.c. 16 record and for Kent as a whole. Kent Botany 2024: 34; Adventives & Aliens News 24, v.cc. 17 and 21.
V.c. 17 (Surrey)
Trifolium rubens L. (Ruddy Clover). Shackleford (SU93514534), 11/7/2024, G. Hounsome & C. Bateman (det. E.J. Clement): flowering on a low bank on the north-east side of a small car park, south of the junction of Peper Harow Lane and
Grenville Road. A rare garden perennial (Fabaceae) from southern and central Europe, never before recorded as an escape in Britain or Ireland. George Hounsome kindly passed on the details to me so I could publish them here; he will be writing a more detailed report in a forthcoming Surrey Botanical Society Newsletter.
V.c. 21 (Middlesex)
Euphorbia prostrata Aiton (Fringed Spurge/Fringed Sandmat). Teddington (TQ159704), 13/9/2023, H. Miller (det. T. Walker): single plant in paving. Henry Miller found it again at Hammersmith (TQ238782) on 5/10/2024. There are no other v.c. 21 records in the DDb. A branching matforming annual (Euphorbiaceae) with softly hairy stems, a native of the Americas. It is best distinguished from E. maculata (Spotted Spurge) with unspotted leaves by the hairs confined to the angles of the capsules (vs uniformly appressed hairy capsules); its stipules are equilateral-triangular (vs filiform). As with other sandmat spurges, it is almost certainly introduced with large plant containers shipped from southern Europe. Adventives & Aliens News 29, v.c. 26.
Lysimachia atropurpurea L. (Dark Purple Loosestrife). Bedford Park (TQ211797), 1/6/2024, D. Cahen (comm. H. Miller): around 20 flowering plants growing in disturbed soil at a construction site. A small-flowered, annual or short-lived perennial herb (Primulaceae) to c.60 cm, from south-east Europe and south-west Asia. It is a fashionable garden plant in Britain. The narrow grey-green leaves are often strongly undulate. The long spike-like inflorescences may be erect or nodding. The dark reddishpurple colour of the unopened flowers give the inflorescences a distinctive ‘burnt-tip’ appearance, the opened flowers being generally less intensely coloured. There is one other record in the DDb for v.c. 97 (2018), where it might have been planted.
Dittrichia graveolens (Stinking Fleabane). Chiswick (TQ202772), 3/11/2024, H. Miller: single flowering plant growing in newly constructed flowerbed, possibly brought in with soil. The first v.c. 21 record. Adventives & Aliens News 29, v.c. 12.
Lemna valdiviana Phil. (Valdivia Duckweed). South Kensington (TQ265790), 29/9/2024, H. Miller (det. R.V. Lansdown & N. Stewart): over large area of newly constructed pond, Natural History Museum Evolution Garden. The first confirmed v.c. 21 record. In his submission Henry Miller referred to the distinctive ‘butterfly-shaped’ branching of the sometimes submerged fronds. Adventives & Aliens News 32, v.c. 4.
Euphorbia prostrata, Teddington, Middlesex (v.c. 21).
Henry Miller
Lemna valdiviana, South Kensington, Middlesex (v.c. 21). Henry Miller
Cenchrus americanus (L.) Morrone (Pearl Millet).
Tottenham Hale (TQ334900), 9/11/2024, C. Pavia
Kaplan (det. M.P. Wilcox/comm. H. Miller): single plant growing at pavement edge; origin unknown but perhaps in bird seed. The first v.c. 21 record. A robust annual grass, a native of tropical Africa, which like Zea mays, can reach 3 m, but is often very much smaller. The culm leaf blades are 50–100 cm × 1–7 cm; the culm nodes are typically bearded; the ligule is a fringe of hairs. The inflorescence is a contracted, more or less cylindrical panicle,
tapering somewhat towards the tip, also potentially very robust – up to 5 cm wide and of proportionate length. The spikelets, which can be in clusters of up to nine, have three stamens, are 3–6 mm long, dorsally compressed, with one basal sterile floret and one fertile floret. The caryopsis has an adherent pericarp, is 2–5.5 mm long and at maturity is exposed between the gaping lemma and palea. Beneath each spikelet there are numerous, persistent bristles arranged in an inner and an outer whorl, 12–26 mm long (the inner bristles being longer than the outer). It seems that the spikelets neither drop whole nor break up, or perhaps do so only very tardily. It is thought to have been originally derived from C. violaceus and is tolerant of arid growing conditions. A very important subsistence food crop in countries around the Sahara Desert and in western Africa, it is also cultivated on a crop scale in eastern Europe, western Asia, China, Australia and S. America. It appears in Ryves et al. (1996) as Pennisetum glaucum, where its presence as a garden weed at Leicester (v.c. 55) in 1915, and in pheasant cover of maize and millet at Cavenham (v.c. 26) in 1992 is referred to. There are five other records in the DDb, the most recent for the period 2005–2013 at Caversham Quarry (v.c. 23).
V.c. 27 (E. Norfolk)
Phyla nodiflora (L.) Greene (Frogfruit). Norwich (TG188100), 9/11/2024, A. Prendergast (comm. S. Pryce): growing vigorously in a close-mown lawn and colonising adjacent pavement edge, New Costessey. A creeping, prostrate perennial or subshrub (Verbenaceae) with stems rooting at the nodes, opposite elliptic-oblanceolate leaves (entire or distally toothed), and tiny pinkish-white flowers with yellow in the throat in umbel-like clusters with purple centres carried on long slender stalks. It is a native of the tropics and subtropics extending into northern Africa, Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey. The trailing interweaving stems of a v.c. 5 colony found by Ro Fitzgerald in West Quantoxhead in 2016 covered a 3 m × 2 m area of a rough bank. That plant was determined as Phyla nodiflora var. minor, with Fred Rumsey commenting that all the British records were likely to be of this variant, a probably
Cenchrus americanus, Tottenham Hale, Middlesex (v.c. 21). Claudia Pavia Kaplan
sterile garden plant with flowers somewhat showier than the nominate plant. As well as the v.c. 5 record, there are also records for v.cc. 12, 29 and 33 in the DDb. BSBI News 135: 69–70.
Xerochrysum bracteatum (Strawflower). Weybourne (TG11434270), 29/12/2024, S. Plant (det. S. Pryce & M. Ghullam/comm. S. Pryce): small plant in gutter crack, Pine Walk. An erect annual (or a perennial where warmer) composite, little branched above, to c.90 cm, that it is a native of eastern Australia; it has linear-lanceolate, dull green, sparsely hairy leaves and solitary, terminal, discoid capitula, c.5 cm across, with chaffy phyllaries, the inner ones petaloid and yellow, orange-red or white with thickened green bases. It is a well-known bedding plant as well as being utilised in cut-flower displays. It has also been a wool casual. Clement & Foster (1994); Stace (2019): 774.
Cotula australis (Annual Buttonweed). Norwich (TG22680847), 11/2024, R.M. Leaney: thousands of plants, with no associates, on strip of muddy gravel between narrow pavement and building base, Little Bethel Street in the city centre. This is the first truly inland record for Norfolk and the first without a ‘caravan connection’, Bob Leaney (pers. comm.) has noticed how this species is able to colonise unswept
muddy road gutters, allowing for the subsequent dispersal of seeds on car tyres, etc. Adventives & Aliens News 21, v.c. 14; Adventives & Aliens News 23, v.c. 27; Adventives & Aliens News 24, v.c. 27.
Acorus gramineus (Slender Sweet-flag). Norwich (TG27300799), 22/7/2024, E. Barrie (conf. A.C. Leslie, N. Aston, S. Taylor & P. Brice): a variegated cultivar well established in shallow water on a muddy edge of the River Yare, Whitlingham. The first Norfolk record. It has possibly arrived as a root fragment from upstream, Bob Leaney pers. comm. Adventives & Aliens News 33, v.c. 59.
Setaria faberi (Nodding Bristle-grass). Edgefield (TG10173353), 28/9/2024, M. Ghullam (det. R.M. Leaney/comm. S. Pryce): in large plant container holding Trachycarpus fortunei (Chusan Palm). It was later found that the containers that the palms were growing in had come from Italy, Suki Pryce pers. comm. An annual grass from eastern Asia (and a naturalised introduction in western Asia and N. America), listed as a grain, bird seed and oil-seed alien, Ryves et al. (1996). Rather like a stout S. viridis (Green Bristle-grass), being distinguished from it by its hairy leaves (vs glabrous), the somewhat larger spikelets (2.7–3 mm vs 2–2.5 mm) and the relatively shorter upper glumes (three-quarters as long as spikelet vs more or less same length as spikelet). As the English name indicates, the mature panicle is typically nodding. Stace (2019): 1110.
V.c. 28 (W. Norfolk)
Trifolium alexandrinum (Egyptian Clover). West Acre (TF702274), 12/10/2024, M. Ghullam (conf. R.M. Leaney): single plant on a rural road verge with no obvious seed source. The first Norfolk record. It is thought to be a probable escape from a previous year’s crop in a nearby field, in line with its increasing use as a fodder crop or green manure (‘Berseem Clover’), Bob Leaney pers. comm. Stace (2019): 189.
V.c. 42 (Brecs)
Senecio minimus (Toothed Fireweed). Brecknock (SO171375), 2024, A.G. Shaw (det. & comm. A.G. Shaw): growing as a weed on trunks of Dicksonia antarctica (Australian Tree-fern) imported from
Phyla nodiflora, Norwich, East Norfolk (v.c. 27). Sarah Morrison
Australia at The Old Railway Line Garden Centre, Three Cocks. Specimens were grown on by Andy Shaw until they flowered and could be more readily identified. Adventives & Aliens News 34, v.c. 97.
Euphorbia corallioides, Earl Shilton, Leicestershire (v.c. 55). Steve Woodward
V.c. 55 (Leics)
Euphorbia corallioides (Coral Spurge). Earl Shilton (SP479982), 4/3/2024, S. Woodward & H. Ikin (conf. T. Walker/comm. S. Woodward): hundreds of stems (up to c.60 cm tall) over several square metres on verge of a by-pass, Clickers Way. The first v.c. 55 record. Summer-flowering associates at this site included Ophrys apifera (Bee Orchid) and Anacamptis pyramidalis (Pyramidal Orchid), Steve Woodward
pers. comm. At different times Steve Woodward noted the glabrous stems; the dense white hairs (some greater than 1 mm long) on the immature capsules, becoming sparser and revealing a capsule surface without tubercles; and the c.1 mm hairs on both surfaces of the lanceolate-serrulate lower leaves. A hairy, at most weakly rhizomatous, perennial herb (Euphorbiaceae), native to Italy and known as a garden escape in Britain. There are no records in the DDb for Ireland. Adventives & Aliens News 22, v.cc. 2 and 12.
Senecio minimus, Brecknock, Breconshire (v.c. 42). Andy Shaw
V.c. 77 (Lanarks)
Geum macrophyllum (Large-leaved Avens). Glasgow (NS57106633, NS56986635), 3/11/2024, P.A. Sansum (conf. P. Wiggins/comm. P.A. Sansum): in quantity along the River Kelvin in Kelvingrove. New to v.c. 77. Although it was growing with G. urbanum (Wood Avens), no plants could be found at this time that were both intermediate and sterile. See v.c. 82.
V.c. 82 (E. Lothian)
Geum macrophyllum (Large-leaved Avens). Pressmennan Lake (NT62287268), 29/8/2024, C. Hargest (det. M.P. Wilcox/comm. M. Moir): flowering along damp path beside lake. The first v.c. 82 record. Marion Moir commented that it is relatively well represented in v.c. 83 (Midlothian), with some 20 records (the first in 2010) including for the monads NT0564 (one record) and NT3073 (one record), as well as 17 for hectad NT27, among these records, escapes from Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and private gardens in Craiglockhart. Marion also drew attention to a comprehensive summary of the differences between G. macrophyllum and G. urbanum in the September 2024 issue of the Botanical Society of Scotland newsletter (BSS News 123: 23–25), including some lesser known vegetative characters. A hairy, yellow-flowered perennial herb (Rosaceae) to 1 m, distinguishable from G. urbanum by its usually larger size and by certain achene and receptacle characters. A persistent garden escape in Britain (but hardly in southern England) with a native distribution in N. America and north-east Asia. The sterile hybrid of G. macrophyllum and G. urbanum, Geum × convallis, was first described by Mike Wilcox, and in his paper, New Journal of Botany 5(1): 26–31, the differences between the three taxa are set out in tabular form on p. 28. G. urbanum is of course a very widespread species and this hybrid could arise spontaneously wherever G. macrophyllum has escaped. Mike Wilcox would encourage recorders to make a point of looking for putative hybrid plants in such situations. It could perhaps establish from a piece of root in the absence of both parents. Clement et al. (2005): 156; Stace (2019): 276.
V.c. 86 (Stirlings)
Hirschfeldia incana (Hoary Mustard). Burnhead Farm (NS68387817), 3/8/2024, M. Harding, J. Gallacher, V. Curley, C. Roibu, M. Hogg & I. Moir (det. H. Jones & M. Harding/comm. M. Harding): in silage lay down area. The first v.c. 86 record. A hairy annual or short-lived perennial herb (Brassicaceae) to 1.3 m with a pinnately lobed basal leaf rosette. A native of southern Europe and a spreading, increasingly naturalised alien in Britain and Ireland. It differs from its closest look-alike, Brassica nigra (Black Mustard), in its greyer green leaves, paler yellow petals, more erect sepals and the fatter fruit with one-seeded beak (vs seedless beak). Stace (2019): 440.
Laphangium luteoalbum (Jersey Cudweed). Grangemouth (NS92608187), 21/10/2024, M. Harding: locally frequent in a 10 m stretch of pavement on north side of Kerse Road. The first v.c. 86 record. Matt Harding found it subsequently (22/10/2024) as a single basal rosette at a road margin by Grangemouth Docks (NS92358216). An odourless, whitish, woolly hairy annual (Asteraceae) with erect unbranched flowering stems; the capitula small, eggshaped, with chaffy, straw-coloured phyllaries and red stigmas, in subcorymbose terminal clusters. The S. African annual Pseudognaphalium undulatum (Cape Cudweed) differs from it in having a foetid odour, being taller and more branched, having smaller capitula with whiter phyllaries, wider leaves with greener upper surfaces that are somewhat decurrent down the stem (vs leaves not decurrent) and pappus hairs free (vs pappus hairs united at base). As an introduction L. luteoalbum is greatly increasing its range in ‘waste places’ including residential driveways and pavements. Stace (2019): 773.
Symphyotrichum × versicolor (Late Michaelmasdaisy). Grangemouth (NS93018206), 21/10/2024, M. Harding: on east bank of Grange Burn; new to v.c. 86. A perennial garden hybrid (Asteraceae) of the N. American species S. laeve (Glaucous Michaelmasdaisy) and S. novi-belgii (Confused Michaelmas-daisy), it is thought not to be as commonly naturalised as S. × salignum (Common Michaelmas-daisy) but might
be under-recorded. Clement et al. (2005): 318 (as Aster × versicolor), Stace (2019): 780.
Cota austriaca (Austrian Chamomile). Earlsgate (NS912812), 4/10/2024, M. Harding: by A904. New to v.c. 86 but introduced as part of a wildflower mix. Adventives & Aliens News 13, v.c. 14; Stace (2019): 795.
Coriandrum sativum (Coriander). Grangemouth Docks (NS92648221), 10/1/2024, M. Harding: in the area of Junction Dock. The first v.c. 86 record; there are only 24 for Scotland, with no more than five others post-2000. The same location produced the first v.c. 86 records of Nigella damascena (Lovein-a-mist) and Bupleurum subovatum (False Thorowwax) (Adventives & Aliens News 34, v.c. 86), and the second v.c. 86 record of Lobularia maritima (Sweet Alison), all also on 10/1/2024. Adventives & Aliens News 1, v.c. 13; Adventives & Aliens News 14, v.c. 14; Stace (2019): 863.
Allium scorodoprasum (Sand Leek). Carronshore (NS90068250), M. Harding & J. Harding-Morris (comm. M. Harding): 32 plants growing by path on north bank of River Carron, following up a report of the species on Twitter/X. The second v.c. 86 record, the last sighting being in 1961. A native elsewhere in Scotland, it is thought to be of garden origin in this case. A bulbous, stiff-stemmed perennial (Amaryllidaceae) to 80 cm that favours scrubby, rough grassland on dry soils; sometimes in cultivation in gardens, etc., possibly as a garlic substitute. The inflorescence consists of a few bulbils and a few reddish-purple flowers (rarely bulbils only) with a short spathe. The stamens are shorter than the tepals, the filaments of the three inner ones three-pointed at the tips, the middle point antherbearing. The leaves are slightly keeled and slightly rough-edged, 10–25 mm wide; usually with some smaller, purplish bulblets outside the covering of the single main bulb. Stace (2019): 948.
V.c. 104 (N. Ebudes)
Persicaria runcinata (Buch. – Ham. ex D. Don) H. Gross (Notched Smartweed). Skye (NG70471590), 31/7/2024, M. Duffell (conf. J. Akeroyd): naturalised beside the hotel staff car park, Kinloch Lodge Hotel.
Persicaria runcinata, Portree, North Ebudes (v.c. 104). Stephen Bungard
An east Asian perennial herb (Polygonaceae) which has pink capitate flower heads like P. capitata (Pinkheaded Persicaria), differing in being erect (vs prostrate) and having lanceolate, ‘waisted’ stem leaves, i.e. with one pair or very rarely with two pairs of basal lobes (vs ovate and entire). This find prompted Stephen Bungard to re-examine plants he had found at Portree in 2022 (NG4743) and which he duly redetermined as P. runcinata and this now represents the first v.c. 104 record, the Kinloch one being the second. The Portree plants were originally thought to be P. nepalensis (Nepal Persicaria), a decumbent annual that also has more or less capitate flower heads. There are records in the DDb for v.cc. 64, 77 and 87, all of garden origin. BSBI News 92: 44–45; BSBI News 140: 53–55.
References
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. BSBI, London.
Poland, J. & Clement, E.J. 2020. The Vegetative Key to the British Flora (2nd edn). John Poland, Southampton.
Ryves, T.B., Clement, E.J. & Foster, M.C. 1996. Alien Grasses 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.
ADVENTIVES & ALIENS: Triticum aestivum L. (Bread Wheat): a confused grass!
Triticum aestivum L. (Bread Wheat): a confused grass!
MICHAEL WILCOX
Triticum aestivum L. (Bread Wheat) is a cultivated grass that has been manipulated by humankind for millennia. It has hundreds of cultivars bred mainly for food production and occurs as a casual escape in various habitats. The characters that define the species in botanical Floras do not hold up on many of these ‘escapees’. Are the plants recorded as a casual one of the many cultivars of Bread Wheat or are they of an unknown hybrid origin? It is likely the description is in need of updating, but then it would have similarities with other Triticum taxa, and thus how then can T. aestivum be separated from the other taxa? In Stace (2019) the key states that the glumes are strongly keeled in the upper half, scarcely so in the lower half, lemmas awnless to long-awned. Then a split between T. aestivum and T. compactum Host (Club Wheat) is given:
• Inflorescence ≤3× as long as wide; upper rhachis segments ≤3 mm, hairy at the nodes and margin: T. compactum (Extinct)
• Inflorescence >3× as long as wide; upper rhachis segments 4–8 mm, glabrous: T. aestivum
The information in Cope & Gray (2009) does not include the extinct T. compactum but separates T. aestivum from T. turgidum L. (Rivet Wheat) stating that T. aestivum has the glumes keeled only towards the tip, rounded on the back below and T. turgidum having glumes firmly and broadly keeled from the base to the tip. T. turgidum is separated from T. durum L. (Pasta Wheat) in having a rounded grain (seed) in transverse section and the latter with a hump or ridged grain.
There are minor difference between Stace (2019) and Cope & Gray (2009), in that the former says the glumes are scarcely keeled in the lower half and the latter not keeled in the lower half. Cope & Gray (2009) clearly illustrate T. aestivum on p. 513 showing a
smooth rounded back to the glumes below and only keeled above. Both references state that the rhachis is glabrous. T. turgidum has a hairy rhachis which is similar to the extinct T. compactum and the former has distinctly ridged glumes (and usually long awns, but this is not completely unusual in T. aestivum). When recording plants of Triticum (aestivum) it is seen in various habitats from around or near agricultural sources through to waste ground, a street weed or a road verge plant well away from cultivation (some may be from bird seed). The plants taken to be T. aestivum, generally seem to agree with what botanists think of as this species. In most plants the glumes are strongly keeled from the base to the tip, and some show a second partial ridge from the base, though the main ridge is variable in some plants. However, in all these plants the rhachis is variously quite hairy (see Figure 1). The plants can be without awns but also with short or long awns, and they have variously straight or arching inflorescences late in the season. While some can look like images of cultivars such as ‘Skyfall’ (arching with long awns), it is unclear whether such plants are T. aestivum (as described in the references here). Given the similarities between species (in Stace, 2019), it is not possible to know if some are cultivars of T. aestivum (poorly described in our Floras) or if they belong to other taxa in the group and/or their cultivars. It seems unlikely these plants are hybrids between T. aestivum (2n=42) and T. turgidum (2n=28) as the resultant hybrid might be sterile (2n=35) (Clive Stace, pers. comm.).
Given this, it may suggest that T. aestivum (or at least what we take to be it) is far more variable than botanical books state. Agronomists may have a much wider circumscription and Percival (1921) was said to have noted some of the variation in this species (Oli Pescott, pers. comm.); and rightly so in a
highly manipulated genus, he also says that chasing cultivars is futile).
The current keys do not seem to accommodate the variation described here (see Figure 1). Cultivars further blur the lines. Another option is that what we see today as T. aestivum has come from a hybrid origin, old or modern, combining features of one or more additional species. Cultivars should be the same species but changed in some way through crossbreeding, etc. and while that is a form of hybridisation (cross-pollinating one form of the same species with another to obtain a better ‘yielding plant’ or a ‘shorter plant’ or a more ‘disease resistant plant’, and so on), hybrids involving more than one species result in a new taxon or ‘hybrid’ with a combination of the two species. As the glumes are all truncate to truncate emarginate, it is unclear what any other parent could be. However, T. compactum (according to Stace, 2019) is similar but with very short compact inflorescences and a rhachis with hairy segments but is said to be extinct! It is possible that what we see is a remnant hybrid between the two passed off as T. aestivum in all its forms over many (hundreds of) years.
Despite attempts to find out what this taxon could be, it currently remains a mystery. It seems that even with strongly keeled (to mostly so) truncate glumes and a hairy rhachis, that these plants still have to be recorded as T. aestivum. It maybe that we should record such plants as Triticum sp. or T. cf. aestivum form or hybrid? Are you sure you have seen T. aestivum as described in Floras? It is plausible, despite being clouded by cultivars, that what we see is a taxon of (unknown) hybrid origin.
Given that it looks like T. aestivum with T. compactum characters (such as the hairy rhachis) my impression of it is, that despite T. compactum being an extinct species, it could be that this has been overlooked and or continually treated as T. aestivum, but is more likely a cross between the two. Whatever it is we may never know and it is difficult to record it as T. aestivum based on the information available in our Floras. Molecular work may elucidate some of the issues but true T. aestivum may have been altered to such an extent it might be a blur!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Clive Stace for comments on the possibility of crosses with T. turgidum. Oli Pescott
Figure 1. (a) Triticum aestivum, sp./hybrid (?), showing strongly keeled glumes from base to tip (in photos the keel can be obscured by the glaucousness); (b) hairy nodes/internodes of the rhachis; (c) an individual glume showing the strong keel and truncate apex. Bradford (v.c. 63). Michael Wilcox
for comments on cultivars and Marina Mosulishvili & David Bedoshvili for information on Triticum in general.
References
Cope, T.A. & Gray, A. 2009. Grasses of the British Isles. BSBI Handbook No. 13. Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland, London.
Mosulishvili, M., Bedoshvili, D. & Maisaia, I. 2017. A consolidated list of Triticum species and varieties of
Georgia to promote repatriation of local diversity from foreign genebanks. Annals of Agrarian Science 15: 61–70. Percival, J. 1921. The Wheat Plant. A Monograph. Duckworth & Co. London.
Stace, C.A. 2019. New Flora of the British Isles (4th edn). C & M Floristics, Middlewich Green, Suffolk.
Iwroteon this subject 15 months ago (BSBI News 155, p. 32–35), because I was concerned that new species were being discovered, with many mentioned in the pages of this newsletter, yet none or very few resulted in reference specimens being lodged in any public herbaria.
Since then our appreciation of the situation has revealed that the issue is considerably worse than we thought. For the species discovered, say from 1820 up to 1980 (i.e. from when collections for herbaria became widespread) and covered in Clive Stace’s Floras, roughly 75% are supported by herbarium specimens that we have traced, and there are probably more to be unearthed. For those species first recorded after 1980, the figure is under 10%.
I accept that one might expect that these more recent finds might be working their way through the system, as recorders die or otherwise make arrangements for bequeathing their collections. But anecdotal evidence has shown that this is very unlikely to be the case. Where I have asked discoverers of new alien plants, the reply is almost invariably that either nothing was kept or at best, a photograph. Each issue of BSBI News contains a section on Aliens and Adventives, painstakingly and professionally put together by Matthew Berry, with a mass of interesting records, and often, new species. Granted that many have photographs, usually of a decent quality, but I contend again that these can
only be a poor substitute for the 3-dimensional well-pressed specimen. We have found that with ‘new’ species that might be unfamiliar to most, time and again an initial collection has turned out to be something else when compared with existing collections from Europe, America and farther afield.
In my article of 2024 I gave probable reasons for this decline in collections, and, in summary only, these included:
• An unwillingness to collect through laziness or on conservation grounds, fed by late 20th century strictures by BSBI and others, of touching and photographing rather than collecting.
• An unfamiliarity with how to collect and mount an acceptable specimen, and to put on it the key details needed.
• The lack of anywhere to deposit specimens currently held in private herbaria. We know of few if any institutional herbaria that are accepting private herbaria, or even the odd specimen, and even where they do, the lack of internal resources to accession these can lead to delays for years or decades. Perhaps members could approach their local herbarium to see whether they will accept material. Failing that we are trying to reopen negotiations with BM to at least accept important new records of aliens.
Of those three points, the first is nonsense in relation to new alien plants, the second not relevant to this article, but for the third, if you do not have a local herbarium that might accept material, I have managed to agree with the British Herbarium of the Natural History Museum in London (BM), that they will accept specimens of new alien plants, subject to their normal documentation. In the absence of anyone else, for the moment I am prepared to be the focal collection point, but I would dearly like someone younger to come forward to take this off me.
Specimens do not need to be mounted, but should have been frozen. I will arrange for a simple version
of the BM’s collection document to be on the BSBI website under Herbaria.
Please, please do not ignore this plea. I cannot think of any other body which might be able to supply the material. It is really important for our successors that we give them the tools to identify and confirm new plant arrivals.
David Pearman dpearman4@gmail.com
Specimen of first British record of Ampelodesmos mauritanica from East Cornwall (v.c. 2).
David Pearman
ADVENTIVES & ALIENS: Could more hybrid species be hiding in plain sight?
Could more hybrid species be hiding in plain sight?
RICHARD MILNE
Naturalised garden hybrids make up a small but significant component of the British flora. Three of the five most commonly recorded hybrids in Britain fall into this category: Crocosmia × crocosmiiflora (Montbretia), Symphytum × uplandicum (Russian Comfrey) and Hyacinthoides × massartiana (Hybrid Bluebell), all with well over 40,000 records on the BSBI database. Yet these, like most garden hybrids, have low fertility, and hence most or all of their spread in the wild is through clonal means. In this respect they resemble some introduced species that largely reproduce clonally for other reasons such as only one sex being present, e.g. Reynoutria japonica (Japanese Knotweed), Egeria densa (Largeflowered Waterweed) and Elodea spp. (waterweeds) (Stace, 2019). These taxa resemble apomicts such as Taraxacum (dandelions) and Hieracium (hawkweeds) in that sexual reproduction is rare or absent, but differ in that they cannot spread by seed. Hence whereas the term ‘agamospecies’ covers both types, the term ‘clonospecies’ is here suggested for taxa that mostly or only reproduce clonally.
About ten years ago, one such escaped hybrid clonospecies, Erythranthe × robertsii, gave rise to a new hybrid species, E. peregrina (New Monkeyflower), through spontaneous chromosome doubling (allopolyploidy) (Vallejo-Marín et al., 2015). This process occurs through genetic accidents, and though rare, occurs relatively often in near-sterile hybrids. Crucially, it can restore full fertility because the duplicated chromosomes can pair with one another, permitting the offspring to immediately found a new, sexually reproducing species. This process previously gave rise to two other British species of hybrid origin: Spartina
anglica (Common Cord-grass) and Senecio cambrensis (Welsh Groundsel). The difference, however, was that E. × robertsii originated in cultivation and had spread throughout northern Britain as a clonospecies before the chromosome doubling event occurred, whereas the hybrid progenitors of the other two were localised and presumably short-lived. Moreover, certain clonospecies are already highly invasive, e.g. Reynoutria × bohemica (Bohemian Knotweed) and both its parents, and should one give rise to a taxon that can spread by seed, this could become an even greater problem.
Erythranthe peregrina is only certainly distinguishable from E. × robertsii in the field by fertility and full seed set, raising the possibility that a similar transition might have occurred on other escaped hybrid clonospecies, but escaped detection. Therefore, BSBI members are requested to keep an eye out for evidence of unusually high seed set and/or reproduction from seed among escaped hybrid clonospecies such as C. × crocosmiiflora, Symphytum × uplandicum and H. × massartiana. Together, we might yet discover a recently evolved hybrid species new to science.
References
Stace, C.A. 2019. New Flora of the British Isles (4th edn). C & M Floristics, Middlewood Green, Suffolk. Vallejo-Marín, M., Buggs, R.J.A., Cooley, A.M. & Puzey, J.R. 2015. Speciation by genome duplication: repeated origins and genomic composition of the recently formed allopolyploid species Mimulus peregrinus Evolution 69: 1487–1500.
Richard Milne
R.Milne@ed.ac.uk
NOTICES
NEW YEAR PLANT HUNT 2025: THOUSANDS OF PARTICIPANTS, MANY TAKING THEIR FIRST STEPS IN BOTANICAL RECORDING
The BSBI’s fourteenth New Year Plant Hunt (NYPH) took place between Sunday 29 December 2024 and Wednesday 1 January 2025. This annual citizen science event encourages participants to record any wild and naturalised plants (whether native or alien) managing to bloom in mid-winter across Britain and Ireland. Around 3,000 people took part this time and almost 25,000 plant records – a record number –were submitted, mostly via the BSBI Recording App. The records went into a separate ‘holding area’ in the BSBI Distribution Database, where they can be verified by Vice-county Recorders before transfer into the main workspace.
A total of 647 species was recorded, the third highest in the event’s history. Surprising finds included Geranium purpureum (Little-Robin), whose stronghold is in Cornwall, blooming in downtown Peterborough, while Anthriscus caucalis (Bur Chervil), frequent in East Anglia, was found in flower in Cornwall. Cotula australis (Annual Buttonweed), a
rare non-native plant, was found flowering in North Lincolnshire – only the second record for the county – and Lamium confertum (Northern Dead-nettle) was blooming near Inverness (the first time it had ever been seen in that 2 km x 2 km grid square). Clematis flammula (Early Virgin’s-bower), a garden plant which had ‘jumped the garden fence’ and self-seeded onto a wall in Hull, was flowering very early indeed – at New Year! – And this was also the most northerly
New Year Plant Hunt co-founder Tim Rich and his team found Corsican Hellebore (Helleborus argutifolius) in bloom on their Hunt in Pagham, West Sussex. Tim Rich
Lamium confertum (Northern Dead-nettle). Ian Green
naturalised (rather than planted) record of this plant in Britain.
So, apart from these surprising finds, what was different about this year’s Hunt and what was similar to previous years? In 2025, as in previous years, around half the species recorded were flowering late (52%) rather than early, expected to flower at New Year or typical ‘all-year-rounders’. The proportions of species flowering early, late or as expected were broadly similar to previous years, suggesting that the majority of plant species flowering out of season are ‘autumn stragglers’ which were not zapped by frosts and so were able to continue flowering so late.
The three most frequently recorded species were also the same as in previous years: Bellis perennis (Daisy), Senecio vulgaris (Groundsel) and Taraxacum spp. (Dandelion). As in previous years, the longest lists came from the milder southern and coastal areas; urban and suburban habitats also tended to have a higher proportion of garden escapes and other non-native species in flower than rural areas, as there are more sheltered and disturbed places with warm microclimates where alien plants can thrive –the ‘heat-island’ effect. The highest totals were once again logged by seasoned recorders and botanical recording groups, often following the same route as in previous years. The longest list (97 species) was submitted by David Leadbetter in Swanage, with recording groups from Gloucester, Taunton, Norfolk, Glamorgan, Somerset, Winchester and Cornwall all notching up more than 70 species. The purpose of the Hunt is, however, not about competition but about finding out which plants are in bloom where, so the efforts of families, individuals and recording groups in northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland who searched for up to three hours to find a single record of Ulex europaeus (Gorse) in flower are equally important.
The main differences this year were the use of the BSBI Recording App and the extra support offered to new participants. NYPH spotter sheets that we launched in time for last year’s Hunt proved so popular, especially with first time-recorders, that we expanded on them this year. Fourteen new spotter sheets – a Top Ten and Top Twenty for the Channel Islands, England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Wales – were made available to download from the BSBI website and were also flagged to the thousands of people who pre-registered to take part, many of whom were not BSBI members and were new to plant identification and recording.
Many of these new participants also benefited from being able to join group Hunts across Britain
and Ireland. If you plan to lead a New Year Plant Hunt next winter, and are happy to help newcomers take their first steps in plant recording, please do send me details of your Hunt that can be shared on a dedicated webpage. We are keen to keep building on the NYPH’s success as the Society’s flagship outreach event, helping participants as they take their first steps in botanical recording and thereby introducing them to BSBI’s resources and activities to help them build up their knowledge, skills and confidence.
We are also very grateful to all of you who have contributed records over the years – as you know, your data are crucial in helping us build up a clearer picture of how our wild and naturalised plants are responding to changes in autumn and winter weather patterns. Plans are afoot for a new recording project which builds on the NYPH model – watch this space for an announcement from BSBI Head of Science, Kevin Walker. Meanwhile, more in-depth coverage of this and previous years’ Hunts can be found via the links at bsbi.org/new-year-plant-hunt.
So, whether you are one of the thousands of people who have contributed to NYPH over the years, or you’re a new member who took part in NYPH and are now keen to continue your botanical journey, we’d like to say a huge thank you to you. We hope that you will all take part in our fifteenth NYPH and we’ve already set the dates: it will run from Thursday 1 to Sunday 4 January 2026. Save the dates now and watch out for more details, and more resources, on the BSBI website.
Acknowledgments
BSBI would like to thank everyone who participated in the 2025 New Year Plant Hunt, particularly volunteers Astrid, Azeem, Carina, Ella, Harjivan, Isabelle, Jabin, Jo, Joni, Lindsay-Anne, Moira, Nancy and Toby who worked on the NYPH Support Team alongside me and BSBI colleagues Chantal, James D., Jen, Matt, Sam and Sarah. They all gave up their time over the New Year holiday to help with plant ID enquiries, enter data, answer emails and engage with plant hunters on social media. A special mention as always goes to BSBI Database Officer Tom Humphrey, for sterling work devising the BSBI Rrecording App and for being on hand throughout the Hunt to advise Plant Hunters on its use. Huge thanks to all of them, and to County Recorders and group hunt leaders, for making this fourteenth New Year Plant Hunt such a huge success.
Louise Marsh
BSBI Communications Officer louise.marsh@bsbi.org
CELEBRATING OUR LATEST BSBI AWARD WINNERS
In 2022, BSBI launched two new Awards to recognise those who go that extra mile to inspire and encourage their fellow botanists. The award for Outstanding Contribution to British and Irish Botany recognises a sustained and nationally significant contribution to advancing the understanding and appreciation of our flora. Individual BSBI members who make outstanding contributions to botany in their areas are recognised with our second award. Nominations can come from individual BSBI members, or from individuals on behalf of local groups or committees. Criteria for the awards can be found on the BSBI webpage (bsbi.org/nominationsawards). Nominations will open again in the autumn.
Support for botany and for our wild plants more generally comes in many diverse and exciting ways, and the ways in which BSBI members show their support for plants and for one another are equally diverse. We are delighted to present BSBI awards to these most deserving members, many congratulations to all of them!
Award for Outstanding Contribution to British and Irish Botany
Arthur Chater
Arthur Chater has had a huge impact on British and Irish Botany and has given outstanding service to the science for over 70 years. He joined BSBI in 1955 and has had many roles within the Society, among them serving on the former Publications Committee, editing many of the early Handbooks and serving on Council and the Committee for Wales. He co-authored the second edition of the Sedges Handbook and was the Carex referee for many years. He was Vice-county Recorder for Cardiganshire for nearly 40 years and author of the much-acclaimed Flora of Cardiganshire, one of the finest and most
detailed county Floras ever produced. He has of late produced an outstanding street Flora of Aberystwyth.
Arthur has authored/co-authored over 400 publications of which the majority are botanical or mycological, many of these in BSBI journals and newsletters: his interests and expertise extend to lichens and microfungi as well as higher plants. He is widely published in peer-reviewed academic publications such as Feddes Repertorium, Taxon and the Botanical Journal of the Linnaean Society He worked on Flora Europaea for 17 years, one of the few multinational Floras ever to be completed and during his career at the Natural History Museum he made significant contributions to the Floras of Central America and Nepal. More recently, Arthur has been the co-authorship of six books on the microfungi of vascular plants, contributing his vast knowledge of the taxonomy of the host plants. In addition to his academic publication record, Arthur also writes regularly in publications which are more widely accessible to the general public such as Nature in Wales and Dyfed Wildlife Trust Bulletin.
Arthur’s contribution to British and Irish botany goes far beyond publications. He has been and continues to be an inspiring and influential mentor both to upcoming and experienced botanists and is often seen on field visits discussing the finer points of identification with others. His openly shared in-depth knowledge of British and Irish botany has provided valuable advice to many organisations and individuals conserving wildlife in West Wales.
Awards for Outstanding Contribution to Botany in your Area
Faith Anstey
Faith is a natural educator and has played a key role in developing and delivering outreach in Scotland over the last 12 years. Following publication of her book ‘Flowers in the Field: How to Find, Identify
and Enjoy Wild Flowers ‘, she was recruited to the Committee for Scotland in 2012 in the hope she would become involved in the design and presentation of training material for aspiring botanists. She has played a leading role in outreach activities since her very first participation in the Outreach Committee meeting in January 2013. Her influence in botanical outreach in Scotland has had a wide impact.
The first outreach workshops were based on the concept of finding the family first, for which Faith later wrote the bespoke booklet ‘Pocket Guide to Wild Flower Families ‘ using descriptions that were readily comprehensible to course participants. Requests for more focused workshops led to Faith writing three further booklets: Start to Identify Grasses; Start to Identify Sedges & Rushes and Start to Identify Composite Flowers.
In addition to authorship of training material, Faith has organised and led indoor workshops, recruited tutors to assist, led field meetings to augment workshops and encouraged others to expand the outreach programme. These workshops and training field meetings have become a regular and valued element of BSBI’s annual programme of events in Scotland, spread widely from Inverness and Fort William down to the Borders. Increasingly, these outreach events are led by BSBI members in their own areas. The background of participants has changed from being mainly amateurs, often retired, to being mainly young people with jobs in ecology and environmental sciences. It is clear that the workshops based on Faith’s original concept fulfil a need for Plant ID skills that is not being met elsewhere and that these have made a significant and lasting impact in botany in Scotland.
Patrica Lockwood (posthumous award)
Pat joined BSBI in 1984 and was involved in local botany through recording, participation in scientific research and publications, leading field meetings
and mentoring fellow botanists. She also served her region as a Council Member of the Liverpool Botanical Society (LBS). Her infectious enthusiasm and love of plants enhanced the lives of all who knew her.
Pat actively recorded in v.c. 59 (South Lancashire) throughout the 1980s and 90s, providing records for BSBI Atlas 2000 and continued to record until 2019. Her efforts contributed to over 13,000 records of important plants for her region; highlights include: Corynephorus canescens (Grey Hair-grass), Gentiana pneumonanthe (Marsh Gentian), Artemisia crithmifolia (Dune Wormwood), Gentianella campestris (Field Gentian), Ornithogalum nutans (Drooping Star-of-Bethlehem), Coincya monensis subsp. monensis (Isle-of-Man Cabbage), Trifolium glomeratum (Clustered Clover), T. scabrum (Rough Clover) and Populus nigra subsp. betulifolia (Blackpoplar).
In her 70s, she became involved in research projects on the internationally renowned Sefton Coast, leading to co-authoring 89 reports and articles, 19 of which were scientific papers. This research fed into improvements in conservation management along the Sefton Coast and beyond. Pat was also a founder member, in 2012, of the ‘Buckthorn Bashers’, a voluntary group clearing invasive Sea-buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) on the sand dunes in Birkdale Local Nature Reserve. She was an active participant until 2021, just before her 88th birthday.
Pat loved plants and had an infectious enthusiasm for them. Everyone she met will have been touched by her encouragement and positive outlook. For many years she led field meetings in the local area, where her knowledge of the best places to visit made her meetings so enjoyable. She invited others to join her on her own botanical forays and discover that her knowledge of what grew where was extensive. Pat was an inspirational mentor both locally and further afield, bringing her passion to a wide range of botanists.
Wendy McCarthy
Wendy’s love of botany reflects why she is so respected by botanists in Wales. In addition to her role as Vice-county Recorder for Caernarvonshire for the last 20 years, her mentoring and support of others and her dedication to the conserving of plant life on the Great Orme all lead to an outstanding contribution.
Largely self-taught, Wendy started botanising with the Wild Flower Society and Liverpool Botanical Society and became a member of BSBI in 1991.
After becoming VCR for Caernarvonshire in 2004 she began regularly leading groups of botanists on forays in the vice-county. Wendy served on the BSBI Committee for Wales for many years and often hosted local meetings. The breadth of her engagement went far beyond BSBI; the Conwy County Council Great Orme wardens and the ‘Natur am byth!’ Vascular Plants Officer for Plantlife Cymru have both benefited from her involvement and enthusiasm.
Wendy has submitted well in excess of 120,000 records since becoming VCR. Some of her notable finds are Lythrum hyssopifolia (Grass-poly), Carex × decolorans (C. bigelowii × C. nigra) and Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest). She updated records for Rosa agrestis (Small-leaved Sweet-briar) on the Great Orme in 1994 (last seen in 1912) and found its rare hybrid with R. canina (Rosa x belnensis) at Penrhynside. Wendy has enhanced the recording skills of countless botanists over the years through her work particularly on the Great Orme and surrounding limestone grassland habitats elsewhere in the region.
Wendy plays a key role on the Management Advisory Group for the Great Orme Country Park and is an invaluable support for Plantlife Cymru. She has been involved in the conservation of the critically endangered Cotoneaster cambricus (Wild Cotoneaster), by both monitoring the plants and growing them from seed. Wendy’s knowledge of Caernarvonshire and its botany is second to none and her contribution to the understanding and conservation of the Great Orme is unique.
Sandra (Sandy) Knapp
Chair of the Board of Trustees Chair@bsbi.org
CALLING ALL BSBI MEMBERS –YOUR SOCIETY NEEDS YOU!!
Call for nominations
Honorary Membership
Honorary membership is the highest recognition by BSBI and is awarded to a member who has made a sustained and significant contribution to the operation of the Society, most likely in more than one capacity, over a number of years.
Due to the nature of the award there are no set criteria. Current Honorary Members include members who have contributed to the Society in more than one role including, for example, longstanding Vice-county Recorder, ex-President, exTrustee, long-standing referee, ex-Editor of journal.
A confidential list of potential nominees and their contributions is held by the Nominations, Awards and Governance Committee (NAG). Nominations received by NAG are considered and, if deemed of suitable merit, are added to the list.
Each year NAG reviews the list for potential nominee(s) to be proposed for the award. If a nomination is made by NAG it is put before trustees at the September Board meeting for approval. Any nomination approved by the Board is put before members at the following AGM for final approval.
Nominations must include details and timespans of all the nominee’s contributions to BSBI and should be sent to Chair@bsbi.org by 31 July 2025.
President
Although we only just have a new President in Paul Ashton, it is time to solicit nominations for PresidentElect, to be voted on by the membership at the 2025 AGM. Members are invited to send nominations to be considered by NAG.
The President of BSBI serves in the role for two years, serving as President Elect and working closely with the President for a year before this (so three years in total).
The President also works closely with the Chair of Trustees and the Chief Executive in helping to steer the Society towards the achievement of its objectives and to elevate its external profile. There is considerable flexibility in how a President might approach their role, but the expected duties will include:
• Acting as a figurehead for the Society, in collaboration with the Chief Executive, representing BSBI on external bodies and at formal functions.
• Adding weight to important representations made by the Society, such as approaches to
policy-makers and objections to damaging planning proposals in line with BSBI’s Policy on nature conservation.
• Communicating with the media and the public at large, as appropriate, to raise the profile of British and Irish botany.
• Acting as a point of contact for members who wish to raise issues and as a final point of appeal in disputes between members.
• The President is an ex officio member of all BSBI committees including the Board of Trustees, and therefore able to engage with committee members and offer advice on matters of mutual interest, but does not vote and is not the ultimate decision-maker.
The President of BSBI should:
• Be a BSBI member and familiar with the workings of the Society.
• Possess a strong knowledge of plants and of issues surrounding their recording and conservation.
• Be able to communicate effectively with individuals and audiences at all levels of expertise.
• Be willing to engage with any members who wish to raise issues with the President. They will do this either via correspondence or by being visible to the membership at as many events as they can manage (either in person or via electronic means).
• Be able to participate in relevant meetings of the Society (either in person or via electronic means).
• Embody BSBI’s Values and exemplify the Principles (see section 4 of the Strategic Plan on the BSBI website) that govern BSBI’s work, setting a standard for others.
• Have a clear vision of causes they wish to champion during their period of office.
• Support BSBI’s Goal to build a diverse community of botanists.
In accordance with BSBI’s goal to increase diversity within the Society, when selecting nominees, members and Country Committees should, where possible:
• Consider gender diversity in nominations.
• Consider the ambition for regional diversity over time. This would enable representation of all the member regions: England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands.
Nominations must be accompanied by the agreement of the nominee and the signature of two members and should consist of no more than one side of A4 outlining the reasons why the nominee fits
the President role. Nominations should be sent to Chair@bsbi.org by 31 July 2025.
In the event of a lack of diversity amongst nominees, NAG reserves the right to suggest nominees of an under-represented gender and/or region. NAG consider nominees against the criteria for the role outlined above and puts the top two candidates to Board of Trustees at the September Board meeting. The Board of Trustees selects one candidate to put forward to members for election at the AGM.
Sandra (Sandy) Knapp Chair of the Board of Trustees Chair@bsbi.org
INVESTING IN OUR WORK THROUGH LEGACIES
BSBI is hugely fortunate to have received two very generous legacies recently, from long standing members Michael Braithwaite and Michael Wildish. All of us in the Society owe these generous donors a vote of thanks for their support and trust in the organisation. Trustees have agreed these will be used to make step changes in what we do for botany and wild plants. These legacies will allow us to invest in five areas:
1. Science Innovation – to enable preparatory work to take place for projects coming out of the Science Strategy over the next 3–5 years.
2. Extending our Data Plan – by making the Data Support Officer role (James Drever) permanent, so we can continue to improve our data management processes, guidance and user training.
3. Training Development – by extending the capacity of the Training Coordinator role (Chantal Helm) to take an overview of our training and develop the breadth of our offering to a wide range of botanical talent.
4. Country Officer continuity fund – we currently have Country Officer roles in place to support the recording community in each country. Over the next few years, if we have gaps in government funding for these roles, we will be using some of the legacy income to help us bridge these gaps and retain vital momentum and support across Britain and Ireland.
5. Strategic resilience – our work has grown in volume and complexity over the last five years. To free up staff time for vital project and partnership
development, profile raising and income generation, we will invest in administrative support for our communications, engagement, governance and management work.
These two generous legacies are enabling us to take up more opportunities to make a difference with our data, expertise, skills and partnerships by investing in BSBI’s capacity and resilience. Our heartfelt thanks to these generous donors and we look forward to sharing outcomes with members as we progress these exciting initiatives.
Sandra (Sandy) Knapp Chair of the Board of Trustees Chair@bsbi.org
GUIDANCE AND TRAINING ON USING THE DDB AND BSBI RECORDING APP
Over the last year or so, the BSBI Documentation website has been gradually evolving. It contains guidance on the DDb, BSBI Recording App, iRecord data, and also brings together existing resources on MapMate. If you’re interested in learning more about the BSBI’s core data systems, we’d encourage you to take a look, and even better, let us know via the feedback link at the top of the website, what you think and what you’d like us to add. Alternatively, feel free to email me directly at the address below. The Documentation website is at docs.bsbi.org
In parallel with the development of the Documentation website we’ve been running a series of face-to-face and online workshops, including introductory sessions on the DDb and the Recording App, and a session for VCRs on importing spreadsheets. These sessions will be repeated in the future. Recordings of these sessions are also available online at the dedicated page for Vice-county Recorders at docs.bsbi.org/ddb/vcrs Forthcoming sessions will focus on managing data in the DDb from the recording app and iRecord and other Indicia sources. Details will be shared via Recorder eNews: do make sure you’ve signed up at bsbi.org/enews-page.
James Drever Data Support Officer james.drever@bsbi.org
RECORDING HYPOPITYS MONOTROPA (YELLOW BIRD’SNEST) IN THE 2025 FIELD SEASON
Following on from Fred Rumsey’s excellent article about Hypopitys monotropa (see p. 20), we’d like to invite members across Britain and Ireland to visit their local Yellow Bird’s-nest populations and attempt to discern which subspecies (or variety of subsp. hypophegea) is present, using Fred’s key. We have limited information on the distribution of these taxa, and so your help would be valuable and add to our nascent knowledge of where the different taxa are found. It is also relevant to note here that Scandinavian botanists, and others, consider ‘our’ subspecies (subsp. hypophegea and subsp. monotropa) to be full species. If we were to adopt this taxonomy in the future, then a reassessment of the relevant GB threat status(es) would be required. We might also be able to begin to better understand the ecological niche of these taxa. Consequently, the more we first know about the distribution of the Hypopitys taxa, the better.
All the relevant taxa are included in the BSBI database, and therefore are also available on the BSBI Recording App. The preferred approach for recording which taxon is present is via the app, which is easy (honestly) to use. Information about how to get started with using the app (either on your phone or via your laptop/desktop) can be found here: docs. bsbi.org/recording-app. If you would prefer to not use the app, then you can either send your records in your usual way to BSBI, or directly to me at the email below).
Please record the usual attributes – taxon determined, grid reference, place name, vice-county, date, name of recorder/s – as well as population size, habitat, and associate species, especially tree species. It would also be very useful for recorders to provide measurements (mm) for the length of the style, and also note the number of flowers, and the shape of the stigma (thick when looked at side-on because it has a folded edge, or flattened from the side view, like a nail head) and shape of the ovary (globose or broadly elliptic). There is also the option in the app to add photos, which will be useful for comparison of various features, including plant colour.
Many thanks in advance for your help, and I hope that you have fun both finding the plant, and using the key.
Pete Stroh BSBI Scientific Officer peter.stroh@bsbi.org
BSBI HANDBOOK NO. 25: BRAMBLES OF SCOTLAND
The latest title in the series of BSBI Handbooks will be published in April, with a discounted pre-publication offer now available, exclusive to BSBI members.
Brambles of Scotland by Angus Hannah, BSBI County Recorder for Clyde Islands, is a comprehensive illustrated account of the 56 Rubus species known to be resident in Scotland. Each species is described in detail opposite a page of full colour photographs showing the diagnostic characters and a distribution map. The handbook is 220 pages long and, as well as the species accounts, features an account of the history of bramble recording in Scotland, two identification keys, a glossary, a bibliography and an appendix covering 30 rare or doubtful species.
To find out more, view sample pages and read an exclusive interview with Angus about Scotland’s brambles and the new Handbook, visit bsbi.org/ bsbi-handbook-brambles-of-scotland
Brambles of Scotland will retail at £20 but members can pre-order this new BSBI Handbook before Friday 20 June and pay only £13/€15.50 (excl. P&P). Postage & packaging costs are: £3.50 (UK), £8.65 (Ireland and Europe), £14.00 (Rest of World)/€10 (Ireland and Europe), €16.60 (RoW). There are three ways for you to order your copy and claim your discount:
• Go to the password-protected members’ area of the BSBI website where you will find simple instructions for placing your order, and a secure payment option. Email us at enquiries@bsbi.org if you’ve forgotten your password.
• Contact Sarah Woods by phone on +44 (0) 7570 254619 and place your order, or email her at sarah.woods@bsbi.org if you have any questions about payment.
• Send a cheque for the cost of the book and P&P to Gwynn Ellis (his address is on the inside front cover of this issue), including your full details. A complimentary eBook of Brambles of Scotland will also be made available to you, along with your print copy, making it even easier to use this new title both at home and also in the field. A standalone eBook will be published later this year at a cost of £10.
Louise Marsh BSBI Communications Officer louise.marsh@bsbi.org
FRANCIS ROSE’S KENT FLORA NO LONGER LOST
This Flora was never completed and published, and Francis Rose died in 2006. The manuscript went missing, and in a note in BSBI News 116 (2011), David Pearman drew attention to the loss, saying that Francis Rose ‘had told me at least half-a-dozen times that he had a draft, and his next project was to finish it’. This was about the time that I became Kent Vice-county Recorder, and it was my hope that I could do something towards reconstituting the lost Flora. With help from many people, it was eventually possible to piece together more or less what Francis Rose had written and then to transcribe it. It was not until this December/January that I finished the project, and the Flora (643 pp.) is now available at bsbi.org/kent/kent-publications and a short account of the story of the Flora and its significance is in Kent Botany 2024 at bsbi.org/kent/kent-v-cc15-16-newsletters. There are no current plans for conventional publication, although if anyone who has not already done so wishes to express interest in a hard copy, then I will see if the level of interest warrants accommodation.
Geoffrey Kitchener Vice-county Recorder for Kent (v.cc. 15 & 16) geoffreykitchener@yahoo.com
A FLORA OF WESTON LULLINGFIELDS
This account of the history, habitats and flora of my local parish north of Shrewsbury (v.c. 40) was published in 2001 but I still have copies spare to give to anyone who is interested. Please send a cheque for £2.40 to cover second class Large Letter postage (500 g) made payable to P.P. Parker or please telephone for more information.
The first issue of the 2025 volume of British & Irish Botany, our open access online scientific journal, was published in March. You can view or download all the papers in issue 7.1 and previous issues free of charge from the journal website: britishandirishbotany.org/ index.php/bib
If you are interested in submitting a manuscript, then you can view the guidelines for submissions here: britishandirishbotany.org/index.php/bib/about/ submissions. You can also contact us to discuss a proposal; either by email (address below) or phone us on 07725 862957.
Louise Marsh
B&IB Editorial Assistant bib@bsbi.org
British & Irish Botany Vol. 7 No. 1 (2025)
More evidence gaps than grikes: how limestone pavements have fallen through the cracks of British conservation – Carly J. Stevens Charlotte Grace O’Brien (1845–1909), her botanical interests and achievements – Sylvia C.P. Reynolds
New names in British Sorbus (Rosaceae) – T.C.G. Rich, L. Houston
New records of New Zealand Pigmyweed, Crassula helmsii (Crassulaceae), in two Irish lakes –Caroline Plant, Hugh B. Feeley, Neasa McDonnell, Ruth Little, Deirdre Tierney
The first British record of Oxalis corniculata (Oxalidaceae) – Christopher D. Preston, David A. Pearman
A review of plants treated as Hieracium angustatum (Asteraceae) in Britain – T.C.G. Rich
PANEL OF VCRs
Roger Smith has retired as VCR for South Devon (v.c. 3). In post since 2001, undoubtedly Roger’s most notable accomplishment, alongside coauthors Bob Hodgson and Jeremy Ison, was the outstanding A New Flora of Devon. The book was published in 2016 and sold out almost immediately. Consequently, thanks to the generosity and hard work of the authors, it was made available for all to consult on the Devonshire Association website (devonassoc.org.uk/devon-flora/a-new-floraof-devon-online-edition). Roger was also the Devonshire Association vascular plant recorder for many years, alongside his role with the BSBI, led
countless field meetings, knew (knows!) the flora of his county intimately and has made a significant and long-lasting contribution to botanical recording in the south-west.
Pat and Dave Batty have retired as VCRs for Kintyre (v.c. 101), having been in post for a remarkable 32 years. A challenging vice-county that is often overlooked by visiting botanists, they contributed just over 70% of all records made in v.c. 101 during this period, a remarkable achievement, especially when considering the size and terrain of the vice-county and that their tenure covered two atlas recording periods. They also undertook several monitoring studies, perhaps most notably Pat’s 22-year in-depth investigation of Cephalanthera longifolia in Knapdale, just over the border in Argyll, v.c. 98 (see Batty, 2022), as well as the regular monitoring of some of Scotland’s rarest plants, including Carex buxbaumii, Cirsium dissectum and Oxytropis campestris
On the adjacent Clyde Islands (v.c. 100), Sarah Cowan has unfortunately had to step down as VCR. Sarah has contributed many thousands of records from Arran over the last 14 years, as well as producing the latest update of the Arran Rare Plant Register, and we are very grateful for her work as a VCR and as a botanical recorder on the island.
Pauline Hodson has stepped down from her position as joint VCR for Co Wicklow (v.c. H20), which she has held since 2014. Pauline has had a long involvement with BSBI, having previously been VCR for East Donegal (v.c. H34) from 1989 to 2013, and her recording and contribution to BSBI’s work over the years is very much appreciated.
Five new VCRs have been confirmed since January News. In England, Henry Miller joins Mark Spencer in Middlesex (v.c. 21), Lucy Wilson is now joint-VCR with Jonathan Shanklin in Cambridgeshire (v.c. 29), and Gary Lawrence joins Mike Porter, Jeremy Roberts and Peter Bullard as joint-VCR for Westmorland & Cumberland (v.cc. 69 & 70). In Scotland, Lyn Jones is the new joint-VCR for Fife & Kinross (v.c. 85), alongside Sandy Edwards, and in Ireland, Brendan O’Hanrahan joins Lisa Dowling as joint-VCR for Co. Carlow (v.c. H13). Thanks very much to all who have volunteered; their contact details, as for all VCRs across Britain and Ireland, are available on the respective BSBI vice-county website pages.
There are vacancies for Essex (v.cc. 18 & 19) and Buckinghamshire (v.c. 24). Five vice-counties also require a joint Recorder to assist the current VCR: Dorset (v.c. 9), South Hampshire (v.c. 11), Breconshire (v.c. 42), Midlothian (v.c. 83) and Clyde Islands (v.c. 100). If you are interested in applying for the
role and would like to known more about what is involved, please contact the relevant Country Officer: Sam Thomas sam.thomas@bsbi.org (England), Matt Harding matt.harding@bsbi.org (Scotland), Alastair Hotchkiss alastair.hotchkiss@bsbi.org (Wales), Bridget Keehan bridget.keehan@bsbi.org (Ireland).
References
Batty, P. 2022. Long-term study of the Swordleaved Helleborine Cephalanthera longifolia (Orchidaceae) in Knapdale, Argyll. British & Irish Botany 4(2): 106–124.
Pete Stroh
BSBI Scientific Officer peter.stroh@bsbi.org
THE BASAL PROJECT – UPDATE
The Basal Project (basalproject.org.uk) (see BSBI News 155, January 2024) was started in 2018, and in 2023 the website was created. In 2024 I added a Family Key, which will help users that are unsure of family to whittle the 100 plus families down to much smaller groups to look through. I have now created a spreadsheet called ‘Species info sheet’, available
OBITUARY NOTES
Since we compiled the last Obituary Notes, news has reached us of the death of the following members, some of very long standing. We send our sympathy to their families and friends.
Mrs J.A. Badmin of Faversham, Kent, a member for 52 years.
Mr R.M. Burton of Dartford, Kent, a member for 59 years, author of Flora of the London Area, one-time member of BSBI Council and Records Committee and Referee for Bidens, Conyza, Galium, Medicago, Solidago and Floras foreign (Europe).
Mr P.J. Corbett of Ashworth, Nottinghamshire, a member for 30 years.
Mr R. Dyke of Hockwold, Norfolk, a member for 35 years.
Mr R.N. Stringer of Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, a member for 8 years.
for download on the website home page. The idea being that when the user thinks they have an ID from a photo, they can then check for more details that may be visible in that photo. I hope this will lead to a more confident ID, and will get users to look at plants in a lot more detail. The spreadsheet has been made as simple as possible, and a lot of variability has been accounted for. To accompany the main ID sheet, there is a ‘Common names to scientific names list’ tab, a ‘Notes’ tab to aid usage and a ‘Photos’ tab with over 170 hyperlinked photos of the various plant parts referred to. I will update and upload the spreadsheet each time new species are added to the website. I have had a few people write or tell me that they use the website, and that they find it very useful. They are already looking closer at plants because of this, which is great.
A big thank you to John Poland who has very kindly given me permission to use some of the data in The Vegetative Key To The British Flora, data that would take many more years to collect, and to my friend David Merrick who helped with initial setup of the spreadsheet, and for his encouragement.
Richard Mabbutt richardmabbutt55@gmail.com
Dr M.A. Webster of Bristol, a member for 36 years.
Mr B.E. Woodhams of Maidstone, Kent, a member for 29 years.
Many members will have been saddened to learn of the death of Maria Ellis, wife of our Membership Secretary, and a popular figure at social occasions held in conjunction with BSBI meetings in former years. Maria was also the lead ‘stuffer’ for over 100 BSBI News and most other mailings from Cardiff. I would like to extend all our sympathies to Gwynn.
Chris
D. Preston, Obituaries Editor
cdpr@ceh.ac.uk assisted by the Membership Secretary, Gwynn Ellis Date of compilation 25 March 2025.
BOTANICAL CROSSWORD NO. 34
by Cruciada
ACROSS
1. Does this Eucalyptus signify gingivitis? (3,3)
5. Lords and Ladies feature in watering-hole article (6)
8. Man, for example, lies wildly (4)
9. Heard to study cribs in wetlands (4,4)
10. Funding for a project, perhaps, that brings home the bacon in this town (8)
11. Reconnoitre everywhere to discover woody plant (4)
12. The setter at National Trust takes half of half the mints (6)
14. Cells constitute the first seed (6)
16. Rush to get a sandwich? (4)
18. Eriocaulon mistakenly used as pot-wiper (8)
20. I had poly set up for genetic character of many crop species (8)
21. Mark parasite encountered in long grass (4)
22. Backing out, emerged without Master –Master’s, perhaps (6)
23. Digs up weeds after first pair of ecologists talks back (6)
DOWN
2. Even Bellis can take 11 across to this studio complex (7)
3. Environmentally sound spring, say (5)
4. Returning one eleven to planet with speed over anger at edible halophyte (5,8)
5. Agents come back with scholar to have noisy quarrel re seed plant (13)
6. We object to Arab objection to strawberry shrub (7)
7. Funds vegetative border (5)
13. Campanula flower, perhaps, in plant container with heads unopened, light and regular (7)
15. Clue written out, went away to get perigynium (7)
17. I’m on track to find vine (5)
19. Sorceress provides astringent hazel (5)
Solution on p. 79
REVIEWS
Compiled by Clive Stace, Book Reviews Editor Appletree House, Larters Lane, Middlewood Green, Stowmarket, IP14 5HB cstace@btinternet.com
Rare Plants
Peter Marren Bloomsbury Wildlife, London, British Wildlife Collection 14, 2024. Pp. 400, with numerous colour photos; hbk £40; ISBN 9781399407328
Rare Plants is an evocative title, but nowadays it might be taken to cover both plants that are genuinely uncommon in their extent in the British Isles and those that are judged to be threatened, whether rare or less so, where they have declined appreciably in recent years. So some of those rare plants might be frequent where they do occur, such as Cornish Heath (Erica vagans) and more common but declining fast, such as, say, Heath Dog-violet (Viola canina) and Dyer’s Greenweed (Genista tinctoria). This latest book, from one of our leading experts on plants, almost exclusively covers vascular plants that are rare. Excellent and comprehensive chapters cover new species. It is exciting that we are still
discovering these, not just new microspecies of genera such as Hawkweeds (Hieracium), Brambles (Rubus) and Whitebeams (Sorbus), but new sedges, ferns and for the really optimistic, even new Tongue Orchids (Serapias species). Marren includes perhaps the most unexpected, the tiny fern found in 2019 in Co Kerry Stenogrammitis myosuroides, known only from the Caribbean (but not, as he suggests, from the Azores). Endemics, microspecies, hybrids (a welcome inclusion) and extinctions are all well covered, as well as a chapter giving a taster on bryophytes, charophytes and other algae.
Another chapter deals with plants whose nativeness is questioned. The author belongs firmly on the optimistic view of what are ‘native’ plants, whereas I am much more sceptical. But where we have common ground is that for all the fancy titles –BAPs (pointlessly written in a formulaic way), SoCC, Red List, etc – those are merely shuffling of the deckchairs; the two important things affecting our rare plants are a changing climate and the state of the broader habitat. And, the author stresses, as I do, that management of that habitat, other than perhaps very occasional small-scale gardening, is the only way to protect the species that we value, whether indisputably native, possibly native or even treasured aliens – as the Hampshire Rare Plant Register (2011) delightfully calls ‘Plants of cultural association’.
For Britain at least, the out-ofdate Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act still lists a rag-bag of species, not updated since 2015, and is an indication in particular of how toothless is JNCC and in general how little the politicians care for species conservation. Reintroductions and translocations are covered too, but, rightly I feel, are hedged with caveats.
Marren’s previous book on this subject, Britain’s Rare Plants (1999), has been an informative and enjoyable companion for 25 years and I was sceptical that this new work would merely be going over well-worked ground. But somehow it doesn’t and even for me, having been involved in the machinations of rare and threatened plants for over 30 years, it reads like something fresh – no mean achievement. The tale is nicely told with all sorts of Marrenesque details, literary, political and anecdotal, all showing a deep knowledge and love of the flora of these islands. My favourite chapter is that on ‘Plants and People’, where his informed background and sympathy with his subject comes into full play. The photographs are apposite and very attractive, though personally I’d have liked Latin names as well for all. It is a pleasure to see so many from the late Bob Gibbons, surely the prince of photographers in a crowded field. Other than the over-wide margins it is an excellently produced book, a trifle expensive, but for all members,
and in particular the huge number of new recruits to the BSBI, I can think of no better entrée to what we know about our rare plants, why we love them and how we should be protecting them.
David Pearman
Guide to the Orchids of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East
C.A.J. Kreutz
Kreutz Publishers, Eys, The Netherlands, 2024.
Pp. 1200, with numerous (c. 3000) coloured photos; hbk £42.50. ISBN 9789083141121
New books on orchids, although eagerly awaited, enter a somewhat saturated market in which novelty of approach is at a premium. This volume by the renowned Dutch orchidologist C.A.J. (‘Karel’) Kreutz is a collation of his research over several decades on the orchid flora of Europe as well as regions such as Anatolia and the Crimea. By extending from Europe to encompass North Africa and the Middle East, its geographical scope aligns closely with the concept of the Western Palearctic as defined by the birdwatching community and others. Its length (1200 pages) and weight (c.3kg) constrain portability and make it much more suited as a
reference work than a field guide. Following a brief introduction and a commentary on approaches to taxonomy, there are detailed accounts encompassing all of what Kreutz considers to be ‘distinguishable taxa’ (see below) covering nomenclature, morphology, phenology, ecology and known geographical range. Distribution maps are avoided because of the restricted and sometimes uncertain range of some taxa, but these will, according to the preface, be included in a forthcoming six volume set for which this book is a precursor. Several thousand photographs drawn from over 100 sources and displaying both whole plants and details of floral structure are outstanding in original quality and reproduction. All good so far, but the taxonomy adopted in the book requires a health warning. European orchidology has long been beset by tension between ‘lumpers’ and ‘splitters’, and this book is an extreme manifestation of the latter. In his preface, Kreutz is critical of the conservative approach taken by preceding publications that relegate many named taxa to synonymy or to subspecies or varieties at best. He argues for recognising all taxa that have a definable morphology since the omission of any of these would be subjective or arbitrary. As a consequence this book includes, for example, 450 species of Ophrys and 124 species of Dactylorhiza Recent generic reassignments based on genetic analyses such as subsuming Nigritella into Gymnadenia, or Barlia into Himantoglossum, are rejected given his view that plants in the original genera are so distinct in appearance. Splitting within Dactylorhiza results in the seven species currently considered, by
a broad consensus, to reside in Britain and Ireland being inflated to 23. All forms of D. incarnata (Early Marsh-orchid) definable by flower colour and ecology that are generally regarded as varieties or subspecies are promoted to full species, while D. incarnata itself (sensu Kreutz) gains five new subspecies listed for Britain and Ireland. Robust leaf-marked plants of D. purpurella (Northern Marsh-orchid) from two locations in Wales achieve species status as D. cambrensis, and others with minor variations in labellum shape and leaf markings become a newly-described species, D. britannica
Kreutz is his taxonomic preface states that it is ‘almost impossible to get to a species concept which most orchid specialists would agree to’. While there is truth is this, fusion of classical taxonomy with multivariate morphometrics and molecular insights is making huge strides towards a workable and much needed consensus. Outside the realms of formal systematics and taxonomy, there is much to be gained scientifically from documenting variation that may be of functional and/or adaptive significance. But using a knowledge of relatively minor and possibly inconsistent variation to construct a radical and new taxonomic framework is in my opinion a step too far. On the other hand, there is much here that is challenging and might inform further research. This book has considerable merit on the grounds of scholarship, quality of production and affordability, but beware that it has little resonance with current thinking by the majority of researchers adopting a more holistic approach to orchid taxonomy.
Ian Denholm
Charophytes of Europe
Hendrik Schubert, Irmgard Blindow, Emile Nat, Heiko Korsch, Thomas Gregor, Luc Denys, Nick Stewart, Klaus van der Weyer, Roman Romanov & Michelle T. Casanova (eds.)
Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 2024
Pp. xiii + 1144, with numerous B&W and colour photos, drawings and maps; hbk £199.99; e-book £159.99. ISBN 9783031318979; e-book 9783031318986
When I received a hard copy of Charophytes of Europe my first impression was of a large (16 x 24 x 5 cm), heavy (2 kg) book with a densely detailed text (1144 pages) and many illustrations. It is robust, securely bound, but with the flexibility that allows the pages to stay open as you read. A review seemed a daunting task, but, as I turned the pages, I felt a sense of excitement and anticipation. This book is a marvel.
Charophytes are the only group of algae promoted for study by the BSBI. In fact, Nitella confervacea makes an appearance on p. 68 of the last issue of BSBI News (No. 158). They are rarely considered by phycologists and their study has fallen to the curious few, many of whom have not been professional botanists. It seems that once you start noticing and collecting them you become an enthusiast.
The team that has produced this book clearly worked so hard and so well together that they are most certainly enthusiasts. The 10 editors and c.68 authors hail from 29 countries; many do not have English as a first language, but they have produced a work that I consider a ‘labour of love’ and triumph of cooperation. It took nearly 10 years to get it on to our shelves, starting with an in-person meeting in 2016, which was followed by more meetings and workshops, both in the laboratory and in the field. The editors make special mention of the invaluable archive donated by Joop van Raam before his untimely death in 2011. His life’s work was progressing towards a world monograph on charophyte microspecies.
The introductory chapters cover all aspects of charophyte research, including past and recent studies, taxonomic concepts, nomenclature, systematics, phylogeny and ecology (with inviting subheadings), as well as life history and ontogenesis. Tables of charophyte names and treatments sum up, at a glance, the history of species discovery and research from 1753 to 2016. There is a chapter on evolution and the fossil record, and a provisional Red List for the European taxa. Throughout the book the authors stress the conservation status of the individual taxa. These plants are more vulnerable than many other aquatics because they are not as well known. However, a British species, Nitellopsis obtusa, has been proscribed in North America as it has become invasive since it was first recorded in the 1970s.
The checklist recognises 7(6) genera with 63(34) species in Europe, comprised of 38(18) species of Chara, 2(1) of Lamprothamnium, 1(0) of
Lychnothamnus, 13(10) of Nitella, 1(1) of Nitellopsis, 3(2) of the new (to me, at least) genus Sphaerochara and 5(2) of Tolypella (figures in brackets refer to Britain). The species descriptions fill the heart of the book (more than 700 pages) in a taxonomic section preceded by a determination key. However, there is an omission here. There is no dedicated section covering full descriptions, taxonomy and nomenclature of each genus, just short introductory chapters on the genera and on two of the subsections of Chara
Minor inconsistencies, as well as errors in citation and typography, abound, but are understandable in such a large co-authored work. Examples include ‘Smith’ instead of ‘Sm.’, ‘J.M.’ instead of ‘J.A. Moore’, ‘Mai’ instead of ‘May’. In future editions editors and authors can correct many of these using standard sources to double-check journal and author abbreviations.
There are photographs, line drawings and distribution maps for each species, and morphometric tables and electron micrographs covering oospore shape, size and ornamentation. Colour images of habitats and habits are good (on the whole), especially as some plants are photographed in situ, i.e. submerged. The line drawings are excellent, both for the habit and morphology of each species and for illustrating the key and comprehensive glossary. However, the distribution maps are not clear enough. It is difficult to see the range of location dots, especially the faintly coloured ones, even with a lens.
At the end of the introductory Chapter 1 the editors ‘… hope that this book will be a useful tool, perhaps even a common standard’. They have achieved their goal, and so much more. I am
sure this book will reinvigorate the lapsed enthusiast, but will also open the charophyte world to many who will start as neophytes and end up as devotees. One British pioneer in the study of charophytes, Guy Oldfield Allen, was a circuit judge in colonial India, a profession which didn’t prevent him indulging his passion for these plants. He trained his Indian assistants to collect charophytes from the ponds and lakes of each area he visited. Apparently, they always recognised the true object of their search, never bringing back the wrong sort of aquatic. My own involvement made me love the distinctive (unique?), garlicky smell of some charophytes. It meant we had a find!
Jennifer A. Bryant (aka Jenny Moore)
Alexis FitzGerald
Wordwell Ltd, Dublin, 2024. Pp. xiv + 566, with numerous colour photos; hbk £50, €60. ISBN 9781916742055
The arrival of a completely new Irish County Flora is always an occasion for celebration, and certainly this volume is a very welcome and worthy addition to the literature. The book is a substantial A4 hardback, designed and printed in Ireland, and
presented in full colour. Printed on good quality paper, it has a clear layout and typeface which this reviewer found easy and pleasing to read. The volume is heavy, but the binding appears secure, and hopefully will prove durable.
Alexis FitzGerald became Vicecounty Recorder for Monaghan (H32) in 2015, and in the following nine years he focused his research on all relevant literature records and examined Monaghan voucher specimens in 10 herbaria across Britain and Ireland, plus two continental collections. The results are distilled in this remarkable and fascinatingly detailed publication.
In his preface, the author makes it perfectly clear that he was not aiming to produce an atlas-style (i.e. distribution mapped) county flora at any scale, realising that, despite all his and others’ efforts, botanical recording in Monaghan remains far from complete. However, the existing BSBI atlases do provide species distribution maps for every vice-county in Britain and Ireland at hectad level, and this reviewer considers the very thorough, detailed account of the existing species records that this book provides compensates to a considerable extent for the absence of tetrad distribution maps. A small number of monad maps (I counted 26) are presented as ‘illustrative taxa’, but they provide very limited additional information.
The book begins with three concise, well-written, illustrated summary accounts by Irish experts on the geology, climate and vegetation history of the county, providing an excellent introduction to the local landscape. Almost all of Monaghan is covered with a layer of glacial till (or boulder clay), forming very extensive ‘drumlin swarms’. The underlying bedrock consists of a wide range of sedimentary shales, including
layered limestones, plus smaller proportions of igneous and metamorphic rocks. In southeast Monaghan, limestone outcrops at the surface around Carrickashedoge, and supports semi-natural limestone grassland.
Apart from Slieve Beagh, 380 m, on the north-west boundary of Monaghan where it meets both Fermanagh and Tyrone, there are no mountains, and no cliffs except man-made ones in quarries. The whole area is more or less denuded of woodland, apart from patches of semi-natural plantation woods, scattered scrub, hedgerows, isolated trees and coniferous forestry.
Unlike neighbouring counties, Monaghan contains no really major rivers, being drained by numerous minor watercourses plus the Rivers Finn and Blackwater. Co Monaghan is a land dominated by a multitude of small, ± shallow lakes surrounded by swampy ground, fens and bogs that support a rich aquatic flora including Sium latifolium (Greater Water-parsnip), Stratiotes aloides (Water-soldier) and Oenanthe fistulosa (Tubular Water-dropwort). Unfortunately many wetlands occur in ground surrounded by intensive grassland agriculture, with a lesser area (333 ha) under arable cereal cultivation. In common with elsewhere, these areas have been altered by nutrient enrichment during the last sixty years, reducing the abundance and diversity of aquatic plants.
Chapter 6, entitled ‘Analysis, habitats and conservation’, provides an extremely helpful summary of the nature and scale of the existing botanical dataset, descriptions of ten habitat types, and details of the 31 best botanical sites so far located. All the photographs throughout the book are of good to excellent quality. A very few of the maps
Flora of County Monaghan
and diagrams are less successful at communicating information, due to factors such as small print size, and colour of or lack of place names.
In the species accounts FitzGerald deals with all the taxa known to occur or to have occurred wild in Co Monaghan. The listing includes species (and species aggregates), hybrids, subspecies, varieties, formae, cultivars and apomictic species. The focus has deliberately been on under-studied and underrecorded taxa, and the author has discovered over 160 new county records. Perhaps as a result of this approach, approximately 37% of plants considered in the Flora are weedy, alien, or are taxonomic splits, classes of plant that often were ignored by writers of earlier Floras. There is a total of 1,317 taxa detailed in the Flora, including 92 hybrids and 158 apomicts. This represents a very creditable tally for a vice-county the size of Monaghan, comparing favourably with other midland Irish vice-counties, such as Cavan (H30), and Longford (H24).
For scarce, rare or extinct taxa all records are chronologically listed at the end of the account. Otherwise record listings are given as ‘Some records’, representing the first county record, literature, herbarium and selected field records for common, frequent and occasional taxa.
Flora of County Monaghan is a significant addition to the literature on Irish plant distribution, and especially the occurrence of hybrids and apomicts. It demonstrates what one highly motivated and talented individual can achieve in a remarkably short period. Purchase is highly recommended, and even at £50 represents excellent value for money.
Ralph Forbes
Surrey Rare Plant Register
Ann Sankey, Caroline Bateman, Paul Bartlett, Giles Groome, Roger Hawkins, George Hounsome, Susan Medcalf, Bill Stanworth & Peter Wakeham (eds) Surrey Botanical Society, Pirbright, 2024. Obtainable from Summerfield Books, Unit 12, Skirgill Business Park, Penrith, CA11 0FD. Pp. v + 282, with numerous colour photos; pbk £25.
ISBN 9780955618864
Astandout feature of the Surrey Rare Plant Register is its thoroughness. When the book thumped through the letterbox on to my doormat I was impressed by the size of it; over 350 species are included. The reasons for inclusion are clearly described in a table of categories. It takes into account not only plants that are formally recognised as rare or endangered but also species that have become uncommon in the region due to changing environmental conditions, urbanization and other anthropogenic factors. The fact that the county includes areas of London where plants face tremendous pressure is quoted as a justification for covering so many species; even such plants as Ranunculus flammula (Lesser Spearwort) and Spergula arvensis (Corn Spurrey) are included. The accounts of species are in alphabetical order, very detailed, and the distribution of each
species is shown by dot maps or records tables. This makes each species easy to find and the accounts of each plant are interesting to read for botanists and non-botanists alike.
The in-depth exploration of the rare plant species contained in the book serve as a crucial resource for botanists, conservationists and plant enthusiasts interested in understanding the diversity and fragility of Surrey’s flora, and will be of interest to many who are fascinated by wild plants. By highlighting and describing the endangered species found throughout Surrey, the Surrey Rare Plant Register presents a snapshot of the county’s plant biodiversity while raising awareness of the need to protect these natural treasures. The book will appeal to a wide range of readers; it is apparently well bound and has a colourful green cover. The seven appendices and the index of vernacular and scientific names add extra appeal to users.
One possible gripe might be that each description of a plant species in the main body of the book does not contain a records table, a dot map, a photograph and a species account to give a more complete picture of the plant. However for this to have been achieved the book would have to have been at least twice the size and more cumbersome, which would have made it less likely to be used in the field. So I applaud the authors’ decision to have a records table for the rarer plants and a dot map for the other species. I expect Surrey botanists will find it useful and interesting to have the records lists of the rarer species easily accessible in the book when they monitor their special plants.
This splendid book raises the definition of a Rare Plant Register from a simple list of rare plants to
a new level. It is a well-researched, colourful book with a wealth of detail about a county’s rare and endangered plants. It is not a book to be read through, but rather a scientific book to be consulted to gain knowledge and insight of the special plants of Surrey. Hopefully it will be used by professionals and keen plant lovers to monitor, protect and preserve the flora of Surrey.
Anne Haden
Athyrium filix-femina and Cultivars
Ian Unsworth British Pteridological Society, Special Publication 17, London, 2024.
Pp. vi + 258, with 238 colour photos; pbk £30. ISBN 9781916261723
Athyrium filix-femina, commonly known as the Lady Fern, is native to temperate regions of Asia, Europe, and North America. The fern is well-
loved by botanists and gardeners for its delicate, feathery fronds and its ability to thrive in damp, shady woodland environments. The fronds are highly dissected, giving them a lacy appearance. There are numerous cultivated varieties (or cultivars) of Athyrium filix-femina, each exhibiting distinct characteristics. The cultivation of these ferns dates back to the Victorian era when fern collecting, known as ‘pteridomania’, became a popular hobby. During this golden period, many new cultivars were discovered and propagated by fern enthusiasts and botanists. In the last hundred years, interest has ebbed and flowed, sometimes resulting in the loss of prized examples. However, current enthusiasts are doing their best to conserve the surviving cultivars and sometimes even re-find lost ones.
Ian Unsworth has had a lifelong interest in ferns and specialised in Lady Ferns early on. He holds a National Collection of Athyrium cultivars under the Plant Heritage scheme. His new book, Athyrium filix-femina and Cultivars is a comprehensive guide to the many cultivars of this fern species. Published by the British Pteridological Society, it looks at the long history of the cultivation of this fern and describes many of the known cultivars. Most of the book is concerned with the detailed listing of the
Solution to Botanical Crossword No. 34
named cultivars, covering their description, illustration and history, often accompanied by extracts from original publications, especially Victorian books and journals. It also addresses cultivation techniques, propagation methods, pest management, and information about other specialists over the years.
The book has 262 pages and is well illustrated with over 240 colour illustrations and describes more than 170 cultivars in detail. Along with descriptive information about the individual cultivars, there are historical accounts of their discovery and breeding. Several irritations exist, such as inconsistent nomenclature, very narrow page margins, frequent unnecessary changes in font size and line spacing and errors in punctuation. The efforts of the author would have been better served by more professional editing and layout. However, these issues are not likely to deter the enthusiast and do not detract from the richness of the content.
The book conveys the passion and commitment of both the present author and all those before him. Doubtless it will be a ‘must-have’ for anyone interested in fern cultivars and I am sure it will make an excellent gift for fern enthusiasts. It is perhaps rather expensive at £30.
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