New Year Plant Hunt

Today was the last opportunity to take part in the BSBI's New Year Plant Hunt - a national hunt for wild plants in flower between 1st and 4th January. To my shame I didn't get round to organising an 'official' Oxfordshire New Year Plant Hunt, and so with time running out to take part I dashed out this afternoon to see what I could find flowering in the allotted three hours around the parish of Islip where I live. If you also took part in Oxfordshire do share what you found via the comments box below.

Islip is mostly arable land plus the village, so the local flora consists largely of weeds and garden escapes. Almost all of the arable land is under winter wheat this year and so is pretty boring, and I therefore headed straight for the allotments where I knew there to be a few things still flowering. En route there were rather fewer garden escapes flowering than I'd expected, with only Aurinia saxatilis and Vinca major, both growing out of walls, putting on a show. An app and record submission website based on iRecord have been developed for this year's results - however, it doesn't seem to recognise Aurinia saxatilis, only the genus.

The allotment turned up most of the weeds one would expect, e.g. Capsella bursa-pastoris, Lamium purpureum, Stellaria media and Veronica persica. However, I was pleased that there was still plenty of Fumaria densiflora in flower on my plot. After the allotment I decided to hazard a rapid walk toward Noke to see if I could refind Scandix pecten-veneris, which was flowering and fruiting abundantly this time last year. Unfortunately, the field is under wheat this year and while plants are there again they were rather far off flowering. Shortly after this disappointment I was benighted and a few kilometres from home, so I trudged back in the dark with the list still at a rather modest seventeen taxa. A list of what I saw and photographs of all but the Vinca are shown below.

National results are pouring into the website. One of the most commonly recorded species is Poa annua and I wonder if I was stricter than others - I couldn't find any P. annua actually flowering. The rules don't seem to cover cleistogamous flowers...

Scientific name	Common name	Habitat
Aurinia saxatilis	gold basket	Naturalised in wall
Bellis perennis	daisy	Verge
Capsella bursa-pastoris	shepherd's purse	Allotments
Cardamine hirsuta	hairy bittercress	Allotments
Euphorbia heliscopia	sun spurge	Allotments
Fumaria densiflora	dense-flowered fumitory	Allotments
Lamium album	white deadnettle	Verge
Lamium purpureum	red deadnettle	Allotments
Senecio vulgaris	groundsel	Allotments
Sisymbrium officinale	hedge mustard	Arable
Stellaria media	chickweed	Allotments
Taraxacum agg.	dandelion	Allotments
Thlaspi arvense	field pennycress	Allotments
Veronica persica	common field speedwell	Allotments
Vinca major	greater periwinkle	Naturalised in wall
Viola arvensis	field pansy	Arable
Viola x wittrockiana	garden pansy	Allotments