Lockdown botany

Myosurus minimus found by Roger Heath-Brown in Garsington. Image by Roger Heath-Brown

I wonder what the ageing George Claridge Druce, great man of early twentieth century botany, did with himself during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. Did he self-isolate at his home in north Oxford and work on The Adventive Flora of Tweeside (published 1919) or revisions to his Flora of Oxfordshire? Or did he potter about the town and along his local rivers, seeking the solace of wildflowers? I hope it was as sunny and floriferous for Druce and his contemporaries as it fortunately has been for us these last weeks.

I toyed with the idea of working on an (online) flora, but this seemed like too serious an enterprise for such a serious (and ridiculous) time. So, as I like to imagine Druce would have (in order not to make myself feel inadequate in comparison with his considerable industry), I have been exploring my local area more thoroughly than I have had time for in recent years. What have you been up to? I hope you have been able to get out and be cheered by spring wildflowers during your permitted exercise. A few botanists have been in touch with interesting things they've found this spring. I have had a few myself, and so I thought I'd write a blog post in an attempt to spread the cheer. Do leave a comment below if you have had a nice find you'd like to share.

Silybum marianum in a Wallingford alley. Image by Oli Pescott

First up, Roger Heath-Brown and Fay Banks separately emailed me about a new population of Myosurus minimus (mousetail) they'd both seen on their walks around Garsington. Originally found by Roger, plants were growing in a damp cattle-trodden field corner. This and similar places such as gateways are the typical habitat of this locally scarce species. Over the last few years I have also found a few new sites for this plant, all in gateways, mostly in the upper Ray, such as at Meadow Farm.

Oli Pescott tells me that on his explorations of the back alleys of Wallingford he has been finding a lot of Silybum marianum (milk thistle) and that it appears to be spreading. Over the river in the vice county of Oxfordshire, there certainly seems to be a trend also, with many recent records of a species that formerly was rather rare and casual in the county. Oli suggests that this Mediterranean native may benefit from climate change. If you'd like to see it, there is a large well-established population on the Dyke Hills at Dorchester. Do let me know if you find any elsewhere.


On her daily walk around Kidlington, Judy Webb found a plant not seen in Oxon for a long time, and only ever known from the Stonesfield area. This was the little grass Poa bulbosa (bulbous meadow-grass), which Judy found growing abundantly on a dry road verge, together with other coastal species such as Plantago coronopus (buck's-horn plantain). I wonder how it got here? With its fragile bulb-like stems, perhaps fragments were spread with mowers? It would be interesting to investigate if it is present elsewhere in the neighbourhood. I went to have look myself (on my way to do my grocery shopping) and found also a lot of Cerastium semidecandrum (little mouse-ear) growing with it, a locally uncommon or overlooked spring annual of short dry grassland (it turns brown and disappears after May).

Judy's colony of Poa bulbosa growing on a road verge in Kidlington. The plants are the yellowed patches around the edges of the verge in the left hand image. The bulbous bases are clearly visible in the image on the right. Images by Judy Webb.

Taraxacum berthae a new county record found by Judy Webb. Note the spotty leaves and adpressed outer involucral bracts. Image by Judy Webb

Like Judy and me, and other botanists stuck at home, you might have spent this period of lockdown looking at dandelions, the last few weeks being the perfect time of year for identifying these cheerful little plants. Judy's lockdown botany has continued to yield interesting plants, with her inspection of verges in Kidlington turning up a new county record, Taraxacum berthae (Bertha's dandelion). Judy shared her find of this unusual dandelion on Twitter and had it excitedly identified by keen taraxacologists Alex Prendergast and Josh Styles and confirmed by the BSBI referee. This is a rare dandelion of the north-west, so what it's doing in Oxon is a mystery. Was it introduced or could it be a relic of the old meadows that much of modern Kidlington is built on?

The fen dandelion T. palustre has for many years had a special allure for me, growing as it does in one of my favourite kinds of habitat (fenny meadows) but it has so far alluded me. Historically, there were four sites for this now endangered dandelion in Oxon, last seen in 1978. I have wanted for a number of years to look for it in the two sites that haven't been destroyed, Otmoor and Wendlebury Meads, both local to me, but I have always been too busy in April when dandelions are on show. Well, no problem with lack of time this year, and I found it surviving at both sites. It is difficult to estimate numbers since you can only really identify plants in flower and it is a small plant, but the populations seemed quite small, around a dozen flowers at Otmoor and half that at Wendlebury.

While looking for fen dandelion, I also found quite a lot of T. anglicum (English dandelion) in a different area of Otmoor, a new site, and at Wendlebury Meads growing with T. palustre, where it was last seen many decades ago. Nationally this is a much rarer dandelion but Oxford is a hotspot, with a number of sites in damp ancient meadows. My finds prompted Judy to send me a photo of a specimen she collected from Alvescot Meadows near Carterton which she thought was T. anglicum, and indeed it was (though I'm no expert). This is a significant westward extension of its Oxfordshire range.

If you are not convinced that dandelions are interesting, then I challenge you not to be impressed by the photos shown. Gorgeous little plants!

I wouldn't go as far as to say 'thank goodness for lockdown', but it's great to start the year with two county resurrections and a new county record. Fingers crossed for more good finds once this is over.

T. anglicum (top) and T. palustre (bottom) found at Wendlebury Meads. The narrow leaves and adpressed involucral bracts are characteristic of Section Palustria. The dark narrowly bordered bracts and deeply divided leaves of T. anglicum are diagnostic, the opposite situation obtaining in T. palustre with wide borders to the bracts and hardly divided leaves.

Stadhampton Square Bash

Puccinellia distans along the A329

Last Sunday was another square bash, when we moved on to Stadhampton (SU69E) from our previous visit to Little Milton (SP60A). Sorry it has taken me so long to write the meeting up! Let's see if I can make it a short one for a change.

As last time we started off with coffee and cake — may this become an established tradition, especially as the weather begins to turn cooler! Many thanks to Fay Banks and her granddaughter for baking delicious brownies for the four of us. After this pleasant diversion from the task of the day we headed out recording. When botanising any village a priority will always be the churchyard and this is where we went first. It was the usual disappointment, ruthlessly mown, but sported Galium verum (lady's bedstraw), Pimpinella saxifraga (burnet saxifrage) and Plantago media (hoary plantain),  a typical assemblage of hangers-on in over-managed churchyards. We did find Epilobium x limosum in a weedy patch, the hybrid between the broad-leaved and hoary willowherbs — no surprises to learn on getting home that this hasn't been much recorded in the county.

Two buckler ferns: the broad Dryopteris dilatata (left) and the narrow D. carthusiana (right). The latter used to be called D. spinulosa on account of the long drawn-out points to the pinnule lobes, and it lacks the distinctive black-marked rachis scales and convex shape of the pinnules seen in D. dilatata.

Stadhampton pond infested with Myriophyllum auqaticum

Square bashing is mostly about gathering as many records as possible from a square, and in settled places this usually consists of alien species, but one seldom fails to find something of interest. Along the A329, for instance, we had a couple of decent and probably under-recorded grasses: Puccinellia distans (reflexed saltmarsh grass), a colonist of salted roads whose natural habitat as the name indicates is on the coast; and Polypogon viridis (water bent) a grass that been expanding in range very rapidly in urban places over the last decade or two but as yet has few Oxon records. Other aliens were in plentiful supply, particularly the invasive Myriophyllum aquaticum (Parrot's feather) which had taken over the pond on the village green.

Returning to natives, the limestone walls of the village had the usual Polypodium (polypody fern), unidentifiable at this time of year. However, a little later on once we'd got out in more semi-natural habitat we came upon a nice big stand of well-behaved Polypodium growing on a concrete bridge over a stream and which was clearly P. interjectum. As I've commented in previous posts this would seem to be our commonest Polypodium species. A little further on we came upon some lovely alder woodlands that had developed over a series of medieval fish ponds. Often getting good records is a matter of knowing what to look for in particular places, and here we managed to find the wet woodland fern Dryopteris carthusiana (narrow-leaved buckler fern), a pretty scarce plant in Oxon. Interestingly, the few recent records come from Chiltern beechwoods, an atypical habitat.

The woodlands served us well and were a nice contrast for a square that mostly comprised artificial habitats. The total for the square is now 250 taxa, a considerable improvement from the 9 it had stood at. Many thanks to those that attended.

Major roads - a gap in recording coverage?

I've been thinking about gaps in record coverage of certain habitats or groups of plants in Oxfordshire, and this post is about one I believe exists — big roads. Future posts will cover other under-recorded areas. These posts will mostly cover non-native or other human-derived elements of our flora, and that these represent gaps perhaps suggests that Oxfordshire is a more conservation-focused county. Of course this is a good thing, but aliens also tell stories and make the human environment more interesting even if we'd wish they weren't there as conservationists.

Recording highlights from 2016

As the miserable weather settles on us and we enter the season of armchair botanising (at least for higher plants), I offer my reflections on what has been a very rewarding season. These highlights are based on exciting plants I've seen this year and range from new county records and new sites for county rare plants, to re-finds of plants thought potentially extinct in the county. I can think of many further delights I'd have liked to have included, but at least that leaves plenty of material for other posts. Do let me know if there's anything you'd like to share.