tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44188328862644032102024-02-19T03:45:41.882-08:00Ptyxis Ecology - Our Botany BlogJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-4878724398875272692011-07-17T02:06:00.000-07:002011-07-17T02:27:49.501-07:00Chickweed willowherb in south NorthumberlandChickweed willowherb <em>Epilobium alsinifolium</em> is one of our montane willowherbs that is scattered in the North pennines, the Lake District, The Cheviots, the southern Scittish uplands and North Wales, as well of course as the Scottish Highlands. See the distribution map from the BSBI website at http://www.bsbimaps.org.uk/atlas/map_page.php?spid=690.0&sppname=Epilobium alsinifolium&commname=Chickweed Willowherb<br /><br />Our county recorder John Richards (who is also an expert on alpine plants), took this photo recently at the only site for this plant in south Northumberland. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23csIux3epzIV9y8pP5nrDW7VyT4u_bB-dbwQORY-aZGXSCzdQ7dF24bgtKKZoimrV2GyQsaszlDYyU1lgquIHXo0c_ROyDyEMOB9bOPBlH1QqCbqKkbmd-ng1HGAOgjxONvUkT2ASpdF/s1600/Epilobium+alsinifolium+Middlehope+Moor+best.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 291px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23csIux3epzIV9y8pP5nrDW7VyT4u_bB-dbwQORY-aZGXSCzdQ7dF24bgtKKZoimrV2GyQsaszlDYyU1lgquIHXo0c_ROyDyEMOB9bOPBlH1QqCbqKkbmd-ng1HGAOgjxONvUkT2ASpdF/s400/Epilobium+alsinifolium+Middlehope+Moor+best.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630248886972392402" /></a><br />John says that out of 500 plants present in the flush this was the only one that was flowering! So it would be easy to overlook it if you were not an expert. The previous county recorder George Swam found the plant at this site in 1969 and last recorded it there in 1991. John was revisiting the site to check out the population as part of a series of surveys he and others are doing to check on populations of Northumberland's most rare and special plants.<br /><br />You can see an account of all of the county's rare plants at http://botanicalkeys.co.uk/northumbria/rpr.asp<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-49903280000902572452011-07-17T01:21:00.000-07:002011-07-17T01:52:54.410-07:00Its all gone yellow!Many traditional arable weeds have declined hugely or dissappeared completely due to changes in agricultural methods in the last 60 years. Corn marigold still survives here and there, but is much, much less common than it was. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8jveIVKw514DdKhgsSwn2ab58XwyKW6zCd1v5InqqsrRoZg1aaju6aYPUK1U9QzYaus0tXlgA-fXV_-YrhsFdJ-QBVC9eDEVhMFq_inyaVJoes5y9v05Ig9KYh1bHR8x1ln1HkpTz8-Sh/s1600/glebionis+segetum+bamburgh3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8jveIVKw514DdKhgsSwn2ab58XwyKW6zCd1v5InqqsrRoZg1aaju6aYPUK1U9QzYaus0tXlgA-fXV_-YrhsFdJ-QBVC9eDEVhMFq_inyaVJoes5y9v05Ig9KYh1bHR8x1ln1HkpTz8-Sh/s400/glebionis+segetum+bamburgh3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630235055086455682" /></a>It is very rare now to see so many corn marigolds in an arable field like in this picure from Bamburgh. There is an interesting story behind this. Steve Pullan sent me these pictures and explained what happened. Steve and I used to work together at RDS setting up agri-environment schemes and Steve still does this work for Natural England. These fields have been in arable for a long time, but for the last 4 years they have been managed organically, which has allowed some corn marigolds to germinate from the seedbank and grow in the crop. You can see quite a few corn marigolds in the foreground, but there is a continuous sea of deep yellow in the background.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOnTZEcZ2XDRMHqgwMpFYF_PzgC7vAkrSZoKaovmUopmggIHxs6a4lyKdZ7JHbk0hqHzmjlDV0pYK0uVqo6kIeD9fJjRzoc7c0j74JuQnI6yFxcldLUrMXUCJZ00svQYFWXheitx9cuEc/s1600/glebionis+segetum+bamburgh1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOnTZEcZ2XDRMHqgwMpFYF_PzgC7vAkrSZoKaovmUopmggIHxs6a4lyKdZ7JHbk0hqHzmjlDV0pYK0uVqo6kIeD9fJjRzoc7c0j74JuQnI6yFxcldLUrMXUCJZ00svQYFWXheitx9cuEc/s400/glebionis+segetum+bamburgh1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630236995869953346" /></a>This field has some interesting archaeology below the ground and so the field is in the process of being converted from arable to grassland to protect the archaeology. A grass and clover mix has been sown and the cultivation method encouraged the corn marigolds to germinate. There must have been many thousands of corn marigold seeds in the soil for years waiting for their opportunity. Of course, as the field will be a grassland in future, the corn marigolds are likely to dissappear in a few years once the sward closes up. But there will be lots of seeds produced this year that will lie in the soil waiting for the soil to be disturbed again.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKHgiiX04ZTTLLhX_WGxJFLUPDC6RuTMuGc23bY6NWmzigrGIs8jjy3IYYzrJ1Ixzg4RNU4yKHSGnAAZEBY1mokc6ak4XWfRsxg4TTs74xSZ-YtpQ9wVwCHQhHptqwYlEWvmQ2i7RZsyO6/s1600/glebionis+segetum+bamburgh2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKHgiiX04ZTTLLhX_WGxJFLUPDC6RuTMuGc23bY6NWmzigrGIs8jjy3IYYzrJ1Ixzg4RNU4yKHSGnAAZEBY1mokc6ak4XWfRsxg4TTs74xSZ-YtpQ9wVwCHQhHptqwYlEWvmQ2i7RZsyO6/s400/glebionis+segetum+bamburgh2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630239539819275826" /></a>In the latest edition of Stace's flora from last year, several common plants have been given new scientific names. We now have to call corn marigold <em>Glebionis segetum</em> which sounds very odd when you are used to the old name <em>Chrysanthemum segetum</em>. I guess we will have to get used to it, but you see the plant so rarely nowadays that there is lots of time to forget the new name before you see it again.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-15217689365176358042011-07-09T02:05:00.000-07:002011-07-09T03:06:33.207-07:00A long week’s botanising in South NorthumberlandIt is always a great pleasure to visit Northumberland. Compared to the suburbs of Brussels, it is quiet, friendly and interesting. After a year since my last proper recording trip any small glimpse of wild places is a pleasant experience and Northumberland always has a few botanical surprises in store for me. So, I thought I’d share my finds in the hope that someone finds them interesting.<br /><br />I started off my trip around Blyth and Ashington. It is not the most obvious location for botany, but random squares settle where they will. Still, this small area contains the only salt marshes and some of the best lowland ponds in the vice county. horned pondweed (Zannichellia palustris) was my favourite find in this area. It is not common, though it may be more common than records suggest. It lurks, cryptically, under water often in the shade of bigger, more obvious water plants.<br /><br />Moving on, I passed by Heighley Gate Garden Centre. I was not there to buy plants, but to see if they had been infected. New Zealand bitter-cress (Cardamine corymbosa) has been rapidly spreading across Europe like a disease of pot plants. It didn’t take long to find it there. By the way, this bittercress should not be confused with either wavy bitter-cress (Cardamine flexuosa) or hairy bitter-cress (Cardamine hirsuta), which also inhabit plant pots at garden centres. Another treat of Heighley Gate, was seeing their Mistletoe; to my knowledge, this is the only Mistletoe in Northumberland. Though it is obviously introduced, it is interesting that it flourishes so well, even though it fails to naturalise.<br /><br />Further north I had a long visit to Holystone where I recorded about 220 species in one monad! This small area contains all sorts of little habitats, including river bank, bog, moor, meadow and woodland. Probably the best find was one plant of hairy rock-cress (Arabis hirsuta) on the shingles of the Coquet. It has been recorded in that area previously and I hope that this one plant might be an outlier from a larger population upstream.<br /><br /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioytGI-LAfvLLp3pUZlIuOaWy1r-pxSgDdM5pqUmIvO1QKtXEE66SSRE9KhkoHwtluuMUjpCtfV75fq_7DP9QblwWwJCc5qdhjzpSP3S8rOI6Z_3Y3441-bV8kqHk4SRpFFB-HgG-kGras/s1600/Northumberland+2011+032.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioytGI-LAfvLLp3pUZlIuOaWy1r-pxSgDdM5pqUmIvO1QKtXEE66SSRE9KhkoHwtluuMUjpCtfV75fq_7DP9QblwWwJCc5qdhjzpSP3S8rOI6Z_3Y3441-bV8kqHk4SRpFFB-HgG-kGras/s400/Northumberland+2011+032.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627290507983488674" /></a><br />The habitat of Arabis hirsuta on the Coquet gravels<br /><br />On the Sunday, John O’Reilly, Phil Brown and I went to look at Hummell Knowe and cover the neighbouring monads. Phil managed to collect and then get refereed Trichophorum x foersteri; T. cespitosum and T. germanicum all from Hummell Knowe. Even though the neighbouring Burndivot monad looked rather boring, we still managed to find 141 species in it.<br /><br />During the visit I interspersed trips to wild places with “boring” agricultural monads. One of the big surprises from these “boring” places was great brome (Anisantha diandra). I found it for the first time last year, near Newcastle Station. I had assumed it was a casual there. Still, this year I found it at five new sites, four of them inside random monads. It has obviously increased in the county, but it has perhaps also been mistaken for barren brome (Anisantha sterilis). You may find it in the borders of wheat and barley fields where both Anisantha species can be found growing together.<br /><br />The rarest record was refinding needle spike-rush (Eleocharis acicularis) at Catcleugh reservoir. I found one patch of less than 1m2. To my knowledge it was last seen there in 1972. I think the low water helped to make it more visible.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4UTyo3kzGytmnyoRVBhNfxS34GkIa2VTR1gxRGzgvQE7GwRGvlNh23Bi4aKjCGOMJGm4rdCbSqq8LE_3oq0pUEYZl4e2Clcf7dJLcUKugiT2Okp24SwbHQ6brmBBuKbp2p641KYy9GXFe/s1600/Northumberland+2011+057.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4UTyo3kzGytmnyoRVBhNfxS34GkIa2VTR1gxRGzgvQE7GwRGvlNh23Bi4aKjCGOMJGm4rdCbSqq8LE_3oq0pUEYZl4e2Clcf7dJLcUKugiT2Okp24SwbHQ6brmBBuKbp2p641KYy9GXFe/s400/Northumberland+2011+057.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627290821304479170" /></a><br />The view of one monad, Lumsdon Law from another, Hungry Law. near Catcleugh<br /><br />In the last couple of days I revisted the Bee Orchids at the Royal Keys. The old sewage works is perhaps the best brown-field site in Northumberland. It hasn’t been surveyed thoroughly but contains at least 200 species including musk thistle, yellow-sedge, delicate stonewort and even common cottongrass, which is practically extinct in the south-east of the county.<br /><br />Last, but not least, I found a small patch of grass vetchling (Lathyrus nissolia) in a monad near Amble. It is an elegant plant, which is practically invisible amongst grass, were it not for it flowers. It has been moving northward in the country, perhaps as a contaminant of grass seed.<br /><br />Well, it isn’t easy fitting a year’s worth of recording into a long week but I did my best. I will now look forward to next year and ponder over what I might find then.<br /><br />Quentin GroomJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-55556413781514253482010-11-28T09:36:00.000-08:002010-11-28T10:02:56.291-08:00Schedule 9 invasive plant identifcation course<strong>And now there are 40!</strong><br /><br />Until April 2010, there were only 2 non-native invasive plant species that ecologists doing site surveys for developers really had to worry about finding - Japanese knotweed and giant hogweed. But now 38 species have been added to schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, for which it is a criminal offence to cause to grow in the wild. <br /><br />Many are rare and easy enough to recognise, but a few are widespread and tricky plants to identify. I have been persuaded to run an id- course on the whole lot, in one day. This is ambitious! But I think it is needed. Ecologists are the professionals that clients will rely on to survey for these plants - and unless you want to bring in an experienced botanist on every Phase 1 survey, you need to at least know what to look out for.<br /><br />See <strong>www.ptyxis.com </strong>for details (on a downloadable flyer on our front page news section) ; or email me clare@ptyxis.comJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-38864810119762514992010-11-28T08:57:00.000-08:002010-11-28T09:22:03.813-08:00Grass Identification Course makeover!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpyhrh4dd-4s4op1eG7sMx_LP7IAWFSoqRwxeipTe4w4Pe-wtjFFGg9gDgv7KvTAm5Yr4q3OYVDqJ_X9C8gl4FvGWF40rfcIcgAjaFsHM_lDspIOqUnrZ8JIpzi3kdSq6YYnW6AICrPb-/s1600/helictotrichon+pubescens2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpyhrh4dd-4s4op1eG7sMx_LP7IAWFSoqRwxeipTe4w4Pe-wtjFFGg9gDgv7KvTAm5Yr4q3OYVDqJ_X9C8gl4FvGWF40rfcIcgAjaFsHM_lDspIOqUnrZ8JIpzi3kdSq6YYnW6AICrPb-/s400/helictotrichon+pubescens2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544647168627350402" /></a><br /><br /><strong>Get Going with Grasses!</strong><br /><br /><br />I have taught grass identification and ecology for 8 years now, and each year I keep on discovering better ways to help ecologists learn about the green stuff! <br /><br />The main problem is botanical keys : none are aimed at beginners or non-specialists, plus keying out can be tedious and time-consuming. But then recognsing species by jizz and learning by rote on a guided walk-and-talk doesn't really do the job either - you need a tool to enable you to identify unknown grasses on your own.<br /><br />So for 2011 I have written an innovative, comprehensive vegetative key to British native grasses and all the widespread non-natives that you are likely to come across. This key is unlike anything else out there, as it bridges the gap between the academic floras and picture books. I plan to publish it eventually, but until then you can get a copy and learn how to use it on one of my grass courses.<br /><br />Why vegetative grasses? Well, this is by far the easiest place to start grass identification, as the parts of the plant are easy to see; grass flowers are made up of tiny scales that you cannot really see, count or measure without magnification - and measuring their bits is really too fiddly in the field! <br /><br />Botanists rarely use keys to identify grasses during site surveys - mostly we use a combination of both vegetative characters and features of the flower, keying out as it were, in our heads. You can learn to do this too!!<br /><br />Course details are on my website www.ptyxis.com/training.html or email me clare@ptyxis.com<br /><br />ClareJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-63367550627392124942010-10-31T06:46:00.000-07:002010-11-28T08:57:16.052-08:00Looking for a plant identification, botany or habitat survey training course?We are running a programme of plant identification courses aimed at professional ecologists and interested volunteers again in 2011. See www.ptyxis.com/training.html or email us on enquiries@ptyxis.com for a Booking Form & prices. Our courses are the same price as most ecology CPD, at between £60 and £80 a day (no VAT).<br /><br />Our courses include:<br />•Phase 1 Habitat Survey<br />•Grasses, Sedges & Rushes for Phase 1 Habitat Survey<br />•Identifying Invasive Plants on the New Schedule 9 List<br />•Using the Wild Flower Key: Botany for beginners & the top 10 plant families <br />•Identifying Grass Indicator Species in Flower<br />•Advanced Grasses<br />•Plant Indicator Species for Phase 1 Habitat Survey <br />•Introduction to Aquatic Plants <br />•Sphagnum Identification & Ecology<br />•Introduction to Bryophytes as Indicator Species<br /><br />There are still few organisations offering this type of botanical CPD training in the UK. Many are unaccrediated courses, which means that the quality of the teaching is not independently monitored. This is probably OK if the tutors involved have their work regularly checked anyway as they teach for universities or colleges or other awarding bodies with QA processes, but many courses never mention who is actually doing the teaching - and if they do, few state that their teaching is independently assessed. Being a professional ecologist does not mean that you know how to teach professionally! Professional teachers have to do CPD, just like ecologists, so they should be striving to improve their courses and, for example, have evidence to show that they can cater for mixed abilities in their groups. <br /> <br />It is also important to realise that attending an identification course is a great start, but that you need to practice regularly (by which I mean at least once a week, every week over the summer season) to retain and develop the skill....so as with any field of expertise, it helps if you <em>really</em> love the subject (and being outdoors)!<br /><br />ClareJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-4776083224231792902010-10-31T02:23:00.000-07:002010-11-02T02:14:23.208-07:00Hybrid thistleA local botanist, Phill Brown, found this strange looking thistle about 2 or 3 miles from where we live<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjac5_G9xZ96ffrdDq4jlhTPDJP_fgT0YehM83LeSQiPuenVhlbuZVOMpff8eWfCgyqo3gP0_HFT3aIYTa8JV-Cofw9XBoQ58TpU1nTSk6uj-ptAZon4vUv2NYocKBqt8dioyd2O5WuKnYq/s1600/cirsium+x+wankelii3.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjac5_G9xZ96ffrdDq4jlhTPDJP_fgT0YehM83LeSQiPuenVhlbuZVOMpff8eWfCgyqo3gP0_HFT3aIYTa8JV-Cofw9XBoQ58TpU1nTSk6uj-ptAZon4vUv2NYocKBqt8dioyd2O5WuKnYq/s400/cirsium+x+wankelii3.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534139116858625714" /></a><br />You can see that it is quite a robust plant, with large, fairly flat leaves that are deeply lobed.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdV5lT96Opk6VV_IefjsV_KZWNKwGYmOWGZ08o2Oa4JenkyaBGakhWUIBwlWO1azZG6WK1XwjhwHtffbKxFuWnRFH7jsfk97K03V9LxujgAFaM2m5s9Ybc_13CEirQ7nPJhhOGvfdZHXSy/s1600/cirsium+x+wankelii5.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdV5lT96Opk6VV_IefjsV_KZWNKwGYmOWGZ08o2Oa4JenkyaBGakhWUIBwlWO1azZG6WK1XwjhwHtffbKxFuWnRFH7jsfk97K03V9LxujgAFaM2m5s9Ybc_13CEirQ7nPJhhOGvfdZHXSy/s400/cirsium+x+wankelii5.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534139120676253282" /></a><br />The inflorescence is similar to melancholy thistle <em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em>, but perhaps a bit narrower than normal. The top of the stem has no spines and only weak ridges or wings, which also almost fits with <em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em>. It would have no ridges on the stem at all. This is a character not found in most other British thistles.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisz1K8EeNGF60JLyYuoqY-6kYWoEpt-Th52UEJOL2SrEqVHnj78Ev8e8AWsUXIrdD5gVX6UrQl701jgRv0GGPFvXSyVyGCAldC7scA_MIzWxJgJcwF2khtJhP_k4YW1wWHsyjjJ4f88k-c/s1600/cirsium+x+wankelii8.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisz1K8EeNGF60JLyYuoqY-6kYWoEpt-Th52UEJOL2SrEqVHnj78Ev8e8AWsUXIrdD5gVX6UrQl701jgRv0GGPFvXSyVyGCAldC7scA_MIzWxJgJcwF2khtJhP_k4YW1wWHsyjjJ4f88k-c/s400/cirsium+x+wankelii8.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534140515307668594" /></a><br />The word 'heterophyllum' means variable leaves and <em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em> can have both unlobed leaves or lobed leaves like these. The dense cottony underside to the leaves is also a <em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em> characteristic.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPyC1D1fqLGReEp0CIbQD18Duy80PLmPuBLFPd-x0iNeAj0IOdqEKVoHipUj4WLXx7T3uO2JXf3Ia7n_pzkZMDxk5Z0_FHxpKtw-wPcPlGvt_KqWZSMm4ZvB5I6PE5JZDpf38-Lt-mm6cA/s1600/cirsium+x+wankelii1.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPyC1D1fqLGReEp0CIbQD18Duy80PLmPuBLFPd-x0iNeAj0IOdqEKVoHipUj4WLXx7T3uO2JXf3Ia7n_pzkZMDxk5Z0_FHxpKtw-wPcPlGvt_KqWZSMm4ZvB5I6PE5JZDpf38-Lt-mm6cA/s400/cirsium+x+wankelii1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534140522275431618" /></a><br />However, the undulate (wavy) margin to the leaf with strong spines, does not fit with <em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em> and this photo shows a leaf resembling those from marsh thistle <em>Cirsium palustre</em>, but broader and more robust.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64meqjL09DRjUwpH0vRpbC4R0UnlxcU7sqOGCxtrN9FeD-GujU2fWYYaob6Q2wltZrpLPtwoWYOXiqoyYM4foZ5umqNU1GVyb69Rjbhyphenhyphen1Vg-rJKyWdrCX6zauCbnZcNxfmKUEjqIR0VWs/s1600/cirsium+x+wankelii10.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64meqjL09DRjUwpH0vRpbC4R0UnlxcU7sqOGCxtrN9FeD-GujU2fWYYaob6Q2wltZrpLPtwoWYOXiqoyYM4foZ5umqNU1GVyb69Rjbhyphenhyphen1Vg-rJKyWdrCX6zauCbnZcNxfmKUEjqIR0VWs/s400/cirsium+x+wankelii10.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534142502509400738" /></a><br />You can also see the undulate spiny margin on this more-or-less entire leaf from the same plant. <br /><br />Additional characters that fit with <em>Cirsium palustre</em> more than <em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em> include: height (<em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em> is normally shorter); well-spaced leaves along the stem; long branches; and shoots all from a single rosette (<em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em> normally has lots of vegetative growth about the base). In addition, the plant was pretty infertile with only 8 normal-looking seeds from 3 flower heads.<br /><br />Initially it was the overall 'odd' appearance of the plant, plus the combination of <em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em> type lower leaves and the degree and nature of the branching, that caught Phill's attention and caused him to suspect that he had found the (unfortunately named) hybrid between the two, <em>Cirsium</em> x <em>wankelii</em>. The combination of aditional characters from both <em>Cirsium heterophyllum</em> and <em>Cirsium palustre</em> listed above, helped Quentin Groom to confirm the identification. This is only the third record for this hybrid in England!<br /><br />That process of identifying a hybrid by assessing all of its characters and comparing them to possible parent plants, is typical of how hybrids have to be identified. Hybrid identification probably qualifies as a 'dark art'. Part of the trouble is that you can rarely fit hybrids neatly in to keys to species, as they are too variable. This variability is often due to back-crossing (i.e. hybrid plants crossing again with one of the parent species. This means you can get hybrid plants that are very close morphologically to either parent and other hybrid plants at stages in between the two extremes. That is just too much variability to accomodate in a dichotomous key usually. Where there is not so much back-crossing, it is usually less of a problem and genuinely intermediate plants are more common. An exception to this involves Roses which have an unusual way of inheriting genes from their parents (split 20-80, instead of the normal 50-50).<br /><br />Even without back-crossing, first generation hybrids are not necessarily intermediate in every character between the two parents. There are several reasons for this, e.g. some characters are associated with dominant and recessive genes, so the morphology in the hybrid plant will resemble the parent plant with the dominant gene entirely.<br /><br />As they can be so tricky to identify, it is often useful to collect some more information about the plant. What other species from the genus are growing nearby? If both potential parents are growing right next to the hybrid that is reassuring, but not absolutely necessary or conversely, not absolute proof in itself.<br /><br />Most hybrids are at least partially sterile and so at least some will not form viable seeds. Sterile seeds often look shrivelled and empty compared to viable ones. However sterility in hybrids can vary between 100% and 0%. For this character to be useful, you really need to have some knowledge and experience of what the normal range of sterility is for the particular hybrid that you are dealing with. This information is not included in popular books, so you need to have access to specialist texts, or to someone with a particular expertise in the group of plants you are dealing with.<br /><br />Hybrids often have some sterility in their pollen. This can be checked easily under the microscope by putting some pollen in stain. The viable pollen is usually coloured and full, whereas the sterile pollen appears shrivelled and colourless. You simple count how many of each type you have and from that work out the percentage fertility. Again for the results to be meaningful, you need to have some experience with the particular hybrids.<br /><br />On top of all of that, of course, sterility can be caused by environmental factors, so just because you have some sterility, does not mean necessarily that it is a hybrid! <br /><br />This all sounds complicated, but it is really a simplified account of some of the factors you consider with hybrids. It is no wonder that most people interested in plants groan in despair at the mere mention of the word hybrid.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-83224943776599349052010-10-25T06:58:00.000-07:002010-10-25T07:38:39.416-07:00H21aThis year I have been busy doing a big upland National Vegetetion Classification (NVC) survey on a site near where I live, covering about 3,000ha. Its been really hard work doing such a large survey by myself, but at last, I've nearly finished it!<br /><br />My favourite habitat on the site is labelled as 'H21a' in the NVC. This is a habitat that is easy to recognise - heather and/or other dwarf shrubs, with <em>Sphagnum </em> beneath and no hare's-tail cottongrass. Around here, it usually occurs on steep (c. 45 degrees) north-facing slopes.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVGr3MgxrvYPB4hno66KfBzWUyeyxDivUTW3EMcQbveoQ5V7Kd36le-TIYGTVIj0ZfM3D7qkMnpn1_fNe0lCWnbEf01YxdmJ8pVeysSLJ5DQMpqcM6XE2qTW4sC_aUxTbj1_Ag66ALGeXQ/s1600/H21a+Howgill1.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVGr3MgxrvYPB4hno66KfBzWUyeyxDivUTW3EMcQbveoQ5V7Kd36le-TIYGTVIj0ZfM3D7qkMnpn1_fNe0lCWnbEf01YxdmJ8pVeysSLJ5DQMpqcM6XE2qTW4sC_aUxTbj1_Ag66ALGeXQ/s400/H21a+Howgill1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531992433469305730" /></a><br />This is a very nice example of the habitat on a very steep (>50 degrees) slope. As the site is right on the north edge of the Pennines, there are lots of steep north-facing slopes. But you find it throughout the North Pennines, particularly in narrow strips along the north side of east to west stream valleys.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS_ejsga6TQTM2bluXpazh5_Ij5VYiN3uzDig9HUMKuZ-tqkrokEX4EQWMnHGaQUubWACTevl_k_j7WCq9JDIQuC5u9QJerKDvw1Hv2m2uEYysq__eSXh_nIy69rFV4szPIkPhZKa1o-kw/s1600/H21a+Howgill3.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS_ejsga6TQTM2bluXpazh5_Ij5VYiN3uzDig9HUMKuZ-tqkrokEX4EQWMnHGaQUubWACTevl_k_j7WCq9JDIQuC5u9QJerKDvw1Hv2m2uEYysq__eSXh_nIy69rFV4szPIkPhZKa1o-kw/s400/H21a+Howgill3.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531985081530626754" /></a><br />Here is a close-up showing some red <em>Sphagnum</em> in amongst the dwarf shrubs. You can get 4 red <em>Sphagnum</em> species from Section Acutifolia in this habitat - <em>capillifolium</em>, <em>russowii</em>, <em>subnitens</em> and <em>quinquefarium</em>. This is more or less the only habitat that <em>S. quinquefarium</em> grows in around here.<br /><br />I suspect that this habitat is often overlooked in the Pennines for several reasons: it often occurs in strips of habitat that are too narrow to map; it occurs on steep slopes that are more difficult to walk along than the more gentle slopes on the top, which are usually covered by blanket bog; it looks superficially similar to blanket bog, just lacking any hare's-tail cottongrass; and all habitats with prominent bryophytes are overlooked and misunderstood, as most surveyors can't identify any bryophytes.<br /><br />The shots aove show a very open sward of dwarf shrubs, but more usually there is a thick sward of dense heather with patches of Sphagnum here and there. Sometimes (on grazed sites) you get a lower sward with bare patches. It is always worth looking closely at these areas as here you often find locally or regionally uncommon liverworts. Recently, I have found <em>Barbilophozia atlantica</em>, <em>Kurzia trichoclados</em> and <em>Lophozia incisa</em> in patches of this habitat.<br /><br />In the north and west of Scotland, whole hillsides can be covered with this habitat and the best spots have H21b, which is a version of the habitat that is much richer in liverworts. Not only are liverworts abundant in H21b, but there are usually rare oceanic species included. This is what bryologists refer to as the 'Northern hepatic mat'. Along with atlantic temperate rain forest, H21b is probably one of the most special habitats in Britain as there is more of it here than anywhere else in the world. In the North Pennines. although we get some interesting liverworts in H21a, it would be stretching it too far to refer to this as a 'hepatic mat', as there are usually only small patches of liverworts in our examples.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-23190818689186750192010-10-25T06:33:00.000-07:002010-10-25T06:48:54.835-07:00New things to look out for in the autumnQuentin Groom sends the following pictures and text about Conyzas:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdQgGtAsySSqHxgWp_Ui1u6FJIH3Gjh9Sz2Aq0cbh_mef3lL-C4ITOfQ-H80iV55VI9gfra51u-7jKcWGJabZucFcdkWz5puYTO8ELc_lFBZ0vb-Ij3pdRoPAcj7_T8ZCxaATCsHuWQYoW/s1600/Conyza+canadensis.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdQgGtAsySSqHxgWp_Ui1u6FJIH3Gjh9Sz2Aq0cbh_mef3lL-C4ITOfQ-H80iV55VI9gfra51u-7jKcWGJabZucFcdkWz5puYTO8ELc_lFBZ0vb-Ij3pdRoPAcj7_T8ZCxaATCsHuWQYoW/s400/Conyza+canadensis.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531977892812224706" /></a><br />Conyza canadensis (Canadian Fleabane) first established in the North-east in the 1990s and is now well established in Newcastle, Gateshead and Hexham.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjckP_Fs63mTJzw12RUWvqrfrPEJBAJOp0ZniMa_REg5XMm4HFhlZhgypBBqcCyDw-XJNIEfKK1NlrDApHgueIXi6Wtx8IkXxTF-EaK7YezNofJYVdgxivS6Ezg3BMvproBX5C2brVOxT7/s1600/Conyza+canadensis2.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjckP_Fs63mTJzw12RUWvqrfrPEJBAJOp0ZniMa_REg5XMm4HFhlZhgypBBqcCyDw-XJNIEfKK1NlrDApHgueIXi6Wtx8IkXxTF-EaK7YezNofJYVdgxivS6Ezg3BMvproBX5C2brVOxT7/s400/Conyza+canadensis2.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531977882820746946" /></a><br />Close-up of C. canadensis infloresence.<br /> <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ubLW2i0iKnMu9K6AbXnh5N_N1AIt5eGLGKO6c8qFdw_-mxHyI6kH04ebSbG6CSWwsSZGLEXbygFSXoOkBYMXyBN-yrLhrToTi659ud6qctn0ZwjJMfUAXjQCjMrrptBmIdX2zNdqYXlU/s1600/Conyza+sumatrensis.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 363px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ubLW2i0iKnMu9K6AbXnh5N_N1AIt5eGLGKO6c8qFdw_-mxHyI6kH04ebSbG6CSWwsSZGLEXbygFSXoOkBYMXyBN-yrLhrToTi659ud6qctn0ZwjJMfUAXjQCjMrrptBmIdX2zNdqYXlU/s400/Conyza+sumatrensis.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531978830061491778" /></a><br />Its taller, hairy cousin C. sumatrensis (Guernsey Fleabane) has become established around the station in Newcastle over the past two years.<br /><br /> <br />Both look similar, but C. sumatrensis is distinguished by having much hairier flower heads and a distinctly cone-shaped inflorescence. C. canadensis has hairless or slightly hairy flower heads and a columnar inflorescence. The shape of the inflorescence is a difficult character to grasp, until you have seen it in the field. However, once you’ve got used to it, it allows you to spot each species at a distance.<br /><br /> <br />Both species are urbanophytes and they grow in pavement cracks, walls, gutters and other microhabitats of the urban landscape. They are expected to increase!<br /><br />Quentin<br /><br />PS. I first started botanising seriously when I lived in London in the late 1990's. By that time C. sumatrensis had become probably the most common plant in Central London even though it had not been recorded at all when Rodney Burton's 'Flora of the London Area' was published in 1983.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-88868160476923818372010-03-26T02:21:00.000-07:002010-03-26T03:20:28.891-07:00Epiphytes on the moveI always like to find Frullania species when I'm out bryologising. Both Frullania dilatata and Frullania tamarisci are fairly common species. I just like the colour.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilrjm6qKvUrNPVk2lCFX_-V58BTUM2vbawXPvbhpcAtwtBozOmzrjk6_TJBwX63h_0yP_sRmlWD0qwojFJKtcm0c2uIj3uIZmpf1uP2F4Y6j7RsSHVJkMchDqeL4cubPKdWU6R2pubqWly/s1600/Frullania+tamarisci+Blakeman%27s+Law.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilrjm6qKvUrNPVk2lCFX_-V58BTUM2vbawXPvbhpcAtwtBozOmzrjk6_TJBwX63h_0yP_sRmlWD0qwojFJKtcm0c2uIj3uIZmpf1uP2F4Y6j7RsSHVJkMchDqeL4cubPKdWU6R2pubqWly/s400/Frullania+tamarisci+Blakeman%27s+Law.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452871308573351874" /></a><br />Frullania tamarsci near Blakeman's Law<br /><br />In North-east England, most bryophyte epiphytes become more common the further west you go. Areas with high rainfall, especially sheltered, humid gorges are generally the best places. Many species are also sensitive to certain types of air pollution and as a result large areas of eastern England have lost most of their epiphytes. Nowadays the air is no longer polluted from as much coal-burning as it was in the past. It has taken a few decades for epiphytes to recolonise formerly heavily polluted areas, but in the last 10 years or so several species have begun to recolonise eastern areas at a dramatic rate.<br /><br />In the south-east of England and East Anglia, this phenomenon has been fairly well studied and documented, as there are quite a few active bryologists down there. Up here, we have more bryophytes but bryologists are very thin on the ground and recent recording has been so patchy that we just don't know yet which species are recolonising and how fast. It seems like some of the species showing the greatest recent increases in the south are not so prominent here, at least yet. On the other hand we probably have other species that are recolonising our area, that are still rare in the south.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ROoGW4KWkHEs7-hKsqxo_A0AQbSC4zgPuRvb9Un-1gJcDWC8s9QBr7mlK39YZiCVV9N54eicwaKJ1k_y2qD9s5nuVEu4M0WLZl138D8SwWZ79QEP6ZHaQ-pfFmiItv0Vvw3GlUSlEpvt/s1600/ulota+phyllantha+brown+hill.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ROoGW4KWkHEs7-hKsqxo_A0AQbSC4zgPuRvb9Un-1gJcDWC8s9QBr7mlK39YZiCVV9N54eicwaKJ1k_y2qD9s5nuVEu4M0WLZl138D8SwWZ79QEP6ZHaQ-pfFmiItv0Vvw3GlUSlEpvt/s400/ulota+phyllantha+brown+hill.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452873062795335442" /></a><br />Ulota phyllantha at Brown Hill<br /><br />About 10 days ago I found lots of Ulota phyllantha on willows and rowans in a sheltered valley within Kielder Forest south of Stonehaugh. This is quite uncommon in Northumberland, but I found it on lots of trees in various places within about a mile of where I took the picture. I've no idea if it has been there a long time or if it has recently recolonised. Andy McLay recently found it in Co Durham - the first record there for over 100 years. I told him I wouldn't be surprised if he found some more and a couple of days later he found some at another site.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM6GdIyPlmgxRsxMTfSgTF1nTxYPJHvj1X540z65lnJuiD-s-myL_JoQRr-aLVE3T9Ld0DI0J_hNEs_jYa7dkKW9zWxnZdpXUJhMXEn1pFYdszKuUwyE2yWvv-PS5d8UB6xOYBd146KDHy/s1600/orthotrichum+pulchellum+brown+hill1.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM6GdIyPlmgxRsxMTfSgTF1nTxYPJHvj1X540z65lnJuiD-s-myL_JoQRr-aLVE3T9Ld0DI0J_hNEs_jYa7dkKW9zWxnZdpXUJhMXEn1pFYdszKuUwyE2yWvv-PS5d8UB6xOYBd146KDHy/s400/orthotrichum+pulchellum+brown+hill1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452873065015172402" /></a><br />Orthotrichum pulchellum at Brown Hill<br /><br />Orthotrichum pulchellum is one of the species in the south that has shown a big recent increase. I've been puzzled why we haven't found more of it up here. There was a big population of it on about 5 or 6 trees in the same valley south of Stonehaugh. For an Orthotrichum it is quite distinctive: it is the only one whose leaves curl up when they are dry; it has a very neat overall appearance; it is always quite small; the base of the calyptra usually has dark dots all round it; and the peristome theeth are orange.<br /><br />Hopefully it will start turning up now in some other new sites.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-72975577170680795692009-08-12T15:12:00.000-07:002009-08-12T15:40:26.379-07:00More Teesdale surveysWe finally got a relatively dry week up here so the farmers in Upper teesdale have all been busy 'hay timing'. Although sadly for the hay meadows (but not for the farmers) they mostly make haylage rather than hay nowadays, as you can see from the bales wrapped in plastic. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrFpcz9rSux_UKUkb3aKgi0-lJLzi9iGl_dJVGMAm8iH_fTBNhyyEnmWh5lBdx6iJixl6R5294qUcNqJCH2dLtDuEnIUP8_m3wqx9_mCRj_q4_m_O_iAFBgkcSm5H2goajLn5eLwRVy3eG/s1600-h/teesdale+at+hay+time.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrFpcz9rSux_UKUkb3aKgi0-lJLzi9iGl_dJVGMAm8iH_fTBNhyyEnmWh5lBdx6iJixl6R5294qUcNqJCH2dLtDuEnIUP8_m3wqx9_mCRj_q4_m_O_iAFBgkcSm5H2goajLn5eLwRVy3eG/s400/teesdale+at+hay+time.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369205089458293426" /></a><br /><br />The hill in the background of this shot has one of the biggest juniper woods in the country.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU_iNhLqISzRsnwKLtpoO3EBIdAJb63IHcC0Ou0S1oB31_XUYryHcUs5m8fuy7NS9GP7ImoWBhvGxv_u603kLq8EUZeDZoAioVVwp81MHrIvAlcXUwKcXhE0KJpBmyK9jSebY9KOczqAZf/s1600-h/teesdale+juniper+forest.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU_iNhLqISzRsnwKLtpoO3EBIdAJb63IHcC0Ou0S1oB31_XUYryHcUs5m8fuy7NS9GP7ImoWBhvGxv_u603kLq8EUZeDZoAioVVwp81MHrIvAlcXUwKcXhE0KJpBmyK9jSebY9KOczqAZf/s400/teesdale+juniper+forest.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369205463044000002" /></a><br /><br />Here are some plants from today from a remarkably species-rich habitat along Sand Sike. The habitat was unusual (at least to me) so I did a quadrat (recorded all of the species in a 2m x 2m square). I got 58 species including several rare arctic alpine species! In NVC terminology the habitat is CG10c, which is rare in Britain and mainly occurs in the Breadalbanes in Perthshire. It must be extremely rare in England.<br /><br />Tofieldia pusilla (Scottish asphodel) is a very attractive little plant but very easy to miss as you can see from the size of it's fully-grown leaves here.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY2rcJ25NA1aIYJ9J9HY7DEENY3h7gCqxA1_scOtXttJvseSpnHw6BNJFio56kzRngA1ArR1_1SHvlCe-UwXkxpQFdDu3vUzKE8xvQs5YcdZFhl58auxV1jbHDvF7jJgLq08ICVXE1Uq1O/s1600-h/tofieldia+pusilla+leaves+sand+sike.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY2rcJ25NA1aIYJ9J9HY7DEENY3h7gCqxA1_scOtXttJvseSpnHw6BNJFio56kzRngA1ArR1_1SHvlCe-UwXkxpQFdDu3vUzKE8xvQs5YcdZFhl58auxV1jbHDvF7jJgLq08ICVXE1Uq1O/s400/tofieldia+pusilla+leaves+sand+sike.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369206940002692146" /></a><br /><br />Here's a big clump of it with 3 plants in flower which makes spotting it a bit easier, but not much!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiex9QGezvMTkyq-CZPZnxLEiDlZOZBH-BPva-f4_QbYCDG4YRs7fccyHFJ-shUcfFyLW2nYgoEaxwl9S-xPh01hkt9FU-P7D-8ryzQLJHnnJbGa48_3Sr3zIiZ9D9cFL_5lSwJma5DTPfG/s1600-h/tofieldia+pusilla+sand+sike.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiex9QGezvMTkyq-CZPZnxLEiDlZOZBH-BPva-f4_QbYCDG4YRs7fccyHFJ-shUcfFyLW2nYgoEaxwl9S-xPh01hkt9FU-P7D-8ryzQLJHnnJbGa48_3Sr3zIiZ9D9cFL_5lSwJma5DTPfG/s400/tofieldia+pusilla+sand+sike.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369207616684293698" /></a><br /><br />We've had Blysmus compressus (flat sedge) before (see entry for 3 July 2008). There were thousands of plants along the sike today.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPfcV7wqpyAFu4B_j7fx9pgy2Id2ysB8PiEZblkOJkMTmQOvLM8nG2ebpfluzepTgdEPU-U_H9eCQluMEIjHiUmKatlOx1bptgat-kDF0H1o4aEm-6297i39WFp4Nd0ffrgnEyiCCHZQc/s1600-h/blysmus+compressus+sand+sike.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPfcV7wqpyAFu4B_j7fx9pgy2Id2ysB8PiEZblkOJkMTmQOvLM8nG2ebpfluzepTgdEPU-U_H9eCQluMEIjHiUmKatlOx1bptgat-kDF0H1o4aEm-6297i39WFp4Nd0ffrgnEyiCCHZQc/s400/blysmus+compressus+sand+sike.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369208661482619346" /></a><br /><br />There were also lots of plants of Parnassia palustris (grass-of-Parnassus) which has just started coming into flower in the last week or so.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14AghYsW9BInXzsuDolSuRIIZJKyojMdOKKojqlobqig06lwGI6kmvROBOo1PhMJdWNgbcmMawSsLpV5CPKOAwkmj-ELkVqH6flzi8tNqpdcUAQKoMTQ60V5AmxLCyvIszNfsaXBQXp5O/s1600-h/parnassia+palustris+sand+sike.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14AghYsW9BInXzsuDolSuRIIZJKyojMdOKKojqlobqig06lwGI6kmvROBOo1PhMJdWNgbcmMawSsLpV5CPKOAwkmj-ELkVqH6flzi8tNqpdcUAQKoMTQ60V5AmxLCyvIszNfsaXBQXp5O/s400/parnassia+palustris+sand+sike.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369209375640587218" /></a><br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-23243419083550772282009-08-08T01:14:00.000-07:002009-08-09T00:07:31.265-07:00What happened to the summer?It has been nearly 4 months since our last blog. First we had computer problems back in April and all of our blog pictures dissappeared. It took ages to put them back on again and there were some we couldn't re-find. So I was a bit fed up with the blog for a while, but we're friends again now. Since then I have been flat out working. I went freelance at the end of April and for much of the summer I have been surveying 10 farms in upper Teesdale, doing condition assessments of their SSSI 'interest features' and completing 'Farm Environment Plans' to guide new 10 year management agreements under the 'Higher Level Stewardship' scheme.<br /><br />This has been a very interesting area to study in such detail. Upper Teesdale is well known for it's colourful flowery habitats. The riverbanks along the Tees and the Harwood Beck are particularly colourful and herb-rich.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDW6dLftQAmUEitaMLs5NYv2y9_cIN_hhexFT9gxXDgFxPdpioFRsTmvNS949g6DykKDvk8LK-JvikHRK7dfXzsWMMRxAGp16a47_4O1_vvGVoRj_2gSAiWeKHlKz61WP_XMeTKUcO6fm3/s1600-h/flowery+riverbank+near+saur+hill+bridge,+teesdale.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDW6dLftQAmUEitaMLs5NYv2y9_cIN_hhexFT9gxXDgFxPdpioFRsTmvNS949g6DykKDvk8LK-JvikHRK7dfXzsWMMRxAGp16a47_4O1_vvGVoRj_2gSAiWeKHlKz61WP_XMeTKUcO6fm3/s400/flowery+riverbank+near+saur+hill+bridge,+teesdale.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5367505339473581090" /></a><br /><br />But of course Teesdale is also particularly famous for its rare plants and rare habitats. Bird's-eye primrose is an easy one to spot when it is in flower. This is a highly localised plant in Britain, being more or less confined to Cumbria, Durham and Yorkshire. It is quite abundant in some places in upper Teesdale.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPWHXQtFMxfuD-54yaPFd4OkKi_G_S8Oou16WlpLrE15IFzqj5B2hyE6ve4zV0Zh6gse2xsw6VbgdrA9ayt81TDKWN2SwyiP0P5umHxD0AMDpmhQj6QGN4AKvi4PSOkZWXb0CC-_zusz2Z/s1600-h/primula+farinosa+sayer+hill.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPWHXQtFMxfuD-54yaPFd4OkKi_G_S8Oou16WlpLrE15IFzqj5B2hyE6ve4zV0Zh6gse2xsw6VbgdrA9ayt81TDKWN2SwyiP0P5umHxD0AMDpmhQj6QGN4AKvi4PSOkZWXb0CC-_zusz2Z/s400/primula+farinosa+sayer+hill.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5367506922601781762" /></a><br /><br />Much rarer in England is false sedge Kobresia simpiciuscula, which otherwise is confined to parts of the Scottish highlands in Britain.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFuXZNlS8cPlHrNH0540XTQBHxG2s0mrsjH89A77TrYlBu7s1UmJI1qXknN-cj5pVZtwbmqUtTiQknHMKkiy0UR5XOdax77oQ42pOGx3Ot89bl7QYxvOplj9iCuvcbcRTPBJDaOgxL-RUk/s1600-h/kobresia+simpliciuscula+sayer+hill.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFuXZNlS8cPlHrNH0540XTQBHxG2s0mrsjH89A77TrYlBu7s1UmJI1qXknN-cj5pVZtwbmqUtTiQknHMKkiy0UR5XOdax77oQ42pOGx3Ot89bl7QYxvOplj9iCuvcbcRTPBJDaOgxL-RUk/s400/kobresia+simpliciuscula+sayer+hill.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5367853557877325730" /></a> Both of these plants occur in species-rich calcareous flushes (M10) in upper Teesdale, often with other rarities like Scottish asphodel, variegated horsetail and alpine rush and with other nice plants or 'axiophytes' like grass-of-Parnassus, tawny sedge, marsh arrowgrass, common butterwort and lesser clubmoss. <br /><br />However many of these typical 'calcareous flush' plants grow in other types of species-rich vegetation in Upper Teesdale including U5c, CG10b, CG10c, M26b and various types of vegetation transitional between M10 and something else, including especially M23a. In many parts of the Upper Teesdale SSSI different habitats with these species have been incorrectly identified in the past by English Nature staff who tended to always label the habitat as M10 whenever they encountered these species. This has made my job of assessing changes in the habitat difficult as in many cases I find the species, but a habitat other than a calcareous flush at the point marked on the map. It is often difficult to work out if the habitat has genuinely changed since it was last assessed or if the habitat was mis-identified before.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-84300990606568550722009-04-18T12:13:00.000-07:002009-04-19T08:25:36.961-07:00The colours of spring - mosses and flowersSeems like we've been waiting a long time for spring in Northumberland. It sort of seems to be happening now. If I didn't know any better I could even have been tempted to say it was warm today. Here are a few random pictures from recent botany trips.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYzBYC0SLSvq8IYFwdcwtCWPWYDcv2kU7cUnxsyrdKv3xWtslh9hSN99fs9hBfYRBpruXnNdyIzMHJoa_pUEzR2xvvUHd39UNnbyEXb-q4Ijbt3DV3KmwN6zE9iOFs1M2jizY-CnhashNk/s1600-h/Ceratodon+purpureus+plenmeller+common.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYzBYC0SLSvq8IYFwdcwtCWPWYDcv2kU7cUnxsyrdKv3xWtslh9hSN99fs9hBfYRBpruXnNdyIzMHJoa_pUEzR2xvvUHd39UNnbyEXb-q4Ijbt3DV3KmwN6zE9iOFs1M2jizY-CnhashNk/s400/Ceratodon+purpureus+plenmeller+common.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326112954387507602" /></a>Ceratodon purpureus is a very common species but a colourful sight when it is in fruit. Many mosses fruit in spring before the vascular plant growing season gets going.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhISjUFMy2D2HmWF-dZyFdTTcHXt6c1bq8O1B6dE2hYtEccdjFWqdZbgkeRsxEAilGeMavvNDgKmiw5eeFQy60dOQNZfa2FtPau05qTNrK2MBevgdtKYIiOavr2XFJ53-t_G4I3g39JvMV5/s1600-h/ceratodon+purpureus+close-up+plenmeller+common.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhISjUFMy2D2HmWF-dZyFdTTcHXt6c1bq8O1B6dE2hYtEccdjFWqdZbgkeRsxEAilGeMavvNDgKmiw5eeFQy60dOQNZfa2FtPau05qTNrK2MBevgdtKYIiOavr2XFJ53-t_G4I3g39JvMV5/s400/ceratodon+purpureus+close-up+plenmeller+common.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326112959273029778" /></a>If you zoom in and look closely you should be able to see the 'struma' just below the capsules on at least some stalks. A struma is a bump on one side of the top of the seta (stalk) just below the capsule, that looks a bit like an Adam's apple.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRrKseNqbf1Q3zW9ksOvuu6G6-0h-g0P5rSIDNblTSYQVSSZQOlIxeTqJPxfzZw1OgCqcVoN0XdTx-C4oumZpmtkaQgoBcCK3pGAGxqIFZ4IaYz-_JHCs4PhLCgWJtxxCfBfcNdQPbScc1/s1600-h/mosses+on+sandy+river%27s+edge+at+Kirkhaugh.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRrKseNqbf1Q3zW9ksOvuu6G6-0h-g0P5rSIDNblTSYQVSSZQOlIxeTqJPxfzZw1OgCqcVoN0XdTx-C4oumZpmtkaQgoBcCK3pGAGxqIFZ4IaYz-_JHCs4PhLCgWJtxxCfBfcNdQPbScc1/s400/mosses+on+sandy+river%27s+edge+at+Kirkhaugh.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326114761917273666" /></a>Here is a colouful patch of mosses on a sandy edge of the River South Tyne, near where we live. The red one is <em>Bryum pallens</em> which is often frequent in places like this, which are contaminated with heavy metals from past mining activity. To the right of the top of the big red patch is a patch of yellow-green <em>Philonotis fontana</em>. The leaves of this species look opaque or matt compared to the green species to the right, which has shiny leaves. This 'matt' appearance usually means that the leaf surface has lots of tiny bumps on it so the light does not get reflected back off the surface. It took me about 5 years to be able to see the difference between matt and glossy leaves in the field, but now it seems straightforward, and I wonder why I couldn't see it before. It is a really useful character for field identification if you can spot the difference. The third species with the shinier green leaves and a hint of red underneath is <em>Bryum pseudotriquetrum</em> or <em>Bryum bimum</em>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEineGot0N6VD-r9tiq00GWDFZVZHOp3W0HAtAiflv75j3mUCO5wRRGG3mvbeWHQ4lHlHkBX3VQfz1GbQ1KW9qRPR3XAeVEfb8viXkgWDjIr89RFZC_A6tktPEj8KuUv1L48CPJe4RfX_VoV/s1600-h/elm+flower+close-up+Acomb.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEineGot0N6VD-r9tiq00GWDFZVZHOp3W0HAtAiflv75j3mUCO5wRRGG3mvbeWHQ4lHlHkBX3VQfz1GbQ1KW9qRPR3XAeVEfb8viXkgWDjIr89RFZC_A6tktPEj8KuUv1L48CPJe4RfX_VoV/s400/elm+flower+close-up+Acomb.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326116565288580578" /></a>Always nice to see elm flowers for various reasons. One of the first flowers of spring. Nice to see elms surviving, even if we don't have many large trees any more. And as it flowers at a time of year when I'm mainly looking for bryophytes, I like to see it as it is one of the best tree species for epiphytes.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Kv95V50jgnY1NXldTU3y6-CEKunKQN66xXe0t0VnuIV12xFCv3r2_VIfenOj-D4eMlgD5NnHP9g-OdsUsZeQNUiN8QNOzgwgOUHXw9s91PMue3frzYLYYYjJyENvXEhondVEzTcBWNSi/s1600-h/Viola+lutea+williamston.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Kv95V50jgnY1NXldTU3y6-CEKunKQN66xXe0t0VnuIV12xFCv3r2_VIfenOj-D4eMlgD5NnHP9g-OdsUsZeQNUiN8QNOzgwgOUHXw9s91PMue3frzYLYYYjJyENvXEhondVEzTcBWNSi/s400/Viola+lutea+williamston.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326117524835541122" /></a>These mountain pansies are from a heavy metal contaminated (Calaminarian) grassland by the river South Tyne. This is one of the special habitats of our area and a UK BAP habitat.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj49iRW440XsZb8-vLJq2-zeFRQt9oXHzMpXlssNLjZPyDcBLH_I2NvNv5XdzztrjZhciu27FqOFE-7z62W69JHeUsVzU-aEbey1q1NHy2xxd7zS725Jti1hMJr-R_YpPFC9k8BhFtLxaVp/s1600-h/Thlaspi+caerulescens+Williamston.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj49iRW440XsZb8-vLJq2-zeFRQt9oXHzMpXlssNLjZPyDcBLH_I2NvNv5XdzztrjZhciu27FqOFE-7z62W69JHeUsVzU-aEbey1q1NHy2xxd7zS725Jti1hMJr-R_YpPFC9k8BhFtLxaVp/s400/Thlaspi+caerulescens+Williamston.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326118024873707826" /></a>Alpine penny-cress is one of the specialities of this habitat and was also in full flower today (sorry for the rubbish photo). The two other special vascular plants you find here, spring sandwort and thrift, look like they are about to come into flower in the next few days. Apart from woodland ground flora, this habitat must be the most flowery habitat around this part of the world so early in the season. It should start to be at its best in about 2 weeks time.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-16553184128003371772009-02-05T09:59:00.000-08:002009-02-05T10:02:42.721-08:00Ptyxis makes the top 100!Got an email the other day saying we've been included in a list of the top 100 botanical blogs on an American website <a href="http://www.online-college-blog.com/index.php/uncategorized/top-100-botany-blogs/">http://www.online-college-blog.com/index.php/uncategorized/top-100-botany-blogs/</a>.<br /><br />There's quite a mixture of subjects covered by the other blogs including some bryophyte ones, which is good to see.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-80521705487305460462009-01-27T10:28:00.001-08:002009-03-26T10:22:40.055-07:00Blink and you'll miss it!On one of the wettest days of a very wet summer/autumn last year, I spent an afternoon looking for mosses and liverworts in Druridge Bay - see <a href="http://www.druridgebay.org.uk/">http://www.druridgebay.org.uk/</a>. This was part of the 'Bioblitz' event orgainsised by Northumberland BAP. When the weather is so foul it can be dispiriting doing this kind of thing and it was a real shame for the event, as it meant that (unsurprisingly) very few punters turned up.<br /><br />However, our dedication (or bonkersness) paid off as we found a very rare moss! <em>Aloina rigida</em> is a nationally scarce species that has never been recorded in Northumberland before. The map below (from the NBN website) gives an over optimistic impression of how common it is, as most of the dots relate to records made prior to 1950. So, not only is it scarce, it has also suffered a big decline in Britain. The next nearest previous records to Northumberland are near Edinburgh and in Durham where it has been seen twice, in 2001 and sometime before 1820!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ptyxis.com/uploaded_images/aloina-aloides-713518.bmp"><img style="WIDTH: 350px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 350px" alt="" src="http://www.ptyxis.com/uploaded_images/aloina-aloides-713497.bmp" border="0" /></a>Distribution of Aloina rigida in Britain & Ireland.<br /><br />As you can see very well from the picture below, it grows in bare, stony places. The picture is from Michael Luth's excellent CD called 'Bilder von Moosen' (pictures of mosses). Ok, where it grows is not actually 'bare', it is sparsely vegetated. These kind of very open habitats are undervalued but very interesting ecologically. Many specialist species of mosses, liverworts, lichens and invertebrates thrive in these areas. One of the few positive changes to nature conservation policy in recent years has been the recognition of these habitats now as UKBAP habitat, 'open mosaics on previously developed land' as they are now officially called.<br /><p><a href="http://www.ptyxis.com/uploaded_images/Aloina-rigida-792750.bmp"><img style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 299px" alt="" src="http://www.ptyxis.com/uploaded_images/Aloina-rigida-792666.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><br />If you ignore the stalk (seta) of the spore capsule, these plants grow to no more than about 2mm high, so they are not exactly 'showy'. They are also ephemeral in nature, adapted to be able to colonise new areas quickly and probably not lasting on sites for very long as they become more thickly vegetated. As the nearest recent populations are quite a distance away from Druridge Bay the spores that gave rise to the plants we found must have travelled a very long distance by wind to get there.</p><p>John</p><p> </p><a href="http://www.ptyxis.com/blog/uploaded_images/aloina-aloides-792584.bmp"></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div>John and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-66353909697710160812009-01-21T13:26:00.000-08:002009-04-05T07:31:25.358-07:00Winter budsOne of my most memorable experiences from when I was first leaning my botany was doing a 1-day training course on winter tree identification given by Nick Bertrand. Before then I had no idea that you could use characteristics of twigs (especially the buds) to identify trees in winter. I remember getting really enthused for botany after that and I also remember enjoying showing off what I had learned to my fellow MSc students in Oxleas Wood in SE London.<br /><br />Some of the characteristics that are useful are: shape of buds (rounded, pointed, conical, needle-like, etc.); number of bud scales; arrangement of buds on the twig (opposite, alternate, clustered); pattern of bud scales (opposite, herringbone, random); colour of buds (can either be very useful or very misleading!); shape of leaf scars; etc. Once you get familair with these characteristics it is fairly straightforward to identify most British species to Genus, although it is more tricky to go to species level in a couple of genera. In some ways, it is easier to identify trees in winter than at other times. Winter is a good time to do your first visit when surveying a woodland, as when the trees are naked it is much easier to assess the structural characteristic of the wood and see signs of past management. The most difficult time of year for tree identification is early spring between the time when buds start to elongate and young leaves are in the process of forming.<br /><br />Here are some pictures of buds from a few species that I took yesterday down the track from our house to show some of the variety.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5e8LZsDwb1VVDOaFGtfnvWPo3Ih-2vWQjm3GxFJwL2ciKd3U1Jae8701cjqgMiTIsuQ5GgKdpWxGGzIXriYTF9e-9hisEOSzvRrkbCis89chmxTfmgplO2PLPoZrmVRKn8_3yojiAmQUI/s1600-h/buds+-+ash.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5e8LZsDwb1VVDOaFGtfnvWPo3Ih-2vWQjm3GxFJwL2ciKd3U1Jae8701cjqgMiTIsuQ5GgKdpWxGGzIXriYTF9e-9hisEOSzvRrkbCis89chmxTfmgplO2PLPoZrmVRKn8_3yojiAmQUI/s400/buds+-+ash.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321212930502293490" /></a>Ash is probably the most easily recognised tree in winter. The large terminal buds are sooty-black and conical - nothing else has buds anything like this. Note that the lateral buds are much smaller and opposite.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4oyeSIlHHSALiMhn5HVBb9Yg2Rmr0AGhFjxiJdjlcS_9ZeYEth_b_i8fWMISo67eN__04IAp8MoWRdEtSH2nw3k48fkUQko-qSn74aZL6JsGAS1HL_nZiAZgxpIDGrBTPWE8Cd4QyxP-/s1600-h/buds+-+grey+willow.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4oyeSIlHHSALiMhn5HVBb9Yg2Rmr0AGhFjxiJdjlcS_9ZeYEth_b_i8fWMISo67eN__04IAp8MoWRdEtSH2nw3k48fkUQko-qSn74aZL6JsGAS1HL_nZiAZgxpIDGrBTPWE8Cd4QyxP-/s400/buds+-+grey+willow.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321213278793316114" /></a>Willow is the only genus that has buds with only one bud scale. Lime buds looks a bit similar but have two scales. The willow buds can vary quite a bit in colour (brownish-yellow, orangey, brownish-red or purplish) on different trees of the same species, at different times of year or even on the same tree. Apart from one or two species, the others are difficult to tell apart from the buds. Most willows have alternately arranged buds.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgliXGXnbHhQOKpgDGaEk_3yA3pSU2WzKtwNYkVTg_7FYF4e2Out3X1Xq6eOpZxHZx9cUwxlBEMm71bFuXarihUBc0p-XdUu-Q8RROhV_tYGP0UtPbvxa2UXJUaKKxMGXamkFjdqJwoW1DC/s1600-h/buds+-+hawthorn.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgliXGXnbHhQOKpgDGaEk_3yA3pSU2WzKtwNYkVTg_7FYF4e2Out3X1Xq6eOpZxHZx9cUwxlBEMm71bFuXarihUBc0p-XdUu-Q8RROhV_tYGP0UtPbvxa2UXJUaKKxMGXamkFjdqJwoW1DC/s400/buds+-+hawthorn.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321213486225840850" /></a>Hawthorn have quite small buds with very small leaf scars just underneath. When I was first learning, I used to find it very difficult to tell hawthorn and blackthorn apart from their bud and twig characteristics. Now I don't have any trouble at all telling them apart as I am used to their 'jizz', but if you were to ask me to describe the key difference for identification I would stuggle to put it into words.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ytPkLClxudUhyY-bhaG7K6xXN_rx0Y8gklpgS0DZyTwsFSH5kZtuUC85tffweTCJWyFXijVVBIvhg8jlHmTQkCsl45QI9D0QKurvuR1AaJoopZfAna_x3ZIkfZpdr9pJxrnbcyHmD_u8/s1600-h/buds+-+oak.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ytPkLClxudUhyY-bhaG7K6xXN_rx0Y8gklpgS0DZyTwsFSH5kZtuUC85tffweTCJWyFXijVVBIvhg8jlHmTQkCsl45QI9D0QKurvuR1AaJoopZfAna_x3ZIkfZpdr9pJxrnbcyHmD_u8/s400/buds+-+oak.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321213691475283634" /></a>Oaks have clusters to tan-coloured buds at the end of the twigs with lots of bud-scales, often arranged in a herringbone pattern. Beware, that some books and keys tell you that oaks are the only genus to have terminal clusters of buds, but wild cherry often does this also. You are supposed to be able to tell the 2 British species apart by counting the number of bud-scales but I have never tested this out to be able to tell if it works or not.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0W8NLECFYyt5_TnqvQty_CePJn30N8Pm3V3dxfp2U1Dx_fHPl6NPsA71Lvgh-g7ziQ3IupjaAOICeo4cexiF85XfMd6SYCrIINiTqdGQAlh0rXDgfeUyEhZNgrTTMWq_-D8xoYFLsIgU4/s1600-h/buds+-+alder.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0W8NLECFYyt5_TnqvQty_CePJn30N8Pm3V3dxfp2U1Dx_fHPl6NPsA71Lvgh-g7ziQ3IupjaAOICeo4cexiF85XfMd6SYCrIINiTqdGQAlh0rXDgfeUyEhZNgrTTMWq_-D8xoYFLsIgU4/s400/buds+-+alder.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321214796141722978" /></a>Alder buds are one of the most attractive. They have a unique puple colour with a floury bloom. The lateral buds are on short stalks which is unique amongst British species.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZTm-IhQ7jkfX0e0aTiaL4YE7RnvKO8BREClE37yZPGG_8y3yvgWBvVFntlW54vTz6BgQJUg4WYBIF7bXqyAmZ6PozmKN-Zy6ezKHSsYuPXizbIhbOLJHi6seEtCnjyq_8YBMVLr6JZmQ/s1600-h/Alnus+glutinosa+-+male+%26+female+catkins.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZTm-IhQ7jkfX0e0aTiaL4YE7RnvKO8BREClE37yZPGG_8y3yvgWBvVFntlW54vTz6BgQJUg4WYBIF7bXqyAmZ6PozmKN-Zy6ezKHSsYuPXizbIhbOLJHi6seEtCnjyq_8YBMVLr6JZmQ/s400/Alnus+glutinosa+-+male+%26+female+catkins.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321214614704515474" /></a>Alder are the most decorated of British deciduous trees in winter. The old cones are unmistakable. This picture shows some tightly-closed, long males catkins with a cluster of immature female cones in the background.John and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-61022849411822750712009-01-17T12:40:00.000-08:002009-04-05T07:39:09.179-07:00Fragrant orchidsOk, I know I said before (see 'Orchid overdose' - July2007) that I might never blog about orchids again, but I did just say 'might'. I suppose I now have to admit that I've become an orchid fancier (almost). I've been surveying upland hay meadows in the North Pennines for the last 3 years and although orhcids are quite uncommon in hay meadows now, I have seen some of them often enough to start to get interested. I had a lot to learn about British orchids and I found Michael Foley and Sidney Clarke's book very useful. I didn't know the fragrant orchids at all when I started but have now seen all three types.<br /><br />Up to a few years ago most people were happy to call them all 'fragrant orchid'. Frances Rose (who must be a leading candidate for being Britain's most outstanding field naturalist) divided them into three types a long time ago. His view has now been backed up by DNA analysis. They are likely to appear as separate species (or sub-species) in the next edition of Stace and it will be interesting to see what kind of patterns emerge in geohgraphical distribtution and habitat preferences of the three types, as more people start to record and map them. If you look at the distribution maps on the BSBI website <a href="http://www.bsbimaps.org.uk/atlas/main.php">http://www.bsbimaps.org.uk/atlas/main.php</a> you will see how under-recorded the sub-species are currently compared to the species.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TH-rkXr0iNfbfrwJdt0rWUVHGolFF-Iu8Or8Zcc7OduifDoSfcJVhuqjF3I7pF5L9hX5iE450s6L8iutgpPZidtRA-Uduh2pI_0absuSP-5BqXVJ0aZJ-yh_ZH41B1580wWkHITyxZd8/s1600-h/gymnadenia+borealis2.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TH-rkXr0iNfbfrwJdt0rWUVHGolFF-Iu8Or8Zcc7OduifDoSfcJVhuqjF3I7pF5L9hX5iE450s6L8iutgpPZidtRA-Uduh2pI_0absuSP-5BqXVJ0aZJ-yh_ZH41B1580wWkHITyxZd8/s400/gymnadenia+borealis2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321216068288098306" /></a>This is <em>Gymnadenia conopsea borealis</em> (or just <em>G. borealis</em> if you prefer), which I have found in eight different meadows. It seems to be easily the most common of the three around here. In the hay meadows it is normally now confined to unmown (and unfertilised) banks, often growing in quite acidic U4c vegetation with species like betony and bitter-vetch. The lower lip of the flower (labellum) is almost not lobed at all and is longer than wide. The two lateral sepals are not exactly horizontal, but point a bit downwards.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioO1i1crF8YnztDYP0PiUskdniSWOGU__r9RI8aaetCmfaYKDmH99gD5cRKoJ2uSLTT9NHscRP1vESe2uca8XBqIYU7wz15P2tPYQcFNvJtDVyrVZKl-msQSNNfOkjG1QlTbRsyyRuR12r/s1600-h/gymnadenia+conopsea.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioO1i1crF8YnztDYP0PiUskdniSWOGU__r9RI8aaetCmfaYKDmH99gD5cRKoJ2uSLTT9NHscRP1vESe2uca8XBqIYU7wz15P2tPYQcFNvJtDVyrVZKl-msQSNNfOkjG1QlTbRsyyRuR12r/s400/gymnadenia+conopsea.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321216574122113202" /></a>I've found this one, <em>Gymnadenia conopsea conopsea</em> three times, but only a very small number of individuals in each case. (Sorry about the rubbish photo!). It is supposed to prefer more calcareous conditions. The labellum is much more lobed than <em>borealis</em> with the 3 lobes being about equal in size. Overall the labellum is about as long as wide. The lateral sepals are wider than <em>borealis</em> but still point slightly downwards.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1fKBSck1jN6OUbDYtZrgk9JsaUjI6-5DKk3ShBXybPlVmGCdCyvELxzMpc0kQPupZ32_Ih6vIz5S0EWeWKaNMXh0zWkQKVZdxqwO2LjJ3enQpu1pWNswVMEO72oj1c2sR6zrOmrbEo-rc/s1600-h/gymnadenia+conopsea+densiflora.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1fKBSck1jN6OUbDYtZrgk9JsaUjI6-5DKk3ShBXybPlVmGCdCyvELxzMpc0kQPupZ32_Ih6vIz5S0EWeWKaNMXh0zWkQKVZdxqwO2LjJ3enQpu1pWNswVMEO72oj1c2sR6zrOmrbEo-rc/s400/gymnadenia+conopsea+densiflora.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321216757553902626" /></a>This one is (I think) <em>Gymnadenia conopsea densiflora</em>, which I've only found once. It is supposed to prefer damper grasslands than the other two. It is also lobed and the middle lobe is supposed to be smaller than the two lateral lobes - although that isn't very obvious on this specimen. Overall the labellum is wider than long. The lateral sepals are wide like conposea but this time they do point out exactly horizontally. I found quite a big population of this growing on the edge of a meadow right on the riverbank of the Tees near Cronkley Bridge. The three types are supposed to have a slightly different smell, but I haven't sniffed them enough to know if that works for me yet.<br /><br />Sound easy doesn't it. Well it's not! I thought it was fairly easy until I found the <em>densiflora</em> population. Both <em>conopsea</em> and <em>borealis </em>were there also, but the most common <em>Gymnadenia</em> there appeared to be intermnediate between <em>densiflora</em> and <em>conopsea</em>. Presumably these are hybrids. The three types are probably quite closely related, so its not surprising that if they grow together they would hybridise. Even if they have fairly strict habitat preferences, it is often possible to get a mixture of quite different soil conditions within a very small space, so not that unlikley to get them together at least sometimes.<br /><br />They are nice plants. Its good fun trying to figure out a new botanical puzzle. But the main reason I like them is because they always grow in nice habitats.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-70718281029547361612008-12-13T09:20:00.000-08:002010-11-28T09:31:32.163-08:00Grass identification and other botany CPD courses*This post is from 2009 but we are running grass identification and other courses in 2011 - see our website www.ptyxis.com for details*<br />We haven't updated the blog for a while as we've been flat out working - including developing CPD courses for next year. Running our own courses is a big risk for a small consultancy to take, but we are so aware of the limited provision for plant species identification and ecology courses in the UK of what <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">professional</span> ecologists <em>really</em> need - the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">FSC</span> runs loads of courses, but many don't really have professional ecologists in mind - more amateur <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">twitchers</span> who want to see as many species as possible - and generally are not led by trained teachers (there are a few notable exceptions!), so we are trying to fill the gap.<br /><br />As a teacher, I get frustrated that many people are paying out a lot in fees to attend courses that could be more professionally delivered. Being a v experienced ecologist or taxonomist does not make you an effective teacher. Tutors often don't differentiate their teaching. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Differentiation</span> is one of many <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">professional</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">teaching</span> skills, that you are taught during a PGCE, but that takes experience to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">apply</span> and do really well. It also takes a lot of extra work as you effectively prepare 3 or 4 different lessons for <em>every </em>element of your <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">training</span> course, so that you can offer different levels of learning to your group. This is crucial as in any adult group, no matter what you say on the course advert, you will ALWAYS get people with a mix of different aptitudes and abilities. Professional tuition should address this, and not just deliver a course at a vague mid-level for everyone, so that some people are left swamped and others are bored as it's all too basic.<br /><br />Details of our 2009 ecology CPD courses are on our website at <a href="http://www.ptyxis.com/training.html">www.ptyxis.com/training.html</a> and include grass identification (focus on id of useful indicator species and using grasses to evaluate habitats and assess the botanical value of sites, rather than a 'lets see loads and loads of species' approach), aquatic plant <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">identification</span> and a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">wildlife</span> law training workshop.<br /><br />ClareJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-59280395944841104532008-09-23T13:01:00.000-07:002009-04-05T07:55:14.600-07:00It doesn't exist until I've seen it!In my favourite film, 'Down by Law', Jack and Zac share a prision cell and really dislike each other. At one point they have another argument and Jack says to Zac (or maybe it was Zac to Jack), "from now on as far as I'm concerned, you don't exist". Zac (or maybe it was Jack) wants to sound tough so he says "yeh, well you don't exist either".<br /><br />I was out surveying on Tuesday on a remote bit of blanket bog in Kielder with Julia who is from Quatemala. We found this lizard and Julia was very pleased as she had never seen a reptile in the wild in Britain before. She said "now I believe that reptiles exist in Britain". That struck a chord with me because there are many species that I didn't believe existed until I saw them for the first time.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJXkbWkhpzZF6k_rKT87ej6vJJX2wjG0T9_0D4WYUI1_4aDHyGpyMwKPHWSNKSNLpKZN4Bq0xsjdvY0dqlL5NZYlj7o8r2rzsi188aXRWoyCyFASaViM0AnzbAL3aMkFPvDMS2l1urjRuM/s1600-h/Lizard+at+Emblehope+Moor2.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJXkbWkhpzZF6k_rKT87ej6vJJX2wjG0T9_0D4WYUI1_4aDHyGpyMwKPHWSNKSNLpKZN4Bq0xsjdvY0dqlL5NZYlj7o8r2rzsi188aXRWoyCyFASaViM0AnzbAL3aMkFPvDMS2l1urjRuM/s400/Lizard+at+Emblehope+Moor2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321220607905867266" /></a><br /><br />In my twenties I was (still am) a very keen birdwatcher, but for some strange reason it took me years to see my first little grebe. I did lots of birdwatching and went to lots of the right places to see little grebes in the Lee Valley near where I lived at the time. Even though I knew very well what they looked like from looking at pictures it was really difficult for me to believe that they really existed until I actually saw one. Since then I've seen them loads of times but I always get a great kick out of seeing them every time now!<br /><br />Other species I still don't believe exist include: scaup, wood warbler, garden warbler (probably have seen or heard these but not realised it), pine marten, Carex aquatilis, Bryum caespiticum and of course many many millions more!<br />John</John and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-44838704708596056332008-09-17T02:02:00.000-07:002009-04-05T08:02:53.521-07:00Dwarf birch on an English hillLast week I was doing some 'condition assessment' of blanket bog sites in Northumberland for as part of a nation-wide survey for Natural England. We have to use a ridiculous method which can't possibly tell you what condition the bog is in, but that's another story! One day on a very remote site in Northumberland, my co-surveyor Fiona came back to the car at lunch time with a twig of <em>Betula nana</em> (dwarf birch) in her hand. I couldn't believe my eyes and got very excited as I knew there were only 2 native sites for it in England. When I say 2 sites I really mean 2 bushes (ok, one of the sites has 2 tiny bushes quite close together). I also knew that one of the sites was somewhere in the Northumberland hills but I thought the chances of Fiona stumbling upon that site by accident in such a remote place were extremely slim.<br /><br />Well believe it or not that's exactly what happened. What are the chances of that happening? neither of us had any idea that the plant was on the site. The site we were surveying is about 7 or 8 miles from the nearest public road and covers about 3,000 hectares. Professor George Swan (who wrote the 'Flora of Northumberland' originally found the plant on this site in 1973 new to south Northumberland. There is a very old record from north Northumberland but nobody has refound it there for a very long time.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnTR0w_IESEwGx3fWDWg5CZuDCvKXw8Rn-08xfro7oG_wI3nxJdrNCDGe4m1QMJOcPZHvy93f3fBr5Q6m47r0BjlPTxLSSg22ZUMnIdXz7Ygy6V9V4ORg1OMDZDX16m3ojxVBZxGGvSxyi/s1600-h/betula+nana+from+bucklake+sike3.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnTR0w_IESEwGx3fWDWg5CZuDCvKXw8Rn-08xfro7oG_wI3nxJdrNCDGe4m1QMJOcPZHvy93f3fBr5Q6m47r0BjlPTxLSSg22ZUMnIdXz7Ygy6V9V4ORg1OMDZDX16m3ojxVBZxGGvSxyi/s400/betula+nana+from+bucklake+sike3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321221952886794786" /></a><br /><br />Here's another map from BSBI's website showing its British (and lack of Irish!) distribution. I believe that the 2 records in Lancashire are of introduced plants. There is quite a scattering of records in the central highlands and the north of Scotland. This is an artic-alpine species whose core range is really in the artic and boreal zones. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCH6kmKimHK1quYkkG4ADuWrFm05YJeuemfLhx1Ixf0aKU9cvw6real6aS6FBgJyUWccSBZyxYvWKh7ob0WTIT1pzd-KGZTjYRAOefzRC9ZrOnDLnYruGMroVqW99Z9RkdpMBIr5c4vJbh/s1600-h/betula+nana+map.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 276px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCH6kmKimHK1quYkkG4ADuWrFm05YJeuemfLhx1Ixf0aKU9cvw6real6aS6FBgJyUWccSBZyxYvWKh7ob0WTIT1pzd-KGZTjYRAOefzRC9ZrOnDLnYruGMroVqW99Z9RkdpMBIr5c4vJbh/s400/betula+nana+map.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321222383070114962" /></a><br /><br />I couldn't resist including another photo of <em>Tetraplodon mnioides</em> (see the entry of 13 August 2007). I think this is probably my favourite moss now - its definitely one of the most colourful species. It is still quite uncommon in Northumberland. There are only 16 records for it in VC67 - south Northumberland overall but I've found it 3 times in just over a year. I guess this probably means that it is increasing, but who knows really? <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAAaD1T-0GpDnoFjJR1t1WzRZtrEl9v3bxRSw3eKKPsEYqwrf9603yEr9svd8IFOJm3PUgYRdG1uGwhBdOWAmGM_uFm3wjrIZaTihdAFJaKxMcQzBCvkXryuGHSoNEw3CZB-o0y7oH-yRm/s1600-h/tetraplodon+mnioides+-+monkside.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAAaD1T-0GpDnoFjJR1t1WzRZtrEl9v3bxRSw3eKKPsEYqwrf9603yEr9svd8IFOJm3PUgYRdG1uGwhBdOWAmGM_uFm3wjrIZaTihdAFJaKxMcQzBCvkXryuGHSoNEw3CZB-o0y7oH-yRm/s400/tetraplodon+mnioides+-+monkside.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321222756714065330" /></a><br /><br />I've always found it growing on dead sheep before, but this time there were 5 seperate small clumps on the forestry road leading up to the Betula nana site. I guess it must have been growing on deer dung here.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-57348214502055209982008-09-06T09:15:00.000-07:002009-04-05T08:13:01.375-07:00Northern hawk's-beardI've always thought it very strange that the common names of so many plants are named after parts of animals. Hawk's-beard, hawkbit, hawkweed, cat's-ear, and ox-tongue all look confusigly similar. There are lots more - dog's-tail, cat's-tail, squirrel-tail, mare's-tail, rat's-tail, mouse-tail, hare's-tail, horse-tail, fox-tail, buck's-horn, crane's-bill, stork's-bill, adders-tongue, hart's-tongue, weasel's-snout, ox-eye, bird's-eye, hare's-ear, mouse-ear, lamb's-ear, buck's-beard, goat's-beard, old man's-beard (yes we're animals too!), dog's-tooth, dragon's-teeth (does dragon count?), oxlip, bird's-foot, hare's-foot, crow-foot, colt's-foot, cock's-foot, goose-foot, cockspur, larkspur, parrot's-feather, etc. Unfortunately dog's-dibble is no longer in common usage. One plant is even named after 2 animals, mouse-ear hawkweed. Sometimes these names are helpful when trying to remember which plant it is but most of the time they are not helpful. How many people know what a hawk's beard looks like and even if they did, would they spot the resemblance to the plant? I guess the real reason is that after most plants have been named its difficult to think up original names for new plants so the plant namers start to clutch at straws.<br /><br />But anyway, back to northern hawk's-beard, or if you prefer (as I do) <em>Crepis mollis</em> - much simpler! I've had a good year for <em>Crepis mollis</em> this year. Here's a picture of it taken by my colleague Rebecca last year near Nenthead in the Cumbrian pennines.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNi3g_X1IuPBlw-3SXriCvlaiB3nBMwu6ZMglw1U_ITThSiHFuDgJZKWLjfXFOn9TNmz6zqGClyhqeKbh67qs6kARF9AGcW4-Vaw_PHRW5A-SjVKN07plxTfJxNOq2IiO-R0pIbeRGP9pB/s1600-h/Crepis+mollis1-RB.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNi3g_X1IuPBlw-3SXriCvlaiB3nBMwu6ZMglw1U_ITThSiHFuDgJZKWLjfXFOn9TNmz6zqGClyhqeKbh67qs6kARF9AGcW4-Vaw_PHRW5A-SjVKN07plxTfJxNOq2IiO-R0pIbeRGP9pB/s400/Crepis+mollis1-RB.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321224917809228066" /></a><br /><br />Yes, I know it just looks like a load of dandelions, but it really is a very special plant - honest! Its particularly relevant for me as its main habitat is upland hay meadows which is what my day job is all about and I live right in the centre of its British distribution in south-west Northumberland.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh924KMNxXYaJHK8IQ0wgnp5vTKfeYSkEcpX8XfQnUqTBITqxz7o7ptuuIalv9qD9JJ22tcETmk5ZYe6gc-W3R_oCPmLlowmLdMQBiKfmurOUQczyh4TIQetJG6DStwOCfbKf-yJjkhWIVQ/s1600-h/crepis+mollis+map.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 276px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh924KMNxXYaJHK8IQ0wgnp5vTKfeYSkEcpX8XfQnUqTBITqxz7o7ptuuIalv9qD9JJ22tcETmk5ZYe6gc-W3R_oCPmLlowmLdMQBiKfmurOUQczyh4TIQetJG6DStwOCfbKf-yJjkhWIVQ/s400/crepis+mollis+map.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321225423619881570" /></a>This map from BSBIs website shows its distribution in Britain. The darker coloured dots (there are not very many of them) are records from recent years. Not only is it a scarce and very loclaised plant in Britain, but it has also declined a lot in recent decades due to agricultural intensification.<br /><br />As my job in summer involves lots of surveying in upland hay meadows, I'm always on the look out for it. Also, this year it was chosen as one of the species in BSBIs threatened plants survey so I've been looking for it in some of the sites where it was recorded a long time ago. Although I couldn't find it in a few of these places, it is hanging on in a good number of its old sites in this part of the world. My colleague Fiona Corby also managed to find 2 new sites for it in Allendale including one on a large herb-rich bank with upland hay meadow type vegetation which had about 500 plants of <em>Crepis mollis</em> on it. This was particularly good news as we think this could well be the biggest population left in the country. The landowners are pleased that they have it and are willing to try to do the right things to conserve it which is also good news.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-63521799939883745912008-09-06T08:45:00.000-07:002009-04-05T08:20:05.433-07:00More bog desmids from Widdybank FellChris Carter continues to find some amazing-looking desmids in the gungy bits of Sphagnum I've been sending him from Widdybank Fell. Last time I sent him just 2 bits of Sphagnum and he has been busy for months finding more and more species of these microscopic algae in amongst the Sphagnum - and he's not finished yet! <br /><br />Here are some of his latest finds -<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTfV4Anl-qwXzAWqsmNz8HnMMPX3A3wPfgVmkp1Ofvvktq5RGhZwkml5Lhlr9J5oxCmfpcK60I3j-VazwenFlWr5jSrXCtfcjCZPgstTUSCZSon53ujRLwdNA-gINi14jShBfvB8qGWBRl/s1600-h/Staurastrum+teliferum+montage+proc.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 326px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTfV4Anl-qwXzAWqsmNz8HnMMPX3A3wPfgVmkp1Ofvvktq5RGhZwkml5Lhlr9J5oxCmfpcK60I3j-VazwenFlWr5jSrXCtfcjCZPgstTUSCZSon53ujRLwdNA-gINi14jShBfvB8qGWBRl/s400/Staurastrum+teliferum+montage+proc.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321227256185247858" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU5jt_VJVdPsH-HHpEapvCgfZg6iLJRZRpjSkzeS8f7qvT5lEkFhODoynb280WAGmxFnHhBXz4phiRq-AqD7JA6gLIairolAnZ7-3iuAI4vjl05s5FufEldmnE4vvAUEuZkQAq_NQ25a8B/s1600-h/Staurastrum+furcatum+variety+proc+crop.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 356px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU5jt_VJVdPsH-HHpEapvCgfZg6iLJRZRpjSkzeS8f7qvT5lEkFhODoynb280WAGmxFnHhBXz4phiRq-AqD7JA6gLIairolAnZ7-3iuAI4vjl05s5FufEldmnE4vvAUEuZkQAq_NQ25a8B/s400/Staurastrum+furcatum+variety+proc+crop.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321227259785274962" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9bI53aFXFWEYnVlDAp7CYdrC9jpWRGymPU0wEmMQbmYMfef9VffErjKa6DrJAMjCe0rAKdQDEHDZ38OVWaJtSAbc9P3_XF9nalNgCv6Mu4M7c1GQiufdvxXoKk8xaIvHD4Zxs_nBwLh7j/s1600-h/Cosmarium+margaritiferum-proc.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9bI53aFXFWEYnVlDAp7CYdrC9jpWRGymPU0wEmMQbmYMfef9VffErjKa6DrJAMjCe0rAKdQDEHDZ38OVWaJtSAbc9P3_XF9nalNgCv6Mu4M7c1GQiufdvxXoKk8xaIvHD4Zxs_nBwLh7j/s400/Cosmarium+margaritiferum-proc.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321227255653210690" /></a><br /><br />There is a Dutch method of assessing the conservation value of wetland sites using desmid species called the Coesel method. Based on what Chris has found so far from just 5 small samples of Sphagnum from Widdybank Fell, the site now has a score of 8 or 9 out of 10. I'm sure its only a matter of time before it reaches 10 out of 10.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-17893345104470251862008-09-06T05:22:00.000-07:002009-04-05T08:34:52.001-07:00A mountain stream in Regent's Park??The shot below shows a water feature in the 'nature study' area of Regent's Park in central London. On a recent bryophyte survey we did for the park this was one of the few habitats we found with a well-developed bryophyte community. The sheltered water feature creates a suitable humid environment for several species that otherwise occur only sparsely in the area. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HjGJlIkxcijQJig0jOyAMiVTcK3Pi1_enSmGcZEppQxgz6VacVac3o7XNcM-FEfWLi1rgDuXGrGx-JZKmxLJuuxH5i-O3Whq9faM4qdF8FXWCzTcQ1Ub0cIF5WkkWgk-0YnkIImL953v/s1600-h/waterside+rocks+covered+with+moss+regents+park.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HjGJlIkxcijQJig0jOyAMiVTcK3Pi1_enSmGcZEppQxgz6VacVac3o7XNcM-FEfWLi1rgDuXGrGx-JZKmxLJuuxH5i-O3Whq9faM4qdF8FXWCzTcQ1Ub0cIF5WkkWgk-0YnkIImL953v/s400/waterside+rocks+covered+with+moss+regents+park.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321228958383096546" /></a><br /><br />However the biggest surprise was finding <em>Racomitrium aciculare</em> sitting on rocks by the 'stream'. This species has never been recorded in Middlesex before and is very uncommon in south and east England as you can see from this distribution map from the NBN website. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisTV56E6iOFqTZ5tiH1iuvjDlXPtlKPauQIiQ9y85LHtwID_xfHEJIrw0KP65kwqY2uLYEW7sRC0wnrELxSj-7Ig_LmuR64bLMwXTWOxm5gVhe4fxYpmoXK5V7zHHGfmuKhM4ep3YPbVvU/s1600-h/racomitrium+aciculare+map.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisTV56E6iOFqTZ5tiH1iuvjDlXPtlKPauQIiQ9y85LHtwID_xfHEJIrw0KP65kwqY2uLYEW7sRC0wnrELxSj-7Ig_LmuR64bLMwXTWOxm5gVhe4fxYpmoXK5V7zHHGfmuKhM4ep3YPbVvU/s400/racomitrium+aciculare+map.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321229711474145202" /></a><br /><br />In the north and west of Britain you can almost gaurantee to find it on rocks by any upland stream, but this habitat is absent from most of lowland Britain.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixjINN3Vt1ItXgSI-XWfSu9uUKAv5im1fCSoSsFnN5k5KLiwgwR8H06soXuKfWQIwTaSXQJksTNWenAeEySDu5lhekFQVInTUt5cZ9qColq4h8qo9eToDdGrTez68LwsUuYnesPqmINgJY/s1600-h/grimmia+pulvinata+and+racomitrium+acicular+regents+park.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixjINN3Vt1ItXgSI-XWfSu9uUKAv5im1fCSoSsFnN5k5KLiwgwR8H06soXuKfWQIwTaSXQJksTNWenAeEySDu5lhekFQVInTUt5cZ9qColq4h8qo9eToDdGrTez68LwsUuYnesPqmINgJY/s400/grimmia+pulvinata+and+racomitrium+acicular+regents+park.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321229188666408034" /></a>The neat round cushions with the white hairs sticking up in the picture above are <em>Grimmia pulvinata</em> which is a very common species on rocks and walls everywhere. <em>Racomitrium aciculare</em> is the more straggly dark green plant in the middle of the top of the picture, with a few more shoots on the top right.<br /><br />The main focus of the survey was to look for bryophyte epiphytes (plants that grow on trees). These were fairly sparse and mainly confined to a small number of species. Many epiphytic species cannot live in areas with high athmospheric pollution. In recent decades particulate air pollution associated with coal fires has almost gone and as a result in recent years several epiphytic species have been sucessfully recolonising areas they have been missing from for a very long time. However most truly urban areas still have relatively few epiphytes.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEYQv_32vczpneug-DmlKTC4AD2_55VQHm0hH7oBSF1G6oRYAYlAYOrjVAoJ-furEnZcMPgi_JtBqHlQv3lHO6IfEmlx7KBs9Tq5wbS_b2sS_t7S-5YIgSuCzu4mRrdEIaeO2YKaGwTxpL/s1600-h/typical+physcia+adscendens-Xanthoria+parietina+community.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEYQv_32vczpneug-DmlKTC4AD2_55VQHm0hH7oBSF1G6oRYAYlAYOrjVAoJ-furEnZcMPgi_JtBqHlQv3lHO6IfEmlx7KBs9Tq5wbS_b2sS_t7S-5YIgSuCzu4mRrdEIaeO2YKaGwTxpL/s400/typical+physcia+adscendens-Xanthoria+parietina+community.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321230772494689746" /></a>The picture above shows the most common type of epiphyte community we found, comprised mainly of the lichens <em>Physcia adscendens</em> and <em>Xanthoria parietina</em>, with a little of the moss <em>Orthotrichum diaphanum</em>. Most <em>Orthotrichum</em> species are epiphytes and <em>Orthotrichum diaphanum</em> is the one that is most tolerant of air pollution.<br /><br />On a small number of trees the bryophyte element of the epiphytic community was more developed but it usually consited of just <em>Orthotrichum diaphanum</em> and <em>Rhynchostegium confertum</em>. Interestingly, their were occasional cushions of both <em>Tortula muralis</em> and <em>Grimmia pulvinata</em> on the trees. These species normally grow on walls or rocks and only rarely grow on trees, but something about the tree habitat in London makes them behave differently.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeruvuqujqw6PWTRufYqyUWebQhc_biIdeuLWr2BtOIMf8hcorHDvFE-pBMUIE8asCRanHaKjFBMmOK8RoRXcDvqpc01qc9LxWB3oVXmuA4P4ujpJcBytiJg3EBskO36EShBEzsH2bVW2/s1600-h/orthotrichum+diaphanum+%26+rhynchostegium+confertum+regents+park.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeruvuqujqw6PWTRufYqyUWebQhc_biIdeuLWr2BtOIMf8hcorHDvFE-pBMUIE8asCRanHaKjFBMmOK8RoRXcDvqpc01qc9LxWB3oVXmuA4P4ujpJcBytiJg3EBskO36EShBEzsH2bVW2/s400/orthotrichum+diaphanum+%26+rhynchostegium+confertum+regents+park.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321231034641910082" /></a><br /><br />There are many London plane trees in London parks and at first glance these would seem to be unpromising habitat for epiphytic species as the trees shed their outer bark in small patches very regularly. This habit allows the trees to cope with polluted areas better than most other tree species as every time the bark is shed it results in a fresh clean new bark free from grime, helping the tree to breathe easier. It turned out that London plane is in fact the best tree species for bryophytes in central London (apart from elms which are much less common). The epiphyte community is often fairly well developed on the base of the larger trees where the bark is no longer shed so regularly. The texture and chemistry of the bark must make the suface more suitable for epiphytes than the other tree species. <br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-24711029227846228072008-07-23T10:53:00.000-07:002008-08-07T10:28:08.319-07:00Ecology careers<p><strong>Want a career in ecology?</strong><br /><br />As a professional ecologist and botanist, and a trained teacher, I often get asked for advice on ecology careers. Training is a major part of my freelance work, and I teach undergraduates and postgraduates at Newcastle University. I also sit on the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management’s (IEEM) working group on the ecology skills gap, a project addressing the fact that many biology and ecology degree courses do not train students in the vocational skills that employers are looking for.<br /><br />Working in nature conservation is extremely competitive. There are currently more opportunities in commercial ecological consultancies, working mainly for the corporate sector (such as property developers, wind energy companies etc), but also for local authorities and government agencies. To maximise your opportunities during your early career, you will need to be prepared to develop your CV by volunteering and to move around the country for work.<br /><br /><strong>Top tips for careers in ecology<br /></strong><br />What is your summer project about? If you want a job in the UK ecology sector, make sure you do a project on British or Irish habitats and /or species! Although the large ecological consultancies do require ecologists to conduct survey work abroad, this is generally in Europe or North America. If you do a project on African or Asian ecology, expect to work for organizations who work in Africa or Asia, such as universities or international charities. You will not be attractive to the British conservation sector or commercial consultancies.<br /><br />Build up the evidence for your skills by volunteering. You need to make time to do this at weekends; it is at least worth as much as a high grade degree, arguably more. There are plenty of first class honours graduates without jobs because they have not got any work experience. You need to show that you have the skills listed in IEEM’s booklet ‘what every graduate should know’ which is available from <a title="blocked::http://www.ieem.org.uk/" href="http://www.ieem.org.uk/">http://www.ieem.org.uk/</a> </p><p><br />Botany – by which I mean plant identification and survey skills – is in demand. Consultancies are very short of young graduates who are proficient botanists. Join BSBI, attend their field meetings and put this on your CV. No one expects you to be an expert overnight; but you do need to show a serious commitment to improving your field identification skills and going on BSBI meetings demonstrates this. BSBI also offer a one day test and a certificate, called a Field Skills Identification Qualification or FISQ, to evidence how good a botanist you really are, which also looks good on your CV. See <a title="blocked::http://www.bsbi.org.uk/html/field_skills.html" href="http://www.bsbi.org.uk/html/field_skills.html">http://www.bsbi.org.uk/html/field_skills.html</a><br /><br />Whether you plan to be a mammal ecologist, entomologist or an ornithologist, all commercial consultancies need graduates who can do a Phase 1 habitat survey. Find out about this by reading the survey handbook (it’s amazing how many interview candidtates don’t do this!); go on a short course (The Field Studies Council <a title="blocked::http://www.field-studies-council.org/" href="http://www.field-studies-council.org/">http://www.field-studies-council.org/</a> and IEEM www.ieem.net both run Phase 1 habitat survey courses); do a voluntary Phase 1 survey for your local Wildlife Trust to prove to employers that you can really do it!<br /><br />Be careful when you choose an MSc course. Having an MSc will not assist you in finding a job if you still have little or no work experience. Look for an MSc that has a strong vocational element: training in ecological survey methods combined with business skills, like project management and negotiation skills, which you will need in the workplace.<br /></p><p>Good luck!!</p><br />Clare O'ReillyJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4418832886264403210.post-68783106005707870442008-07-03T12:29:00.001-07:002009-04-05T08:44:58.131-07:00Blysmus bliss!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfJ-aBQV7F48q8_ZImpFE4jFHGnaeSqXlOsVha7VaKZQEzbueBwI3O6Tnc0A9o3onHcrY9nmw3eWZ7Z6SMv55sgNk4Wy3oH3mdKYCnN2I8kB_Cm5bPHhqPRLzPnFjHjcEqzQcS2yS4_xv6/s1600-h/Blysmus+surveying+Coanwood.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfJ-aBQV7F48q8_ZImpFE4jFHGnaeSqXlOsVha7VaKZQEzbueBwI3O6Tnc0A9o3onHcrY9nmw3eWZ7Z6SMv55sgNk4Wy3oH3mdKYCnN2I8kB_Cm5bPHhqPRLzPnFjHjcEqzQcS2yS4_xv6/s400/Blysmus+surveying+Coanwood.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321233609905138690" /></a>As you can see from my face, I was pleased to find <em>Blysmus compressus</em> (flat sedge) the other day when Clare and I looked for it at one of its previously known sites near where we live at Lambley, on the South Tyne river, Northumberland.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4AFCpIJM6Uat7nNJYmza45xDGcNVDibeeD8N_5mM0PuJwzE9x9-bgY6iilNxLvER-7AUTIPCecYfwPc6wNTwSOZVH7yCFUBXgn5abN3NkaSJBPSIoTcBpduK6stXepY-Ogqk_wbsCnIO/s1600-h/Blysmus+habitat+close-up+Coanwood2.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 353px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4AFCpIJM6Uat7nNJYmza45xDGcNVDibeeD8N_5mM0PuJwzE9x9-bgY6iilNxLvER-7AUTIPCecYfwPc6wNTwSOZVH7yCFUBXgn5abN3NkaSJBPSIoTcBpduK6stXepY-Ogqk_wbsCnIO/s400/Blysmus+habitat+close-up+Coanwood2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321232675307233778" /></a>The river's edge habitat (which is regularly flooded) is apparently one of its typical habitats in Northumberland. There was a very big colony here - we estimated over 6,000 flowering spikes.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimDCt9c7TduQwYP4RCHY6znT2FnafyJHNRVgKIy9UX4DcGRVWSgtOsO9t4ogbXJnC0S21APwRebEEPmjQAzl_Q9-GaqpFcCsSRcK80fD3efd9qquLy7qE1DfgiYULQ_JLrHs6tfolDIRqp/s1600-h/Blysmus+compressus+Bowlees4.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimDCt9c7TduQwYP4RCHY6znT2FnafyJHNRVgKIy9UX4DcGRVWSgtOsO9t4ogbXJnC0S21APwRebEEPmjQAzl_Q9-GaqpFcCsSRcK80fD3efd9qquLy7qE1DfgiYULQ_JLrHs6tfolDIRqp/s400/Blysmus+compressus+Bowlees4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321232872451322770" /></a>Flat sedge is a good name for it as the inflorescence is very flattened, which makes it fairly easy to separate from other sedges.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHH33J_puN8jmByg27uHDfxDF-CIu397XMqZbLREwaakrlNQe9I1ralIZzyHWKsSaaITjeW6SWOFrCvxhsRoERzR0GMkWh6gYVnbxWU3eOOjWCcBakMKKLdPcgSs2jchKxVpoSo0cn5MwI/s1600-h/Blysmus+compressus+Bowlees10.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHH33J_puN8jmByg27uHDfxDF-CIu397XMqZbLREwaakrlNQe9I1ralIZzyHWKsSaaITjeW6SWOFrCvxhsRoERzR0GMkWh6gYVnbxWU3eOOjWCcBakMKKLdPcgSs2jchKxVpoSo0cn5MwI/s400/Blysmus+compressus+Bowlees10.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321233057162398994" /></a>Close-up of <em>Blysmus</em> with its stigmas sticking out.<br /><br />This is an uncommon species nationally with a real cluster of records around our part of the north of England as you can see from the BSBIs distribution map -<a href="http://www.bsbimaps.org.uk/atlas/map_page.php?spid=245.0&sppname=Blysmus%20compressus&commname=Flat-sedge">http://www.bsbimaps.org.uk/atlas/map_page.php?spid=245.0&sppname=Blysmus%20compressus&commname=Flat-sedge</a><br /><br />We were looking for this as part of the BSBI's threatened plant survey. Botanists all over Britian are going out searching old sites for 10 uncommon and declining species (including Blysmus) and recording detailed information and accurate grid references when they find it or reasons why it might have gone extinct when they don't find it. <br /><br />In my view this is the best survey that BSBI has organised for a long time, but its a shame they are keeping it a secret. If you want to find out any more about it you will have to contact your county recorder.<br /><br />JohnJohn and Clare O'Reillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15937860286128513950noreply@blogger.com0