Botanical Finds in Cornwall - Mid to Late July 2023

The weather pattern throughout July was of numerous low pressure systems bringing wind and rain, not only for Cornwall, but for all of the UK. It seems we might have had our summer in May to June. This is all good for the plants though, especially annuals that will germinate and grow quite late in the season when conditions are right.

Here follows a selection of the wonderful wild plants of Cornwall that I have found on my travels around the county through the middle part of this month.

 

Starting off in North Cornwall near Bude and I found this Curled Pondweed in a stream close to where it entered the sea. It's a very easily identified plant and I've not seen much else like it. The stems and leaves are quite stiff and do not fold flat when you take them out of the water.

 

Potamogeton crispus

A surprise find below, was of Smith's Pepperwort, an uncommon and usually coastal plant. I found several plants in the National Trust car park at Sandymouth Bay which were new records for the monad. Unlike Field Pepperwort, the seeds on this plant have the remains of the style poking out of the top of the seed for several millimetres. The plant can grow to about two feet or so tall.

Lepidium heterophyllum

 

 I have never knowingly seen Sea Storksbill before, but I must have walked past it countless times. The leaves look similar to Common Storksbill, but not as finely cut, but if you look very closely, you will see the plants below have green flowers with no petals at all. I found these on a sandy road verge in short turf near the sea.

Erodium maritimum

I do my best to identify grasses when I have the time to study a sample at home. The one below turned out to be a very large Marsh Foxtail growing at the top of a beach in a pool from a stream, dammed by the sea piling up shingle in front of it.
 

Alopecurus geniculatus

 

 

 By a cafe on a beach were some nice looking False Fox Sedges. They have a similar structure and look to them as Star Sedge (Carex echinata) but the former are much larger and sturdier with sharply 3 angled stems and downward pointing bracts below the spikelets.

Carex otrubae

 

 Below was an example of an annual species that is usually gone over by late Spring, Thyme-leaved Sandwort. Here it is flowering again on a clifftop in short turf, thanks to plenty of rain! These can be distinguished from Slender Sandwort by their conical "flask" shaped seedpods. Slender has much smaller and straighter pods and much finer leaves too.

Arenaria serpyllifolia s.s.

 

Plenty of Speedwells are having a second go at flowering too. The following two photos show the very common larger flower of Common Field Speedwell (Veronica persica) compared to two small native annuals I found growing with it - Wall and Grey Field Speedwells.

Veronica arvensis (the tiny flower)

Veronica polita (the smaller flower)

 

 Back inland and I'm looking around the perimeter of a new housing estate and I find Corncockles on a roundabout! They were clearly sown with the amenity planting, but whether they were part of the mix or a contaminant, I don't know. There were no other typical seed mix plants on it.

Agrostemma githago

 

On a steep bank of disturbed soil by this new estate, I also found a few Field Woundwort plants, likely buried in the seedbank and brought to the surface by earthworks.

Stachys arvensis

 

Not far away was a huge area comprised of china clay waste with some footpaths through it. On some short turf I found a patch of Chamomile in flower. Easily told apart from other Mayweed type of flowers by its lovely smell when any part is crushed. This is not uncommon in Cornwall, especially on Bodmin Moor, but I'd not seen it in china waste areas before, so it was a nice find. They rarely grow more than 6" tall here.

Chamaemelum nobile

 

Another nice find on the waste area were numerous Small Cudweed plants, these are small, grey, hoary looking plants with small capitulas comprised of a few uninteresting brown flowers. These are quite rare and declining nationally.

Logfia minima

In between the rain showers, I took a local walk and ended up on an arable field edge that miraculously had not been sprayed with herbicides. Fool's Parsley was abundant along the edge of the crop of Maize. It's a smallish plant that grew to around 12" tall, but its drooping down bracts are definitive to its identification.

Aethusa cynapium

I also found an unusual Cornsalad here. Looking in the botanist Bible (Stace 4) and also the comprehensive Sell and Murrell volumes, I couldn't decide whether I had found Narrow-fruited or the glabrous form of Hairy-fruited Cornsalad. Photos were sent to the BSBI referee for Valerianella who agreed they were quite unusual, but were most likely Narrow-fruited. As both are rare finds in East Cornwall, I was still very pleased to find around 50 plants here.

Valerianella dentata var. dentata

 

 On another local walk, I passed a fenced off area that used to be an arable field but was awaiting being built on for new housing. I spotted the plants below through an impenetrable security fence, so I couldn't get any closer. Other botanists identified them for me as Narrow-leaf Clover, a non-native Clover and no doubt a crop relict. Unfortunately, I won't see it in flower next year as the bulldozers have now moved in.

Trifolium angustifolium

 I took an evening trip to Bodmin Moor as it's only a few miles away from me. In a bog I came across lots of small rush like plants that appeared to be sprouting seeds whilst still on the stalk. I'd not seen this before (bogs being rather scarce in Kent) and the VCR told me this was Bulbous Rush which commonly propogates in this fashion. There's always something new to learn in botany!

Juncus bulbosus

This bog has carpets of White-beaked Sedge in it, which looked spectacular; like little stars in the grasses.

 

Rhynchospora alba
 

 I didn't want to leave out ferns on this blog, so here's my first Lemon-scented Fern that I have not been shown by someone else! Since Covid, I have had difficulty smelling much of anything, but this fern really did have the scent of lemons and even I could smell it. What's more, when running my fingers over the back of the fronds it was sticky and felt like Sticky Groundsel to the touch, quite unique I think. You can see the lemon scent glands on the second photo below.

Oreopteris limbosperma

Bog Asphodel would have been a fine sight here a few weeks ago, but now, there were just a few plants with flowers left, the rest had gone to seed. They really are the golden gems of the bog.

Narthecium ossifragum

I did find a lone Heath Spotted Orchid still flowering a month after all the others had gone over, but orchids have featured so many times, I'll give them a miss for this blog. My final plant below, was the small but amazing Ivy-leaved Bellflower. Fairly common on damp moors and bogs in Cornwall, but much rarer the further East you go. Unfortunately, due to rain, the tiny blue flower was closed.

Wahlenbergia hederacea

I had hoped to wrap up July with this blog, but there's too many plants to choose from; if I include them all here, the blog will become too long and cumbersome and readers may just fall asleep reading it, so I will write a separate blog for the last week of July. 

Take care.

Dave