New Year Plant Hunts in Cornwall 2024/25

 The New Year Plant Hunt is organised by the BSBI and has now run for several years. Botanists and beginners from all the UK and Ireland, go out and about for 4 days (3 hours per trip allowed) over the new year period and log all plants they can find that are in flower - provided they are growing wild and are not planted or in gardens. Most of the plants I have featured can be found in most towns by anyone, there are few rarities flowering at this time of the year.

See https://bsbi.org/new-year-plant-hunt for more details. It's purpose is two fold. It gives some scientific data that, over time, may show trends for a warming or cooling climate and it gets people involved and interested in botany, especially those that had never tried it before. So, the following are plants from new year plant hunts in Cornwall from two organised field trips.

The first was at Mevagissey on the 29th December, organised by the Three Bays Wildlife Group. This is a sheltered coastal town in South Cornwall with a variety of habitats. The more habitats, the more likely you are to find more species flowering. I didn't photograph every single flower, but all in, we found 79 species of native or naturalised flowering plants here.

Betony - Betonica officinalis

Adria Bellflower - Campanula portenschlagiana

Red Valerian - Centranthus ruber

Sea Carrot - Daucus carota subsp gummifer

Mexican Fleabane - Erigeron karvinskianus

Common Whitlowgrass - Erophila verna

Mediterranean Spurge - Euphorbia characias

Wild Strawberry - Ficaria verna

Wood Avens - Geum urbanum

Atlantic Ivy - Hedera hibernica

Common Ragwort - Jacobaea vulgaris

Red Dead-Nettle - Lamium purpureum

Lesser Celandine - Ficaria verna

Jersey Cudweed - Laphangium luteoalbum

Ox-Eye Daisy - Leucanthemum vulgare

Small-flowered Buttercup - Ranunculus parviflorus

Field Madder - Sherardia arvensis

Red Campion - Silene dioica

Hedge Mustard - Sisymbrium officinale

Prickly Sow-Thistle - Sonchus asper

Hedge Woundwort - Stachys sylvatica

Dandelion - Taraxacum lampropyllum 

Verified by Alex Prendergast

Scentless Mayweed - Tripleurospermum inodorum

 

 Nasturtium - Tropaeolum majus (naturalised)

Navelwort - Umbilicus rupestris

Black Mullein - Verbascum nigrum

Germander Speedwell - Veronica chamaedrys

Thyme-leaved Speedwell - Veronica serpyllifolia

Hybrid Wild x Field Pansy - Viola x contempta 

(we also found Field Pansy nearby).

Garden Pansy in an arable field - Viola x wittrockiana

The steep walk up from the harbour towards Portmellon, we found Sea Campion in flower by these steps.

On the 31st December the Cornwall Botany Group led a hunt from Seaton to Downderry on the south east coast of Cornwall. Here's some of the species we found. I won't post photos of any already shown above though. We found a total of 66 flowering plants this time.

 

 Three-cornered Leek - Allium triquetrum

Snapdragon - Antirrhinum majus

Hybrid Elephant's Ears (naturalised on cliffs) - Bergenia x schmidtii (a first for VC2)

Trailing Bellflower - Campanula poscharskyana

Naturalised Hottentot Fig - Carpobrotus edulis

Wild Fennel - Foeniculum vulgare

Herb Robert - Geranium robertianum

Hebe c.v. naturalised widely on cliffs

Toothed Medick - Medicago polymorpha

Pink-headed Persicaria - Persicaria capitata (naturalised)

Sea Radish - Raphanus raphanistrum subsp maritimum

Rosemary (naturalised) - Rosmarinus officinalis

Bramble - Rubus fruticosus agg.

Sea Campion - Silene uniflora

Alexanders - Smyrnium olusatrum

Common Michaelmas Daisy (naturalised) - Symphotrychum x salignum

Sea Mayweed - Tripleurospermum maritimum

 

Gorse - Ulex europaeus

Sweet Violet - Viola odorata

 On both trips, we all had a great time and the weather was kind. A third trip planned for the 1st January 2025 at Hayle was cancelled due to forecast bad weather. Just as well, as it rained all day long, heavily!

I hope you enjoyed the selection: urban and coastal areas will always have more species flowering than inland rural areas, due to less frost/warmer climate and the influence of humans in providing additional habitats for smaller plants, such as car parks, wasteground, walls and such like.

 

 

Take care and happy new year.

Dave