Cornwall Botany - Jan-Feb 2025

 As one might imagine, there's nowhere near as much to see at this time of the year, compared to the Summer months. However, there's always something to find and I continued to amass botanical records as usual. Several named storms and a few frosts kept me indoors for much of this time. 

The following plants are some that I photographed during these months.

 

A trip to Polruan in late January provided several hundred Wild Cabbage plants, the first I'd seen in Cornwall, though they are fairly common on the chalk cliffs in Kent, but they won't flower until spring though.

Brassica oleracea var. oleracea

 This plant was manipulated by man over the centuries to provide us with the cabbage, broccoli and cauliflowers that we purchase in the shops today; they're all variants of this wild plant.

This planted area by a roadside had a nice display of Broad-leaved Glaucus Spurge. Having found this growing wild in Sussex some years back, I had a look around to see if that was the case here.

I was pleased to find a single plant had seeded and was growing in the pavement, not too far away from the parent plant. Whilst this doesn't look much, it's the first record for Cornwall for it growing in the wild in VC1 and 2, which goes to show that winter botany recording is definitely worthwhile.

Euphorbia myrsinites

Cornwall is renowned for its Ramping Fumitories, and it's not unusual to find one or two in flower over the winter months. This patch was on a roadside Cornish hedge. If using keys to identify them, be aware that winter specimens are generally up to several millimetres smaller than usual.

Fumaria capreolata subsp babingtonii

 

Polypodies are difficult to determine from their looks alone, though Common and Intermediate Polypodies aren't too difficult to separate, however, when there is a possibility of Southern Polypody being found, then this complicates matters enormously. This species grows on mortared walls in Cornwall as it avoids the acidic habitats that the other two species can tolerate. The pinnae also look more pointy and serrate, with the lowest pinnae reflexed. Near to those shown below, there were plenty of "normal" looking Common and Intermediate Polypodies, but these looked quite different. The only reliable way to tell which species you have is to look at the sporangia under a microscope. So I took a frond home to check for tiny hairs (called paraphyses) between the sporangia, which would determine whether this was Southern Polypody or something else.

 

 

Unfortunately, the microscope showed these ferns to be the very common Intermediate Polypody, with no hairs (paraphyses) between the sporangia. It shows that you can't reliably determine P. cambricum from how it looks alone. You can also count annulus rings and basal cells under the microscope as each species is different; I also check the spores to see if they are fertile as hybrids are infertile; in this case, the spores were fertile, ruling out any hybrid.

 

Polypodium interjectum 

Lesser Celandine was shining brightly in the sunshine in Polruan.

 

Ficaria verna

 

 

 A trip to Newquay in early February revealed a hitherto unrecorded patch of Purple Dewplant on the cliffs near Fistral Beach. It won't be in flower until later in the year, but it's the first time I've seen this species. I couldn't get any closer as it was growing in a dangerous position to try and get a close up photograph, but the leaves look like little jelly tots.

 

Disphyma crassifolium
 

 A couple of weeks later, I found more growing along a coastal wall near Perranporth, again not flowering, but at least you can see the leaves better.

 

 

Naturalised Wallflowers were coming into flower by Newquay Harbour.

 

Erysimum cheiri

 

Another Fumitory, this time Tall Ramping Fumitory, again near the harbour. This is the easiest large Fumitory to identify as the top petal is concolorous with the rest of the flower, i.e. not black tipped. The jizz of the plant is that it's flowers are longer and thinner than the other large Ramping Fumitories.

 Fumaria bastardii var. bastardii

The seeds of Stinking Iris provided some colour to the mostly drab colours of winter along the coast path.

 

Iris foetidissima 

Every year, I wonder how Daffodils get where they get! This one was on a clifftop above Newquay. I can only think somebody planted them years back when a pet died. I wondered what type it might be, so asked online - Mick Crawley commented "This is one of the very early D8 W-Y cultivars derived from Narcissus 'Grand Primo Citronière'.  The most popular cultivar is 'Wintersun'." He also noted that the tepals had been well chewed up by slugs or snails.

Narcissus agg.

 

Sweet Alison often naturalises freely in warmer coastal locations and Newquay was no exception, found in many pavements and street walls.

Lobularia maritima

 

Below the cliffs were several seals swimming about the cliffs and several birds like this female Stonechat, at the top of the cliffs. Unfortunately, I only had a macro lens with me, so the bird photo is heavily cropped and the seals seemed like miles away in the photos!

 

 

Early February and I took a trip to Carnon Downs, south of Truro for a look around. By the far the best find of the day were seven Bee Orchid rosettes. This species is very uncommon in Cornwall and this is a first record for this hectad. They were on a mown grass verge leading to the Premier Inn, so I expect the soil they were growing in was imported when the hotel was built. The local soil would be far too acidic for this species which favours neutral to alkaline soils.

 

Ophrys apifera
 

Here's its habitat, fairly typical for the species. Ironically, the habitat is created by regular mowing, but that same regime prevents them flowering and seeding. Sometimes landowners will be amenable to not mow between May and July, but not very often.

 

 On a trip to the beach with the family, I walked around a sandy car park at Harlyn Bay and found several young Heath Groundsel plants. They had not been recorded here before, but had been almost 1km away. 

Senecio sylvaticus

 

The next day, we were out humpback whale spotting at Watergate Bay. Needless to say, none were seen, but I took a walk along the stream there and noted many Great Butterbur plants along 30m of the riverbank. They were first recorded here in 1968, so once established, they are there to stay!

 

Petasites japonicus

Here's a habitat photo.

 

 

Winter is also a time for study; for example, to read up on difficult to identify species and where to find rare and threatened plants. Part of this is buying books, and this year I've decided to give Cotoneasters a proper look. There are many Cotoneasters in the wild in Cornwall and I can only identify two by sight, so I'm hoping the book below will help me identify more this coming season. As is often the case with specialised books, it was out of print and I had to buy my copy from the USA, but I'm hoping it's worth it. I was inspired to give this genus a go after viewing the BSBI's talk "Getting Started with Cotoneasters", you can watch it to on YouTube at Cotoneaster Video

 

 

Of course, February is known as being Snowdrop season. There's an excellent key on how to identify them on the bsbi.org website, however, any that have glaucus (grey/green) leaves under 6mm wide are all Galanthus nivalis, the most common one found in the wild, so that simplifies things to a degree.

 

I often used to wonder how many Snowdrop records are actually wild plants and which are likely to have been planted. I wasn't sure if they could spread themselves naturally, however, I have been told that they can and I evidenced this in mid February myself. I was walking besides a rural stream near Bodmin, and all along it were clumps of Snowdrops, some growing on the bare minimum of soil in the water's edge. They had clearly seeded down the stream in the past from wherever they originated from; there was no habitation nearby, no gardens and no other alien plants to suggest any plantings had ever occurred here.

 

Galanthus nivalis

 

 Cornwall and more recently Kent (in a cemetery) are the only places in the UK where the alien species, Pale Speedwell (Veronica cymbalaria) has ever been recorded. This plant has small, white flowers which appear in January/February, so when I came across such a Speedwell flowering in a cemetery in mid February, I had to research it to separate it from Green Speedwell. Both species are very similar, but the key point for me was that Green Speedwell has dark blue anthers and Pale Speedwell has white (Sell and Murrell). Fortunately, I photographed inside the tiny flower and confirmed they were a dark blue. It would have been nice to have found another site for Pale Speedwell, but that was not to be. When seeds are present, it's much easier to tell them apart, but at this time, I couldn't find any. If I thought this might be Pale Speedwell, I would make the effort to return in a couple of weeks to see the seed pods.

 

Veronica agrestis

 

 By the end of February, the daylight lasts long enough to go wandering for a few hours in the late afternoon, after the household chores are done; so I took a walk around the Camel Trail near Nanstallon and found a patch of Lungwort growing in a corner of the path. They appeared natural and not planted and no other alien species were nearby, except the oft present Green Alkanet, so it was a nice find. Even better to find it in full flower. The petals are pink when they open, and turn to blue as they mature.

 

Pulmonaria officinalis

 

That species rounds off my adventures for January and February. I hope the plants I have featured show that Winter botany is very much a worthwhile pastime.  I made of total of 1,571 botanical records in these two months, with many new species records for the monads I visited. There are many species that are Winter specialists and disappear by mid Spring or are smothered with other vegetation so cannot be seen. 

Winter species identification is a combination of looking at dead plants and seedheads (necro-botany); examining basal rosettes and young plants, as well as identifying species without leaves, such as trees. There's always something to see, no matter the time of year.

Take care and I'll be back soon, hopefully with Spring in full flow and the new wildflowers blooming that come with it. 

Dave

@sylvatica2024.bsky.social