The Lizard Heathlands - 1st June 2025

 Of late, I have been writing a blog for each month, but some trips are so botanically rich that it would make the blog way too long if included in the general finds for the month. So, here is a single trip blog to the area of heathland from Goonhilly to Coverack.

 

 On arrival, I donned welly boots, as last time I had been here in June, it was too boggy and wet for walking boots. However, it soon became apparent how bad the recent drought had been, as the heathland was about 95% dried out. In some of the remaining boggy areas, young Round-leaved Sundews were coming up. 

Drosera rotundifolia 

 I got down low to get a photo of an individual leaf, showing the sticky blobs which are like glue and trap insects that land on them. The blobs then fold over into the centre of the leaf and the insect gets digested. Bogs are so nutrient poor that many carnivorous plants live in them.

 

Nearby were some Early Marsh Orchids. There's usually two subspecies here, a dark pink form and a white to flesh coloured flower form. Unfortunately, the flesh coloured flower (subsp incarnata) hasn't flowered this year, or has delayed flowering perhaps, so remained unseen by me.

Here's the darker form, which was reasonably common here. Early Marsh can easily be separated from Southern Marsh by it having loops and not dots on the lower petals, and it having lower petals with somewhat folded down sides.

Dactylorhiza incarnata subsp. pulchella

 

 In this boggy area were at least 100 plants of Common Butterwort, the only place in Cornwall where this plant can be found, though it is more common further north in the UK. 

Pinguicula vulgaris

 

This plant traps insects with sticky leaves that fold inwards to digest the insects.

 

It's close relative, Pale Butterwort was nearby, but in much smaller numbers. This species is found in many of Cornwall's bogs. It traps insects in the same way as Common Butterwort does, but is much smaller overall with pale, almost white leaves.

 Pinguicula lusitanica

The heathlands are full of various species of Ericaceous plants, such as Cornish Heath, Bell Heather, Heather and Cross leaved heath, the latter just starting to flower. Rarely, you can find a white flowered form too. As the name suggests, there are four leaves arising out of the stem in a more or less square pattern; Bell Heather only has three leaves. Also, the plants look greyish green from the large amount of tiny hairs on the leaves, whereas, Bell Heather is simply green.

 

Erica tetralix

 

 I try to photograph insects when I can too, but my days of chasing butterflies to get a photo of them are long gone. However, a few insects still oblige by staying put while I fiddle around with my camera, like this Green Dock Beetle. The enlarged abdomen shows this to be a female full of eggs. You can usually find them on Dock plants, like I did here.

 

 Gastrophysa viridula

 

 A big surprise was a Green Hairstreak landing right next to me; I've never seen one in Cornwall before, though there used to be plenty in Kent.

 

Callophrys rubi

 

 

Great Burnet is common on the heathland, but only one had its first flower coming out.

 

Sanguisorba officinalis

 

 In the drier parts of the heath, I found a few scattered Heath Fragrant Orchids. These are much smaller than Marsh and Chalk Fragrants and each species smells a bit different too.

 

Gymnadenia borealis

 

 By my car in a lay-by, I noticed that many Meadowsweet plants had a bright orange fungus on them, so I took some photos and found them to be Meadowsweet Rust Fungus; it's common where there are large numbers of Meadowsweet plants. Many species of plants have their own rust fungus associated with them.

  

Triphragmium ulmariae 

 

  

I then drove about a mile to a different part of the heathland which had a variety of habitats, thus meaning I could find more plants of interest. The gravel car park was a good place to start with several nice plants there. First was a single Fairy Flax plant in flower. I'd not seen these in this area before, but apparently they are often recorded on The Lizard. They're very difficult to photograph as thet are at most 5cm tall with tiny flower stems that move about in the slightest breeze, and this day the wind was gusty, so below was the best I could do.

 

Linum catharticum 

 

 Nearby was a patch of Trailing St. John's-wort with another patch of plants down a farm track. Don't be fooled by the photo, the flowers are not large, being about 1cm across.

 

Hypericum humifusum

 

 

I came upon a small pond which still had some water in it. The pond was dominated by Bottle Sedge, a species I had not knowingly seen before. I find the bigger sedges much easier to key out than teeny weeny specimens!

 

Carex rostrata

 

 

On all the heathlands, there are plenty of Heath Spotted Orchids, which favour the dry, acidic soils found there. It's very hard not to stop and photograph all of them as they are a lovely little plant here, reaching around 10-15cm in height. In southeast England though, they can grow to about 45cm tall. There's a bonus Flea Sedge (Carex pilucaris) in the second photo that I deliberately left there to show what grows with the orchids. Many photographers "garden" around the subject and make the background fuzzy, I prefer not to, at least not all the time.

 

Dactylorhiza maculata subsp ericetorum

 

Bristle Club-Rush likes it damp, but the drought meant that most are high and dry, but they still seemed to be doing fine. The plant below looks healthy enough and was in flower. 

 

Isolepis setacea

 

 

There are two species of Isolepis, the one featured, which has bracts overtopping the spikelets and I. cernua which doesn't. Many times, the bracts are indeterminate and you can't separate them without looking at seeds (which differ between the species). However, in this case, many of the bracts overtopped the spikelets by so much, that it had to be Isolepis setacea. 

I 

 

Along a farm track I found the white flowered form of Bugle, a form I'd not seen before. They're usually blue and very rarely, pink flowered.

 

Ajuga reptans "Album"

 

I then drove another mile or so to my last heathland location near Goonhilly. This is a site for Pygmy Rush, a very rare rush confined to The Lizard, but alas, due to the drought, they had long gone to seed.

 

Juncus pygmaeus 

 

 

Wild Chives were abundant here. I've now found them on coastal clifftops, in an alleyway in a town (obviously a garden throwout) and on heathland.

 

Allium schoenoprasum

 

 

Narrow-leaved Pondweed was "in flower" in a small pool, it is by far the commonest pondweed in the county.

 

Potamogeton polygonifolius

 

Nearby was an excellent find, a dried up pool had a large colony of Lesser Marshwort in it, all flowering. This usually grows in water, so it's very difficult to get photographs, but now I could get some close up photos of the tiny umbellifers holding the flowers. Unbelievably for such a heavily recorded monad, this was a new record for the area.

 

Apium inundatum

 

Miniature Dropworts were dotted around, no more than 15cm tall.

 

Filipendula vulgaris
 

 Another dried up pond held a baby Royal Fern, perhaps our showiest fern when mature.

 

Osmunda regalis

 

 

At this location I also spotted a Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary, a beautiful butterfly. Unfortunately, it flew off before I could get a closer shot of it.

 

Boloria selene

 

 That was it for the Lizard heathlands, it's an amazing place for botany and insects and next month the whole place will be a blaze of colour from Cornish and Cross-leaved Heath, Heather and Western Gorse all flowering at the same time.

 

On the drive home, I stopped off at Devoran by the A39 as I had spotted several marsh orchids along the road verges on my way to The Lizard. Sure enough, I soon found at least 100 Southern Marsh Orchids along the A39 (thankfully, there was a footpath too). Note that the lip patterning is comprised of dots, not loops or bold lines. Also see that the sides of the lower petals are more triangular in shape, or flared outwards, quite unlike the Early Marsh Orchid featured above.

 

Dactylorhiza praetermissa

 

 

Here's some of the habitat!

 

 In the gutter grew a Grey Sedge, an unusual habitat!

 

Carex divulsa

 

 Finally, by a busy roundabout, I found a very tall orchid that was clearly a hybrid between Southern Marsh and Heath Spotted Orchids. This hybrid is fairly common in Cornwall as both species often grow together. It was perhaps 5 times taller than even the biggest Southern Marsh and 10 times taller than the average Heath spotted. Hybrid vigour is a good way to spot orchid hybrids, though, be warned, plenty of smaller orchids can also be hybrids too. Neither this hybrid, nor Southern Marsh Orchids have been recorded here before which is odd, given that I easily saw them from my car earlier that day as I drove past.

 

D. x hallii

 

 

So ended a great day out. Every county has a floral hotspot, so visit yours and see what you can find. Early June is probably the best time to visit such places as the majority of plants will be flowering then.

Until next time.

Dave