Cornwall Botany - November and December 2025

 As Winter approaches, days shorten, the temperatures drop and usually there's a lot of rain. In November, we've had all of those plus some mild, wet days too. Here's some of the plants of note from this month.

 

Pot Marigold is a common pavement plant, usually escaping from nearby gardens and colonising pavements and waste ground in urban areas. There are two main types: the usual one with a ring of ray petals around the central disc flowers and a "flore pleno" type that has multiple rings of ray petals around the disc florets. There are several cultivars, such as "Orange King" with similar ray petal arrangements. Here's one of those from near Truro.

 Calendula officinalis 

 

Green Field Speedwells are usually found in cemeteries here and are very uncommon in their previous habitat of arable fields. This was the case here, found in a Truro cemetery. The flowers are much whiter than Common Field Speedwell (sometimes all white) and a bit smaller too. The seedpods sit almost parallel to each other and have a small number of straight non-glandular hairs with a few slightly longer glandular hairs. The sepals are narrowly oblong.

Veronica agrestis

 

 Mid month and I did a recording walk around the Polperro area. I found a surprisingly large number of flowering species here given the time of year. The first was Three-cornered Leek coming into flower; it's an invasive species and has aggressively colonised most towns, road verges and cliffsides. The strap like pale green leaves smell strongly of garlic when crushed.

Allium triquetrum

 

Garden Nasturtiums are sometimes found near gardens or in lay-bys as a garden throwout. They clearly spread by creeping runners as they form lines along paths and, in this case, from near a garden where it was probably thrown out, into an adjacent woodland.

Tropaeolum majus 

 

Another alien species colonising coastal cliffs is the Hedge Hebe. With its late season vibrant purple flowers in tight bunches, I can see why gardeners plant it. This species had colonised many areas of a cliff and even self seeded into the side of a slate wall.

Veronica x franciscana

 

A cropped arable field provided the highlights of the trip with hundreds of Field Woundwort flowering amongst the stubble of a cut crop.

Stachys arvensis

 

A lovely Field Pansy - Viola arvensis

  

Amongst these were several Lesser Quaking Grasses in seed (Briza minor), a solitary Pale Flax (Linum bienne) and thousands of Round-leaved Cranesbills (Geranium rotundifolium). As I walked through these, I saw some small pink floweres that looked a bit different. On closer examination, I found these to be Small-flowered Catchfly. This is a very rare plant in Cornwall with only a handful of records since records began. What a great find. Unfortunately, it was getting dark when I found them, so the photos are a bit grainy.

Silene gallica var. gallica

 

Here's a photo of the unremarkable looking arable field in which these lovely plants were found.

 

 I went out on a couple more trips at the end of November, and found plenty of species, many new to the monad I was visiting. However, only a few were in flower, so I didn't take any photographs. The weather had been very wet too, restricting use of a camera at times. 

The following plants were found in December. 

A short walk around the arable fields at Pentireglaze produced planty of records and a few flowering plants. Part of a field was full of Musk Thistle rosettes and eventually, I found one with a ragged flower still showing.

Carduus nutans

 

 Wild Radish still had some flowers, though they were probably planted in the field as part of a cover crop.

Raphanus raphanistrum subsp raphanistrum

 

Some bare ground had three Milk Thistle rosettes, an uncommon find in Cornwall. The bright marbled patterns really stand out.

Silybum marianum

 

Musk Storksbill was quite frequent, especially along path edges and a few were flowering.

Erodium moschatum

A walk around Trelights in North Cornwall in early December led to me seeing my first scented Sweet Violet flowering of the season. The early flowering Sweet Violet is called:

 Viola odorata var. praecox 

 

 In the same monad I found a Wild Service Tree which had shed its leaves. However, these leaves are distinctive and are enough to identify the tree. It had been recorded previously in the area.

Sorbus torminalis 

 

A mid month walk around the Stenalees area revealed a small area of heathland surrounded by china clay workings. The area was full of Heather, Bell Heather and a large clump of Cross-leaved Heath which was a new monad record. Apart from the ever present Rhodedendrons that spread everywhere, there were no other alien species there. Then I found this!

 Gaultheria mucronata

 It was a plant species that I'd not seen before, but it was clearly in the same family as plants like Bilberry, so it didn't take long to work it out. There are quite a few records in Cornwall for it, with the first record being around 1964. Clearly, birds can take the berries and poop the seeds anywhere, which is what I think happened here.

There were no other surprise species that day, but here's some of what was flowering in that area in mid December.

Sheep's-bit - Jasione montana

 

Thyme-leaved Speedwell - Veronica serpyllifolia

 

A Field Forget-me-not growing on a pavement edge.

Myosotis arvensis

 

And a White Ramping Fumitory from a scruffy roadside edge. Look how large the sepals are in relation to the length of the flower. Note that in winter, fumitories are often smaller in size than the books might suggest. I often find quite small specimens of White Ramping Fumitory in the winter months.

Fumaria capreolata subsp babingtonii

 

 Near Christmas, I found a fallow arable field near Rock with some nice plants in it.

Tall Ramping Fumitory, which has a pink upper petal and not black like most of the other species. It also has much smaller sepals than White Ramping Fumitory and it has toothed edges to them.

Fumaria bastardii var bastardii

 

Some Rough Chervil around the field edge.

Chaerophyllum temulum

 

Field Pansies - Viola arvensis

 

Finally some Corn Parsley just coming up.

Sison segetum

 

Greater Periwinkle is the most often recorded garden escaped Periwinkle, but some of them may be Intermediate Periwinkle. They usually have white or pink flowers, a bit smaller than Greater, and the leaves are the same as Greater Periwinkle, but without the fringe of hairs along the edges.

Vinca difformis

 Finally, for that day, I found two lots of Borage flowering; one on a rural path verge and the other atop a pile of soil caused by building work.

Borago officinalis

 

 With the next 7 to 10 days forecast as having very low temperatures, overnight frosts and biting Easterly winds, I doubt that I will see anything more in the last week of December, so I'll end this blog at Christmas Eve. I hope you liked the selection from November and December from Cornwall. 

January and February are the real Winter months and it gets tough to find plants of interest, but if I do, I'll let you know about them. Have a Merry Christmas and a great New Year.

Dave