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 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cornwall Botany - October 2025

 It's been a month of two halves, with the first half of the month's weather being dry, settled, but gloomy and cold and the second half back to Atlantic low pressures systems bringing wind and rain. However, the plants soldier on and will continue to do so until frosts kill off the Summer species, so the following are plants of interest I've photographed around Cornwall this October.

 

As daylight hours shorten, our native plants begin to become hard to find in flower, so it's worth looking at urban areas, brownfield sites and waste ground, where there are often non native species as well as natives that do well in these habitats. Near Launceston I found a flowering Orange-peel Clematis growing on a waste strip of ground by a wire fence on an industrial estate. It was clearly self or bird sown as this tiny area had nothing else growing there. I had only seen this plant once before, in sand dunes at Harbour Cove on the Camel Estuary. I suspect I may see more of it in the coming years too, so keep an eye out for it.

 Clematis tangutica 

One native species that often flowers again in the Autumn is the Common Dog Violet. It flowers en masse in the Spring and early Summer, but it isn't unusual to see it again in late Autumn. In this case, there were over a hundred flowering on a rabbit grazed south facing grassy bank near Launceston.

 Viola riviniana 

Trevathan Farm at St. Endellion is always nice to have a look around. It has a farm shop, a kid's playing area and walks around some of the fields. Typically, I have noticed that herbicides have not been used in these fields for a while now, and plants like Corn Mint (Mentha arvensis), Corn Spurrey (Spergula arvensis) and Field Woundwort (Stachys arvensis) are frequently seen. As I had recorded all the above species here last year, I didn't photograph them, but I found two new species for these fields that likely arrived as crop contaminants. The first was Thorn Apple, with a few plants fruiting in a cropped field of Maize. 

Datura stramonium

 The second was Green Amaranth, growing in a crop of Sunflowers. The easy way to distinguish this species from Common Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus) is that the latter has hairy stems and leaves and this one is virtually glabrous.

Amaranthus hybridus

In the gloom of an Autumn anticyclone, I took a walk around Par, but walked inland along a stream, rather than looking at the dunes as I would usually do. I found some nice plants flowering by taking a different route to usual.

Tall Tutsan, widely naturalised in Cornwall and quite frequent near urban areas where birds disperse the berries. It looks very similar to Stinking tutsan, but the sepals quickly fall off that species and all parts have an unpleasant smell when crushed. Oddly, it is a species I never saw naturalised in Kent.

Hypericum x inodorum 

Along an alleyway at the back of some houses were several Balm-leaved Figworts in flower. These have similar flowers to the other Figworts, but the leaves are more like those of Wood Sage being crinkly and heavily veined. You can see what I mean from the photo below.

Scrophularia scorodonia

 

A close up of its small flowers.

Water Mint in flower by the stream.

Mentha aquatica

 

Michaelmas Daisies flower well into October and can be challenging to determine to species level. However, I keep a key on my phone and key them out when I find them. It's quite straighforward then and saves having to take lots of photos or a sample home to determine later. This key was available on the Essex Botany Group webpage but it seems to have disappeared. The other option would be to photograph the relevant page from Stace and use it in the field. The most commonly found late flowering Aster is appropriately named the Late Flowering Michaelmas Daisy. 

Symphyotrichum x versicolor 

 

 Back near the dunes some Sea Radish was in flower, though they are readily identified from their large rosettes of bright green heavily lobed leaves too. The seeds in the photo belong to another plant, likely a Melilotus species.

Raphanus raphanistrum subsp maritius

 

 Nearby, Tansy was flowering well too. I noticed that there was a colony about 50m long along a path. Half had already flowered and were in seed and the other half were in full bloom. I suggest that's likely an evolutionary tactic to ensure seed set in case one or the other fails to set seed for some reason.

Tanacetum vulgare

 

Mid month and I visited the Canworthy Water area of the county to record. Here's some of the species I photographed from there.

Common mouse-ear - Cerastium fontanum

 

The invasive, but nonetheless attractive Himalayan (or Indian) Balsam - Impatiens glandulifera

 

Fox and Cubs - Pilosella aurantiacum

 

In the River Ottery, the only submerged plant species I could find was Curled Pondweed, and then, only three plants in a long stretch of river. The water quality, though clear, was poor, with lots of brown algae covering the stones and gravels: it's even covering the leaves of this plant, which must affect its ability to photosynthesise. This algae growth is usually caused by agricultural run off and/or sewerage discharges loading the water with excessive nutrients. I wonder what grew in this stream 100 years ago before intensive farming?

Potamogeton crispus

 

Also in mid October, I visited the area of St. Teath in North Cornwall. In a wooded pathway, I found the first signs of Spring with some Ivy-leaved Speedwell growing at the base of some trees. Of course, it won't flower for a while yet though.

Veronica hederifolia

 The Lord and Ladies are coming up with fresh leaves too, but so far, the only species I've found is Italian Arum with its lovely marbled leaves. It's widely naturalised in Cornwall. the leaves in the lower left of the photo, belong to Garden Archangel, another well naturalised species here.

Arum italicum subsp italicum

 

A very unusual find was Sea Storkbill in an arable field corner of a field over 5km from the sea. It was huge for this species, being around 8-10cm in diameter and also had a few flowers out, though this species lacks petals.

Erodium maritimum

 

The field margins also had several clumps of Smooth Tare in them, most in seed, but a couple still had flowers, which are very small!

Ervum (formerly Vicia) tetraspermum

 

A solitary Sharp-leaved Fluellen was the last nice find in this field, though unfortunately, the flowers weren't opened; I think they may be cleistogamous late in the season (flowers that remain closed, are self-pollinating, and do not open).

Kickxia elatine

 

On a road verge just outside St. Teath, I found some hybrid Woundwort, with the maternal parent being Marsh Woundwort and the pollen (male) parent being Hedge Woundwort. The flowers were much like Marsh, but the mid stem leaves were clearly stalked. If the parentage was the other way around, then the flowers would look like Hedge Woundwort and the stem leaves would be mostly sessile (stalkless).

Stachys x ambigua

 

Common Vetch (another species that flowers mostly in the Spring) rounded off this trip.

Vicia sativa subsp segetalis

 

Near the end of October, I went to an area to the East of Stratton and wandered around lanes and paths to record. I found some Betony flowering nicely.

Betonica officinalis

 

Some Common Calamint, surprisingly new to this monad.

Clinopodium ascendens

 

I recorded lots of the uncommon arable plant species in a fallow field where I also found some Wild Radish. I suspect this was self seeded from a nearby cover crop.

Raphanus raphanistrum

 

 My final offering for this month was the delightful Yellow Corydalis, growing out of a wall as they mostly do.

Pseudofumaria lutea

 

I hope you liked the selection of plants, I enjoy finding them and sharing them too. As the nights draw in and the weather turns colder, I'm likely to go out less frequently, so the next instalment might cover more than one month. Regardless, there is always something to find, so if it isn't raining or in between storms, go out and see what you can find too.

 

Take care

Dave