Botanical Finds in Cornwall - September 2023

 Summer has gone, but the plants don't necessarily follow our calendar. There are always new species and plants to find, so I go out looking all year round as and when I can. Below are some of the interesting plants I found this last September in Cornwall.

Field Gentian is a species I'd not seen before, and in late August, spurred on by photos online of flowering plants from as far north as Cumbria, I searched for them in Cornwall. I didn't find any! It seems the Cornish plants do not flower until well into September for some reason. So I travelled down to the Lizard Downs to try and find some and I was successful, finding around 100 plants in total along a dry track about a mile inland from Kynance Cove. Unfortnately, this species only opens its flowers on a sunny day and whilst it was sunny on the beach, the moist sea air rising over the cliffs led to the Lizard Downs being shrouded in cloud and mist, so the flowers were firmly closed.

Gentialella campestris

This Gentian is different to other Gentians in having unequal sepals and only four petals. In the photo above you can see the two outer larger sepals almost totally enclosing the two smaller pointy ones.

I finally found a sorry looking plant in flower. It looked like it had been trodden on, unsurprising, given it was about an inch tall and firmly on an earth footpath. However, you can clearly see it only has 4 petals, not 5.

 

Of course, being close to The Lizard always means there are some rare or uncommon plants to see, like the Sneezewort below and masses of Great Burnet by the side of the road.

Achillea ptarmica

Also by the road were some alien species, no doubt from dumped garden material long ago. Below is Apple Mint and yes, it does smell a bit like fermented apples when you crush a leaf. It's the hybrid between Round-leaved Mint and Spearmint. You can tell it apart from Round-leaved Mint in that the leaf teeth are horizontal giving it a sharply serrated edge to the leaves. Round-leaved Mint leaves are similar to this hybrid, but the teeth are strongly downturned, making the leaf look rounded and not serrated from above. Spearmint, of course, smells wonderfully of Spearmint, just like the gum, so the smell (and leaf shape) rules that out.

Mentha x villosa

Walking along the drier parts of the Downs were thousands of Devil's Bit Scabious flowering. All were blue/lilac in colour apart from a couple of clumps I noticed that were the white form. It's certainly a stunnning colour form. I have seen white flowered plants on the Kentish chalk, but never here before.

Succissa pratensis

Another roadside alien plant was Japanese Anemone, a common garden throwout that seems to survive and thrive. It is commonly recorded throughout Cornwall as a garden escape, but unlike our native anemones, this plant grows to several feet tall with multiple flowerheads. It's quite attractive and doesn't seem to be invasive or spread aggressively.

Anemone x hybrida

Not far from the road was a dried up large pond. It wasn't really dried up as the soil was very damp and the turf spongy. It was full of Marsh St John's wort, Gypsywort and other damp loving species like this Lesser Water-plantain, one of hundreds in flower here. Dont be fooled by the macro photograph into thinking these are large flowers, these are tiny flowers on small plants, with narrow leaves in a tangled rosette below.

Baldellia ranunculoides

I then came across thousands of Pillwort spikes, which is a tiny fern. It forms a round globule on the ground when mature (hence the Pill name) which ruptures when ripe spreading the spores.

When fresh, as below, they are bright green and at first can look like some sort of grass.

Pilularia globulifera

A new species for me was Lesser Marshwort, a small, fine-leaved creeping plant related to Fool's Watercress. Unfortunately, it was too late in the year for flowers.

Helosciadium inundatum

Later in the month, I took a woodland walk more locally to Wadebridge. On a Broad-leaved Dock, I found a gravid female Green Dock Beetle with its irridescent metallic wing covers refracting light gloriously in the sunlight.

Gastrophysa viridula

I found a flowering Bugle on the muddy woodland path. These usually flower in Spring, but you do get some plants putting up a few flowers in the late Summer too, along with Dog Violets and Primroses.

Ajuga reptans

Near to a farmer's manure heap storage area, I found a new species to me, called Striped Goosefoot. This family of plants are quite difficult to key out and I used several texts including Stace and Sell & Murrell to be sure. Of course, I took lots of photos too.

Chenopodium strictum subsp strictum

There is another subspecies with red stripes too, though these were all green.

On my return walk, I came across a Bindweed that just looked odd. On closer inspection, it was clearly the hybrid between Large and Hedge Bindweeds. On the same plant were some large and some small flowers with the small ones lacking the large overlapping bracteoles and the large ones having them.

Calystegia sepium x silvatica = C. x lucana

I also found Spotted Dead-Nettle, another alien species that establishes itself from fly tipped material. It spreads by forming a large mat of plants, but it doesn't seem to spread further than a few metres from the original introduction site, so maybe the seed is not fertile. It's worth bearing this species in mind if you record plants without flowers (vegetatively) over the winter months, as its leaves can look a bit like Garden Archangel.

Lamium maculatum

I like walking by the sea, so I record by it when I can. On this day, I went to the north coast near Gunver Head and found a patch of lovely Cornish Ramping Fumitory by a lay-by. Endemic to Cornwall, so a special plant.

Fumaria occidentalis

Saw-wort was flowering in droves along the cliffs, though most plants were only a few inches tall. Inland they can be three feet tall.

Serratula tinctoria

My last find that day was Marsh Arrowgrass, another new species for me. I'd seen Sea Arrowgrass lots of times as it's very common on saltmarshes in my area, so it was great to see this on a clifftop flush.

Unfortunately, it was in seed, but these are distinctive enough to tell it apart from its maritime cousin. The leaves are long and grass like and form small tufts from which the flower spike arises.

Triglochin palustris

At the end of September I took a relatively local walk at Little Petherick. A field edge by the path had some nice plants in it, such as this Round-leaved Fluellen, scarcer in Cornwall than Sharp-leaved, which was also present.

Kickxia spuria

On this walk, I eventually came to a little creek, an offshoot of the tidal Camel Estuary with some saltmarsh. I recorded  many common saltmarsh species but added Long-stalked Glasswort to this area. It was quite difficult identifying Glassworts here as a recent storm had covered them all in mud, this species is normally a bright green.

Salicornia dolichostachya

My final plant of this blog was another new hybrid species for me, the cross between Hairy and Hedge Bindweeds. I had never seen Hairy Bindweed before, but the flowers are pink with white stripes and the petioles are usually winged or somewhat hairy. This plant below again, had large and small flowers with inflated overlaping bracteoles on the large flowers (90% of those open) and small open bracteoles on the smaller flowers (10% of this open). Again, I took a lot of photos and consulted my Vice County Recorder. It was agreed this was in fact the hybrid and was new to Cornwall. 

I could only find Hedge Bindweed close by, but Hairy Bindweed had been recorded there in the recent past too.

Calystegia sepium subsp sepium x C. pulchra = C. x scanica

A few days later I returned to the area and found the Hairy Bindweed parent, hiding in a corner of a rough car park. It looked similar but all flowers were large with inflated bracteoles hiding the sepals and petioles were somewhat winged with minute hairs. Of note was that the hybrid plant was massive in comparison to either parent, stretching up around 15m off the ground around surrounding vegetation, whereas both nearby parent species were under 2 metres.

So ended September. I didn't get out much due to ill health, but I made the most of it when I could, I wonder what October will bring. I hope you liked reading this, take care.

Dave

Botanical Finds in Cornwall - August 2023

 As Summer marches on, species coming into flower change and the Spring plants fade away. The following plants are some that I photographed this month in Cornwall on my recording trips. It's a bit longer than most blogs, but I didn't want to leave out too many of the special plants, of which there were many!

There are two Hemp-nettles and when not in flower, I can't tell them apart. The only real difference is that Bifid Hemp-nettle has a cleft in its lower petal and usually is quite pink compared to the Common Hemp-nettle which doesn't have a cleft lower petal and its flowers are mostly white. Both are coming into flower now and below is the Bifid Hemp-nettle. They're quite attractive flowers, but generally quite small on a large plant.

Galeopsis bifida

There are several species of wild Geranium family species that grow in the UK, but they are supplemented by garden escapes. One of the commonest escapes found in the wild is the hybrid between French and Pencilled Cranesbill which is often found not far from habitation in the wild. There are a huge amount of alien species growing in the wild in Cornwall and as a non gardener, getting to know them all is a new challenge for me.

Geranium x oxonianum

The next few photos are from a Cornwall Botany Group field trip to Bodmin Moor. Much of the moor is overgrazed, but a lack of grazing would likely be worse as Gorse and Bracken would then dominate the whole moor. There are pockets of plants where the livestock couldn't reach and the short sward also favoured tiny plants like this Heath Pearlwort below. From above it looked like Procumbent Pearlwort, but the leaf arrangement is different; the leaves are hairy (you need an eye loupe to see them) and the flowers have larger petals (difficult to see as closed up due to it raining).

Sagina subulata

The main purpose of this field trip was to see and count the populations of two rare ferns, Tunbridge Filmy Fern and Wilson's Filmy Fern. We found both in the same crevice between huge granite boulders near a stack of rocks called The Cheesewring. It was such a small crevice that I had to point the camera and take a photo without being able to see the viewfinder or screen on the camera. I also had to use a flash, so this was the best I could get. First time I'd ever seen either of these species.

Hymenophyllum tunbrigense

The other fern was Wilson's Filmy Fern.

Hymenophyllum wilsonii

The poor thin soils are ideal for Birdsfoot, a tiny pea family plant with even tinier flowers. It mostly flowers in late Spring and the flowers are a bit bigger then, but these plants are up on the moor and have a much harsher climate to contend with than its lowland brethren.

Ornithopus perpusillus

Hiding under some granite was a clump of New Zealand Willowherb, now a widespread alien species in Cornwall.

Epilobium brunnescens

On the way home I stopped off and found some odd looking Clover leaves. They had black lines along them. On researching this I found that White Clover can have a wide variety of leaf markings as shown below. "b" is the type I commonly see here. There's always new things to learn in botany, even with supposedly common species.

Trifolium repens

Late Summer means that the heaths are awash with colour now from Heather and Bell Heather. Joining them soon will be Cornish Heath and Western Gorse and coastal areas like The Lizard and Land's End will be spectacular to see.

Heather - Calluna vulgaris

Bell Heather - Erica cinerea

Wild Thyme is still flowering and these plants that I found at Kitt Hill near Callington had quite striking white markings. The coastal plants seem to lack this two tone effect.

Thymus drucei

In Kent, Fairy Flax was a plant of the short chalk turf and wasn't often found elsewhere. As such, I assumed it was a calcareous loving plant, but no. There is precious little calcareous grassland in Cornwall, yet Fairy Flax is quite at home on many neutral to slightly acidic soils here. This species is tiny with flowers only a few millimetres across; the weight of a raindrop on this flower has caused the whole plant to droop over.

Linum catharticum

It's the time for Michaelmas Daisies to flower too. They are a tricky group to identify to species level, so I thought I'd add this photo of one I found below to show you what you need to look at before attempting to use a wildflower key. A photo of the flower wouldn't be any use.

Laye Michaelmas Daisy - Symphotrichum x versicolor 

The next series of photos relate to another field trip with the Cornwall Botany Group led by me (of all people) with a brief to identify as many Glassworts as we could growing in the saltmarshes at Hayle. Not one, but two Vice County Recorders were present, so no pressure then! The field trip went well surprisingly, though Glassworts were thin on the ground as regards species variety. But of course, we found lots of other plants as well, like this pink variety of Hedge Bindweed, a first for me. The recent rain set off the photo composition beautifully.

Calystegia sepium subsp roseata

The best find on this trip for me was coming across four clumps of Purple Ramping Fumitory. Perhaps the most attractive of our Fumitories, it had eluded me at previously known sites and ironically it was at a new site here. What a beautiful plant.

Fumaria purpurea

Looking at Long-stalked Glasswort at Hayle

The VCRs found us two new species of Rush to see as well. We saw the slender Saltmarsh Rush (Juncus gerardii) and below, the Frog Rush - Juncus ranarius

True to form for Cornwall, there were several alien species to see on this trip too. We saw several Kangaroo Apples growing wild along a path.

Solanum aviculare

This white flowered sorrel posed a headache for our two VCRs, so a sample was taken home for study along with some bulbils from the soil. It turned out to be Broadleaved Sorrel - Oxalis latifolia

Regarding Glassworts, we only found Common, Purple and Long-stalked. About a kilometre away was some Perennial Glasswort but we ran out of time to see those. What was surprising was that only a few years ago Long-stalked Glasswort first arrived in the Hayle eastuary. Now there were hundreds of thousands of them; it had a massive population explosion in less than a decade.

Salicornia dolychostachya

When the field trip ended I drove the short distance to The Lizard Downs for a look around. Cornish Heath was still flowering in white, pink and all in between colours.

Erica vagans

Great Burnet is quite common here.

Sanguisorba officinalis

Gorse doesn't like it much on The Lizard Downs, but Western Gorse takes over instead. It's usually a low growing spindly looking bush, often windswept into a cushion shape. It has smaller and weakly grooved spines and flowers in late Summer only, unlike its cousin Common Gorse.

Ulex gallii

In a cattle field I came across around 30 of these perplexing plants that I'd never seen before. I took a sample and on getting home found them to be an alien plant called Toothed Fireweed. It's like a giant Groundsel (to which it is related) but it smells quite vile, like gone off disinfectant! Apparently, it has gained a hold on the Isles of Scilly and is seemingly invasive. It's now appeared on The Lizard and a few other places in Cornwall too. As it efficiently disperses its seeds by wind, I can't see it being stopped now. Keep an eye out for it.

Senecio minimus

That wraps up August. I'm sorry it was a bit long, but then there was a lot going on this month in Cornwall's wildflower heaven. Hope to see you soon.

Take Care

Dave

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