Botanical Finds in Cornwall - Mid to Late July 2023

The weather pattern throughout July was of numerous low pressure systems bringing wind and rain, not only for Cornwall, but for all of the UK. It seems we might have had our summer in May to June. This is all good for the plants though, especially annuals that will germinate and grow quite late in the season when conditions are right.

Here follows a selection of the wonderful wild plants of Cornwall that I have found on my travels around the county through the middle part of this month.

 

Starting off in North Cornwall near Bude and I found this Curled Pondweed in a stream close to where it entered the sea. It's a very easily identified plant and I've not seen much else like it. The stems and leaves are quite stiff and do not fold flat when you take them out of the water.

 

Potamogeton crispus

A surprise find below, was of Smith's Pepperwort, an uncommon and usually coastal plant. I found several plants in the National Trust car park at Sandymouth Bay which were new records for the monad. Unlike Field Pepperwort, the seeds on this plant have the remains of the style poking out of the top of the seed for several millimetres. The plant can grow to about two feet or so tall.

Lepidium heterophyllum

 

 I have never knowingly seen Sea Storksbill before, but I must have walked past it countless times. The leaves look similar to Common Storksbill, but not as finely cut, but if you look very closely, you will see the plants below have green flowers with no petals at all. I found these on a sandy road verge in short turf near the sea.

Erodium maritimum

I do my best to identify grasses when I have the time to study a sample at home. The one below turned out to be a very large Marsh Foxtail growing at the top of a beach in a pool from a stream, dammed by the sea piling up shingle in front of it.
 

Alopecurus geniculatus

 

 

 By a cafe on a beach were some nice looking False Fox Sedges. They have a similar structure and look to them as Star Sedge (Carex echinata) but the former are much larger and sturdier with sharply 3 angled stems and downward pointing bracts below the spikelets.

Carex otrubae

 

 Below was an example of an annual species that is usually gone over by late Spring, Thyme-leaved Sandwort. Here it is flowering again on a clifftop in short turf, thanks to plenty of rain! These can be distinguished from Slender Sandwort by their conical "flask" shaped seedpods. Slender has much smaller and straighter pods and much finer leaves too.

Arenaria serpyllifolia s.s.

 

Plenty of Speedwells are having a second go at flowering too. The following two photos show the very common larger flower of Common Field Speedwell (Veronica persica) compared to two small native annuals I found growing with it - Wall and Grey Field Speedwells.

Veronica arvensis (the tiny flower)

Veronica polita (the smaller flower)

 

 Back inland and I'm looking around the perimeter of a new housing estate and I find Corncockles on a roundabout! They were clearly sown with the amenity planting, but whether they were part of the mix or a contaminant, I don't know. There were no other typical seed mix plants on it.

Agrostemma githago

 

On a steep bank of disturbed soil by this new estate, I also found a few Field Woundwort plants, likely buried in the seedbank and brought to the surface by earthworks.

Stachys arvensis

 

Not far away was a huge area comprised of china clay waste with some footpaths through it. On some short turf I found a patch of Chamomile in flower. Easily told apart from other Mayweed type of flowers by its lovely smell when any part is crushed. This is not uncommon in Cornwall, especially on Bodmin Moor, but I'd not seen it in china waste areas before, so it was a nice find. They rarely grow more than 6" tall here.

Chamaemelum nobile

 

Another nice find on the waste area were numerous Small Cudweed plants, these are small, grey, hoary looking plants with small capitulas comprised of a few uninteresting brown flowers. These are quite rare and declining nationally.

Logfia minima

In between the rain showers, I took a local walk and ended up on an arable field edge that miraculously had not been sprayed with herbicides. Fool's Parsley was abundant along the edge of the crop of Maize. It's a smallish plant that grew to around 12" tall, but its drooping down bracts are definitive to its identification.

Aethusa cynapium

I also found an unusual Cornsalad here. Looking in the botanist Bible (Stace 4) and also the comprehensive Sell and Murrell volumes, I couldn't decide whether I had found Narrow-fruited or the glabrous form of Hairy-fruited Cornsalad. Photos were sent to the BSBI referee for Valerianella who agreed they were quite unusual, but were most likely Narrow-fruited. As both are rare finds in East Cornwall, I was still very pleased to find around 50 plants here.

Valerianella dentata var. dentata

 

 On another local walk, I passed a fenced off area that used to be an arable field but was awaiting being built on for new housing. I spotted the plants below through an impenetrable security fence, so I couldn't get any closer. Other botanists identified them for me as Narrow-leaf Clover, a non-native Clover and no doubt a crop relict. Unfortunately, I won't see it in flower next year as the bulldozers have now moved in.

Trifolium angustifolium

 I took an evening trip to Bodmin Moor as it's only a few miles away from me. In a bog I came across lots of small rush like plants that appeared to be sprouting seeds whilst still on the stalk. I'd not seen this before (bogs being rather scarce in Kent) and the VCR told me this was Bulbous Rush which commonly propogates in this fashion. There's always something new to learn in botany!

Juncus bulbosus

This bog has carpets of White-beaked Sedge in it, which looked spectacular; like little stars in the grasses.

 

Rhynchospora alba
 

 I didn't want to leave out ferns on this blog, so here's my first Lemon-scented Fern that I have not been shown by someone else! Since Covid, I have had difficulty smelling much of anything, but this fern really did have the scent of lemons and even I could smell it. What's more, when running my fingers over the back of the fronds it was sticky and felt like Sticky Groundsel to the touch, quite unique I think. You can see the lemon scent glands on the second photo below.

Oreopteris limbosperma

Bog Asphodel would have been a fine sight here a few weeks ago, but now, there were just a few plants with flowers left, the rest had gone to seed. They really are the golden gems of the bog.

Narthecium ossifragum

I did find a lone Heath Spotted Orchid still flowering a month after all the others had gone over, but orchids have featured so many times, I'll give them a miss for this blog. My final plant below, was the small but amazing Ivy-leaved Bellflower. Fairly common on damp moors and bogs in Cornwall, but much rarer the further East you go. Unfortunately, due to rain, the tiny blue flower was closed.

Wahlenbergia hederacea

I had hoped to wrap up July with this blog, but there's too many plants to choose from; if I include them all here, the blog will become too long and cumbersome and readers may just fall asleep reading it, so I will write a separate blog for the last week of July. 

Take care.

Dave

Botanical Finds in Cornwall - Early July 2023

 

 July started with wet weather which we needed herein Cornwall after such a prolonged dry spell in May/June. In the first week, I went on a Cornwall Botanical Group field trip to Goss Moor, a SSSI in Mid Cornwall. Here are some of the highlights from it.

Sneezewort is relatively common in acidic damp areas, but it's hardly ever noticed until it flowers, you can't miss those. It's a relative of the very common Yarrow plant

Achillea ptarmica

There were some lovely colourful displays from the bog plants at this time of year. Below, the yellow flowers are Bog Asphodel and the pink ones Cross-leaved Heath

Narthecium ossifragum and Erica tetralix

The frilly patterned petals of Heath Spotted Orchids were plentiful.

Dactylorhiza maculata subsp ericetorum

Marsh Ragwort flowering, it's flowers about half as big again as Common Ragwort and the terminal lobe on the leaves is huge in comparison.

Jacobaea aquatica

Round-leaved Sundews grew abundantly on the wet sphagnum moss.

Drosera rotundifolia

Near where we stopped for lunch, we noticed some odd looking St. John's-wort plants. After noting the black streaks on the leaves, lack of transluscent dots and 4 angled stems it became apparent that it was Imperforate St. John's-wort. A sample was taken to ensure it wasn't the hybrid. This was a new species for me. It is probably extinct in Kent and only the hybrid with Perforate St John's-wort is still found there.

Hypericum maculatum subsp obtusiusculum 

Here's some of the group looking for species at Goss Moor.

We also found plenty of Pale Butterwort, a carnivorous plant. I managed to get a nice photo of one in flower, including its basal leaves which traps insects using a sticky glue like substance.

Pinguicula lusitanica

We saw plenty of insects too, but my personal favourite was this Scarlet Tiger Moth, named after the colour of its underwings. There were several roosting here waiting for the rain to stop.

Callimorpha dominula

A few days later, on a local walk, I came across some Small Toadflax, a species I'd not seen in Cornwall until now. It was growing in imported aggregate surrounding an electrical sub station by an arable field. This plant seems to have taken advantage of the lack of competition from more robust plants along the field edge and moved in here.

Chaenorhinum minus

Another Toadflax nearby was Spear-leaved Fluellen with its very tiny, but colourful flowers.

Kickxia elatine

A road verge near home had some Musk Mallow in its white flowered form, beautiful!

Malva moschata

A walk in the Clay Country, north of St. Austell usually brings the discovery of some smaller species that grow in the nutrient poor mining waste of the china clay areas. Below is Trailing St. John's-wort, a small, sprawling plant with small flowers.

Hypericum humifusum

Common Centaury was in flower showing off its pink petals offset with yellow anthers, though sometimes the flowers can be white too. You can tell this species apart from the other likely species, Slender Centaury, in that this plant has a rosette of leaves persisting at the base of the plant. Slender Centaury has no rosette of leaves.

Centaurium erythraea

A nice find on the china clay waste was Heath Pearlwort in flower.

Sagina subulata

So ended early July, at least the damper conditions will favour plants staying in flower longer, rather than burning off early in Summer heat. 

Thanks for reading and I hope you liked the plants featured.

Dave

Botanical Finds in Cornwall - Late June 2023

There was a BioBlitz organised for Colliford Lake, Cornwall's largest reservoir situated on the Bodmin Moor, so I went along to see what I could find for their records. I didn't find any new plant species, but it was great fun looking around the draw down zone of the lake. The usual plants here are tiny, such as this Allseed below. From a standing height it looked a bit like a very small inflorescence of Stagshorn Plantain and knowing that isn't found here, I bent down to take a look. Unfortunately, the flowers were closed as it was a cloudy, drizzly sort of day.

Linum radiola

On the short, sheep grazed turf above the highest water mark was Lousewort. It flowers quite early, in Spring, but the odd plant flowers on until Summer, as below.

The next photo shows a Lousewort in seed, its inflated capsules containing the seed, much like Yellow Rattle and coincidentally, both species are semi-parasitic on neighbouring plants.

Pedicularis sylvatica

Mouse-ear Hawkweed grew here too with its lovely red tinged ligules closed for the rainy day. It also has long hairs on the mouse ear shaped leaf edges pointing inwards, hence its common name.

Pilosella officinarum

Being a BioBlitz I was also photographing and recording insects along the way.

Below is a Cinnabar Moth and it's caterpillars feed exclusively on Ragworts. They are immune to the poisons within Ragwort and use it to protect themselves from predation by birds, amphibians etc.

Tyria jacobaeae

I had no idea what caterpillars these were having never seen the like of them before. My Twitter friends informed me they were the early instar form of the Emperor Moth caterpillars, amazing. More about these caterpillars later in the blog.

Saturnia pavonia

The 5 Spot Burnet Moths were spotted on the wing, mating, emerging from the pupae case and here below as caterpillars. They feed exclusively on either Lotus corniculatus or Lotus pedunculatus (Common and Greater Birdsfoot Trefoils), depending on the sub species of moth. 

See: https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/five-spot-burnet

Zygaena trifolii 

We recorded many species of plants for South West Lakes Trust's Bioblitz and a big thank you to their representative, Angellese for leading the event and collating the information. 

On the drive home, I took the scenic route through the moor and came to an abrupt halt when I spotted three Greater Butterfly Orchids on the side of the road. They were a bit past their best, unsurprising, given the lack of rain, but great to find and a new monad record too.

Platanthera chlorantha

Sheep's-bit grew along the road verges too. I'm so used to it being seen at coastal locations, I sometimes forget it's also an inland plant, the clue is in its scientific name "montana" (upland/mountainous).

Jasione montana

One Sunday, I decided to record the Port Gaverne area, close to the home of the "Doc Martin" TV series at Port Isaac, for no other reason, than I like being near the sea. I recorded well over 200 plant species here and a fair few were naturalised alien species or garden escapes like the one below.

This is the Orange Day-lily. It has quite a large flower and it's the second one I've seen in the wild in Cornwall in a year and a half of living here. It doesn't seem invasive like Montbretia and doesn't seem to spread much. I know this because, this species was recorded here 9 years ago and it hasn't spread in that time. It's certainly an attractive flower and I can see why gardeners grow it.

Hemerocallis fulva

On the coastal cliffs were hundreds of Narrow-leaved Everlasting Pea which is our native Pea species. The flowers are fewer and duller than the alien Broad-leaved Everlasting Pea and of course, the leaves are at least six times longer than wide, not fat and in your face like the alien one!

Lathyrus sylvestris

Crested Dog's Tail is a common, but attractive grass. You can spot it growing quite early on, but it takes a while for the spikelets to open up. When they do and they catch the light, they look amazing. I didn't quite catch the light here, but you get the idea.

Cynosurus cristatus

Musk Mallow was, and still is, putting on fine displays in various places. The one below was at Port Gaverne, but I have seen it on many road verges and roundabouts. The drought hasn't bothered it at all. One plant near me, came into flower in Summer last year and was still in flower for the New Year Plant Hunt on New Year's Day! I used to think these were a plant of calcareous places, but they can tolerate a degree of acidity and our road verges are not too acid for the most part for them.

Malva moschata

A 15 minute drive from my home is Pentireglaze, a lovely small beach with abutting cliffs and an abundant flora including one of Cornwall's coastal specialities, Babington's Leek, which has now come into flower. They are a tall plant, often growing to 3, maybe 4 feet tall with a clustered ball of purple flowers. I do like them.

Allium ampeloprasum var. babingtonii

It was late evening when I walked up the valley at Pentireglaze, so the dragonfly below was roosting. When they are on the wing, they are hard to chase down for a photograph as they are so active. so the middle of the day is not such a good time to take their picture.

This stunner is called a Golden-ringed Dragonfly.

Cordulegaster boltonii

On a field edge, I found a few Corn Marigolds. These are naturally occurring in Cornwall and (for the most part) are not arising from wildflower seed mixes or bird seed feeders. They're bright and cheerful aren't they.

Glebionis segetum

From big, in your face flowers, to the tiny ones you walk past without knowing it. On the same walk, I found some tiny Knotted Hedge Parsley, probably only a few inches tall. They can grow to around a foot tall, but the lack of rain has stunted them in height I think.

Torilis nodosa

In the last week of June, I went to Cubert Common, South of Newquay for a look around. The walk took me into one edge of Holywell dunes too, so it was very scenic. One of the plants I found was the white form of Black Horehound. I've seen it before in Kent, but it is very uncommon. They are usually dirty pink/light purple colour. It seems all the Black Horehound in Cornwall is subsp meridionalis, so I looked up what this meant. Basically, the main difference is that the calyx is wider than long. In subsp nigra, the calyx is longer than wide. Seems odd having a subspecies name for such a small difference, perhaps the chromosome count is different too.

Ballota nigra subsp meridionalis (var. albiflora)

The stunning piercing blue of Brooklime, a Speedwell that likes to grow in very damp conditions, in this case, on the edge of a streamlet. It's a shame their flowers are tiny, otherwise they would be grown in gardens I think.

Veronica beccabunga

A beautiful view from Holywell Dunes and a habitat photo for Sea Holly and Sea Bindweed amongst lots of other sand loving species.

Here is one of hundreds of Sea Holly plants, with most coming into flower. The bumblebees loved them too. There's actually a brownish crab spider under the flower with a flying insect it caught there.

Eryngium maritimum

Common Poppies and Corn Marigolds at West Pentire. The place was crowded with tourists all there to see the poppies. This was a shame as there was so much trampling of the field edges that the National Trust has had to rope off all the fields. I had hoped to wander up the field edges for some arable rare plants, but that was not to be. 

Do we really need a crop of poppies in an arable field noted for rare plants?

My last excursion in June was with the Cornwall Botany Group, where we surveyed and recorded Creney Farm, South of Lostwithiel. Cornwall Wildlife Trust had purchased the farm to join up the landscape with three adjoining nature reserves. So the purpose of our visit was to identify plants (and insects) and record what was already there. That is essential to know before any work is done on this new reserve. Without such knowledge, rare plants or insects could be inadvertantly wiped out by "improving" areas, ironically for wildlife! So it was great to listen to a CWT representative talk about their plans for the reserve and how to best create habitats for all forms of wildlife.

Below, the group was making its way through rush dominated grassland that had been partially drained and "improved" for farming by the previous owners. The "improvements" failed and farming was not worthwhile in some of these fields. Here, we found remnants of good bog habitat that could be restored, with plants such as Marsh Cinquefoil, Marsh St. John's Wort and Marsh Speedwell all still present.

Some of the plants found here included:

Marsh Pennywort with its tiny umbel of flowers

(you don't think of this plant as being an umbellifer, but it is)

Hydrocotyle vugaris

Heath Rush with its tufted leaves flattened at the base and an inflated sheath around the spikelet node. I'd been struggling working out Juncus species without taking a sample home to study, so it was great to be given hints on its form by the Vice County Recorder and how to easily identify such species quickly.

Juncus squarrosus

Lesser Skullcap, which grows in boggy, damp and acidic places.

Scutellaria minor

Harestail Cottongrass with its single seed head (as opposed to the three in Common Cottongrass).

Eriophorum vaginatum

Common Valerian with its typical branched flower spikes and pom poms of little flowers. This really is quite common in Cornwall, but quite rare in Kent. I suspect that's simply because Cornwall has so much more damp habitats than Kent, which this species likes for sure.

Valeriana officinalis

Below was our final find from this day, another caterpillar that I didn't recognise. Well, it's the Emperor Moth caterpillar again, but this time, it's the final instar form before it pupates for the Winter to hatch as one of the UK's most magnificent moths in the Spring. What an amazing caterpillar!

Saturnia pavonia

Have a look here for photos of this beautiful moth.

https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/emperor-moth

 

That rounds up June. The weather experts tell us it's been the warmest June on record and it was certainly the driest I can ever recall, following on from a very dry May too. As I write this on the 5th July, I am pleased to say it's been raining heavily for two days of July already, with some more forecast. Hopefully, some annual plants may now germinate and continue into September, providing we don't get any extended long hot and dry periods again. Sunny days, rain overnight, that's all I ask....

 

I often compare the Cornwall flora to Kent, where I used to live. It occurred to me that readers might like to see the Kent flora too, so if chalk flora and plants from Late Spider Orchids to Bastard Cabbage interest you, have a look at https://barbus59.blogspot.com/ or for my Kent blogs as a beginner, see https://barbus59.tumblr.com/archive (scroll down to view individual blogs in date order).

Take care

Dave