Author: Christine

Week 9 Roundup : 20^th May

A tentative and partial ‘release’ from lockdown seems to have changed things quite dramatically for some of us, yet barely a jot for others. ‘Stay at home’ was a straightforward message, easily understood and (to a large extent) universally applied. Now it’s all got a bit more complicated than that. The roads are busier, and the daily routine isn’t quite as straightforward as before. There are more options, and apparently we now have to ‘stay alert’…

Well, nothing this week has seemed quite the same as last week. There’s the Blackbird, for a start. His endless ‘variations on a theme’ have been replaced by something a little more mundane, less adventurous, less musical somehow. It’s as though his heart isn’t quite in it any more. And while his stock phrases still ring out across the rooftops—especially very early in the morning when some of us are starting to wish he wouldn’t bother—in the middle of the day he becomes silent and skulking. He seems distracted, as if his mind’s on other things; and of course it is, since for the last couple of days we’ve been seeing them flying about with beaks full of nestling food. Once the eggs have hatched, there’s clearly more to life than singing. And so this weary rooftop flautist now has to spend some of each day food-gathering for  hungry nestlings, or else delivering his urgent chook–chook-chook alarm calls from the deep cover of the neighbours’ holly tree. Which probably means cats are about. I fear this may not end well.

We have a hefty lump of flint on our garden table, collected some years ago from the beach at Sidmouth. It’s about the size of a butternut squash, with rounded knobbles and dark recesses and holes running through it. For us, it serves as a paperweight, but also, I’ve just noticed, it’s become a favourite resting place (or maybe nesting site?) for tiny bees. These little bees I’d been dismissing as flies; and they really are extremely small—probably no more than about 4-5mm in length. After much bee-watching, I’ve worked out they’re Hairy Yellow-face Bees, Hylaeus hyalinatus. It seems that telling one Hylaeus from another is a challenge – there are about a dozen species in Britain, each one sporting its own unique black-and-yellow face pattern. Males and females have different markings, too. Only one, thank goodness, has a hairy face like ours. Plate 2 of Steven Falk’s field guide, showing the faces lined up in six ranks of four, looks like something ripped from a catalogue of Darth Vader masks, or maybe one of those charts at Slimbridge  showing how to distinguish one Bewick’s Swan from another by its bill pattern.I’ve been mesmerised by these minuscule bees on their cobble of flint; if I hadn’t been instructed to stay at home I’d probably never have noticed them. Just imagine, for sixty-four years I’ve been totally oblivious to the existence of the ‘Hairy Yellow-face’. There’s always something, isn’t there? (Thank goodness.)

When it comes to botany, of course, I’d like to think I’m better able to pick up on these sorts of things. Yet, with apologies to Graham, Fred and Helena, I still happily turn a blind eye to Hawkweeds and Eyebrights. I just don’t get them. But you can’t hope to do everything, can you? You have to pick your battles…

Some battles, though, are more easily won than others, and Ro this week reminded me of one that, like getting to grips with Hylaeus, could be particularly well suited to this time of ‘staying put’: the colour-pattern variants of Field Bindweed, Convolvulus arvensis. Mostly we ignore them, and yet Peter Sell took a particular delight in them, naming no less than ten easily recognised colour forms. We know we have many of these in the county, but which are common, and which less so? Could we perhaps, between us, work out a ‘league table’ for Somerset, from commonest to rarest? Do any of them have differing or particularly distinctive ecologies or habitat/soil requirements? To start the ball rolling, I’ll post on the website a home-made photographic chart depicting eight of the ten colour forms, plus a key to all ten so, if you’d like to, you can have a go at working out which ones you’ve got in your local area. I promise: they’re easier than dandelions…

Right, Week 9. Weather-wise it was like a back-to-front Week 8, so this time starting with a ground frost (1°C in Taunton on the 14^th) and ending with a heatwave (25°C on the 20^th). Another dry week too, and for the most part sunny. It pains me to say it, but still there’s been hardly a day of cricket lost to the weather, if only every day hadn’t been lost already—to the virus. Dragonflies and damselflies are really taking off now, if you’ll excuse the pun. I saw Broad-bodied Chaser, Libellula depressa, at Orchard Wood on the 14^th, while Eve had depressa in the north of the county this week too. Several of you have reported seeing Beautiful Demoiselles, Calopteryx virgo, but not yet Banded, C. splendens. Of the damselflies, in Longrun Meadow Keith Gould—who I bumped into on Alma Street earlier this week—has so far recorded Large Red, Pyrrhosoma nymphula, Blue-tailed, Ischnura elegans, Common Blue, Enallagma cyathigerum, and Azure, Coenagrion puella.  Butterfly highlights of the week included two reports of Green Hairstreaks, one by a friend, Lynda Stewart, at Thurlbear on the 19^th, the other by Georgina at Ubley Warren on the 20^th. Georgina also had her first Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary on the 20^th.

On the botanical front it’s been another busy week, with 16 of you sending in a total of 145 records covering 113 species. These included quite a few ‘late’ FFDs from higher altitudes of things recorded flowering in the ‘low country’ several weeks ago. It’s all starting to get terribly confusing, and hard to predict which species we need to be looking out for next. In all, we saw just 11 of the 20 species on our target list this week. The following summarises our Week 9 records: target species with their names emboldened, other notables slotted in as we go along, and the whole lot roughly arranged in alphabetical order by scientific name…

‘A’. Records have been tumbling in for Ground-elder, Aegopodium podagraria. Georgina says it was actually flowering in her garden last week, on the 12^th, but others have begun seeing it this week, including Margaret at Strode on the 15^th, Pat, also on the 15^th, at Nettlecombe, and Helena with Dave Green on the 19^th at Woolverton. The only other ‘A’ of note was Wild-oat, Avena fatua, in Upper Holway, Taunton, on the 18^th.

‘B’. I’ve seen Meadow Brome, Bromus commutatus, in grassland near Orchard Wood on the 14^th, also at Longrun on the 18^th and Thurlbear on the 20^th. Remarkably, also some very early Yellow-wort, Blackstonia perfoliata, in open stony ground beside the railway at Taunton station on the 15^th. Watson would be spinning in his grave—his FFD for it about a century ago was 27^th June!

‘C’. Linda very usefully picked up a couple of new sedges on a visit to Mount Fancy on the 16^th, Common Yellow-sedge, Carex demissa, and Star Sedge, C. echinata. (Along with several other nice things, including Bog-bean, Menyanthes trifoliata, Lesser Spearwort, Ranunculus flammula, and Marsh Violet, Viola palustris. This is quite a late FFD for the violet, probably due to the fact that mostly none of us get to visit the right sort of habitat for it.) More sightings of Marsh Thistle, Cirsium palustre, this week included Linda at The Quants on the 13^th, and me at Thurlbear on the 16^th. Many of Pat’s FFDs at Nettlecombe are, unsurprisingly, lagging behind some other parts of the county, so all the remarkable that she recorded Spear Thistle, Cirsium vulgare, on the 15^th, when Taunton’s plants—and I’ve looked at hundreds of them this week—are still stubbornly in tight bud. Two more records of Crested Dog’s-tail, Cynosurus cristatus, at Burnham-on-Sea on the 15^th (Andrew), and at Lilstock on the 19^th (Ro).

‘D’ for Dactylorchids…. Margaret has seen both Common Spotted-orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii, and Heath Spotted-orchid, D. maculata this week, the first at Winford (Redding Pits) on the 17^th, the second on the 15^th at Strode, where she also saw one of our target species, Southern Marsh-orchid, D. praetermissa. However, her first Southern Marsh-orchids were actually a day earlier, on the 14^th, at Berrow, during her first botanical walk away from Winford since lockdown nine weeks ago. There have also been a couple more FFDs for Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea: at Ford Street on the 13^th (Linda), and in Taunton on the 18^th.

‘E’. Hoary Willowherb, Epilobium parviflorum, has at last been found flowering away from Fred’s ‘eastern enclave’, so in the part of Somerset called Somerset: Andrew saw it at Highbridge on the 19^th. Helena visited Priddy Mineries on the 13^th, with one of the highlights being Hare’s-tail Cottongrass, Eriophorum vaginatum. She says it’s normally an early-flowerer, but Watson would still have been mildly surprised, his average FFD being 30^th May; although even ‘back in the day’ he did see it, very occasionally, flowering as early as April. More mundanely, I had flowering Californian Poppy, Eschscholzia californica, on waste ground in Canal Road, Taunton, on the 15^th. (Nearby there was a lovely sprawling Sweet-pea, Lathyrus odoratus – a real rarity in the wild in Somerset, apparently.)

‘F’. Our target list included Meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria, but Hilary went one better, with flowering Dropwort, F. vulgaris, on Purn Hill on the 16^th. No-one has yet seen Meadowsweet, although it was very close to flowering in Killams, Taunton, on the 19^th.

‘G’. A sudden rush of records of Long-stalked Crane’s-bill, Geranium columbinum, this week: David H at Middle Hill Common on the 9^th (so actually Week 8) was followed by Hilary on Bleadon Hill on the 14^th, Chris at Langford Budville also on the 14^th, me at Thurlbear on the 18^th, and Gill up in the far north-east on the 19^th. And a second record for Meadow Crane’s-bill, Geranium pratense, at Woolverton on the 19^th (Helena).

‘H’. Margaret’s lockdown break-out to Berrow on the 14^th also produced some flowering Sea Sandwort, Honckenya peploides, while there have been two records for Tutsan, Hypericum androsaemum, in Taunton on the 18^th, and in Leigh Woods on the 19^th (David H). Nettlecombe’s first Common Cat’s-ear, Hypochaeris radicata, was on the 17^th, more than a month later than its first sighting in the Taunton area.

‘L’. A record from Fred of Grass-leaved Vetchling, Lathyrus nissolia, in Hants, but so far only a solitary Somerset record—that incredibly early one of Alastair’s in Minehead on 20^th April. I have searched in several likely places, without success. But it must be flowering by now, mustn’t it? (And what about Yellow Vetchling, L, aphaca, too?) Meadow Vetchling, L. pratensis, has been remarkably slow off the mark, with Andrew’s record from Burnham-on-Sea on the 15^th being the only one of the week. Privet, Ligustrum vulgare, was beginning to flower in Taunton on the 17^th, while we also have a second record of Honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum, this time from Langford Budville area on the 14^th. Marsh Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Lotus pedunculatus, seems to have flowered very much under the radar: David H saw it at Leigh Woods on the 19^th, reporting that it had probably “been flowering for a while.”

‘M’. I saw a single plant of flowering Dwarf Mallow, Malva neglecta, growing around a roadside bollard in Upper Holway, Taunton, on the 18^th. Ro was delighted to notch up Common Cow-wheat, Melampyrum pratense, on the 15^th at Walford’s Gibbet where it was “… looking so pretty in dappled sunlight.” Linda also had Common Cow-wheat, at Thurlbear on the 18^th. Following records in Week 8 of flowering Wall Lettuce, Mycelis muralis, in Hants and Bristol, we’ve finally had it beginning to flower in Somerset, in Gwynne Lane, Taunton, on the 18^th.

‘N’. Yellow Water-lily, Nuphar lutea, was recorded by Val on the 11^th (so Week 8) in the Glastonbury area, then on the 18^th by Andrew on the Huntspill River. (Not one I usually record, but the White Water-lily, Nymphaea alba, was looking splendid on the pond at Roughmoor on the 17^th.)

‘O’. Corky-fruited Water-dropwort, Oenanthe pimpinelloides, was just beginning to flower on the 18^th in Trull.

‘P’. I had my first Hoary Plantain, Plantago media, at Thurlbear on the 20^th, 11 days earlier than the 2008-17 decadal average FFD for it in the Taunton area, and more than 3 weeks earlier than Watson’s average FFD. David H’s record of Wood Meadow-grass, Poa nemoralis, in Leigh Woods on the 19^th was similarly early. ‘P’ of the week, though, must surely go to Helena for her record of flowering Angular Soloman’s-seal, Polygonatum odoratum, in Cheddar Gorge on the 14^th, while I had the first flower on Hoary Cinquefoil, Potentilla argentea, in Longrun Meadow on the 17^th. Oh yes, and Andrew had Knotgrass, Polygonum aviculare, at Burnham-on-Sea on the 15^th.

‘R’. Lots of sightings of Dog-rose, Rosa canina, this week, including Wellington, Glastonbury, Brent Knoll, Bleadon Hill and Leigh Woods. Only one more record, though, for Bramble, Rubus fruticosus agg. But, more interestingly, a ‘first’ for Raspberry, Rubus idaeus, at Nordrach on Mendip on the 15^th (Georgina).

‘S’. It would be remarkable if Helena’s FFD for Mossy Saxifrage, Saxifraga hypnoides, on the 14^th weren’t also its first flowering in the UK, given that Cheddar Gorge is an extreme southerly outpost for this ‘northern’ species. There have also been further sightings many other ‘S’ species, including Ragged Robin, Silene flos-cuculi, Bog Stitchwort, Stellaria alsine, Lesser Stitchwort, S. graminea, and Hedge Woundwort, Stachys sylvatica.  Plus, a cecidological ‘S’: in Leigh Woods on the 19^th David H spotted galls on Wayfaring Tree, Viburnum lantana, caused by the gall-midge Sackenomyia reaumurii. I haven’t checked yet, but suspect this may be a ‘first’ for Somerset.

‘T’. Further records this week for Goat’s-beard, Tragopogon pratensis, and Salsify, T. porrifolius, as well as the hybrid between the two, T. x mirabilis. I have also been pleased to pick up flowering Hop Trefoil, Trifolium campestre, and Knotted Hedge-parsley, Torilis nodosa, on Taunton road verges, and Zigzag Clover, Trifolium medium, just beginning to flower on the 20^th up at Orchard Wood. The most notable ‘T’, though, must surely be Steve’s ‘many plants’ of Woolly Clover, Trifolium tomentosum, at Huntworth, near Bridgwater Services, on the 17^th – only the second record of this species in VC5 and Somerset.

‘V’. Helena, running more gently than usual, was able to spot Bithynian Vetch, Vicia bithynica, already flowering well on the 15^th at Paulton. Other than that, the main ‘V’s this week have been Squirreltail Fescue, Vulpia bromoides, on a droughted grassy bank in Longrun Meadow on the 17^th, and Rat’s-tail Fescue, V. myuros, which was seen on the 15^th by Helena on her front path, and coincidentally by me on the same day on mine! And finally, the newsflash you’ve all been waiting for: on the 18^th Helena ran 5 kms—that’s 3.15 miles—in under 35 minutes, and her first mile was 9 minutes 11 seconds, so two seconds faster than her previous best. I’ve never actually timed it, but suspect my own personal best over 5 kms is about an hour and a half. On a good day.

I’ll leave it to David H to wrap up this week’s report. On Sunday, 17^th, he bravely “ventured into Wiltshire”, to visit Pewsey Downs…

“Couldn’t find a single orchid in flower … but did scratch out a few plants of Field Fleawort [Tephroseris integrifolia]. To be honest the best thing was the … Chalk Milkwort, Polygala calcarea, and Horseshoe Vetch, Hippocrepis comosa,stretching on and on, like a pattern infinitely repeated with slight variations. And … Marsh Fritillaries all over the shop, and [a single] Adonis Blue, like a scrap of the Aegean alighted on the Wessex ridge.”

Can we all go there next year, please?

Week 9 Preview : 14^th – 20^th May

Assuming you’re still happy to continue, these are the four species we failed to see last week:

Wall Lettuce, Mycelis muralis; Ground-elder, Aegopodium podagraria; Viper’s-bugloss, Echium vulgare; Meadow Cow-wheat, Melampyrum pratense

To which we can now add the following 16 species:

Zigzag Clover, Trifolium medium; Water Forget-me-not, Myosotis scorpioides; Selfheal, Prunella vulgaris; Dwarf Mallow, Malva neglecta; Southern Marsh-orchid, Dactylorhiza praetermissa; Meadow/Smooth Brome, Bromus commutatus/racemosus; Tutsan, Hypericum androsaemum; Long-stalked Crane’s-bill, Geranium columbinum; Yellow Water-lily, Nuphar lutea; Stinking Iris, Iris foetidissima (the real McCoy, NOT var. citrina);  Reed Canary-grass, Phalaris arundinacea; Dyer’s Greenweed, Genista tinctoria; Greater Plantain, Plantago major; Meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria; Pyramidal Orchid, Anacamptis pyramidalis; Hoary Willowherb, Epilobium parviflorum

Other species, so far only recorded once or twice, will soon be flowering more widely, so would also be worth recording if you see them:  e.g. Hoary Plantain, Plantago media; Knotgrass, Polygonum aviculare; Field Bindweed, Convolvulus arvensis, Knotted Hedge-parsley, Torilis nodosa; Lesser Stitchwort, Stellaria graminea. And what about Dog-rose, Rosa canina?

As always, I’d be very pleased to hear from anyone seeing any of these (or other) spp coming into flower in the next week, by email to simonleach@phonecoop.coop.

Please dip in and out as you wish. It’s not compulsory! 

With good wishes for the week ahead.

Simon

Week 8 Roundup : 13^th May

I have to begin with Blackbirds. Since the start of ‘lockdown’ eight weeks ago, one of the compensatory pleasures of being home-bound has been the opportunity—with the relative lack of traffic noise—to listen to birdsong. And even now, while I’m clack-clack-clacking on the computer keyboard, I’m aware of a more or less continuous backdrop of Blackbird song. From 5 in the morning until 9 at night, one particular Blackbird in our street is endlessly broadcasting its presence from various TV aerials and chimney pots. His song is both wonderfully varied and endlessly repetitive: he has two immediately recognisable ‘stock phrases’, both of them quite different to those of his neighbours. He can start to sound like a cracked record—the same phrases recurring ad nauseam—but listening more closely we’ve noticed that no two phrases are ever quite the same. Each time he repeats, he adds a squeal or a chatter drawn from an evidently limitless supply of ‘terminal flourishes’. So while one phrase might sound strident, like a statement of intent, the next—same phrase, but ending this time with an upward lilt—seems more like a question. Or, same again, but dipping at the end and melancholic in tone, might be followed by another that’s cheerily optimistic—like the punch line of a joke, complete with terminal chuckle. He seems to be playing with his song, testing out what works and what doesn’t, and keeping us on tenterhooks to find out exactly which phrase, with which flourish, he’ll choose to pull out from his bottomless song-bag next. He’s become the talk of the street. And during our VE-Day street party on Friday he was perched on the TV aerial adding his own commentary to the evening’s celebrations.

Week 8, and the start of the eighth week of lockdown, was dry and predominantly sunny again, the first half warm (26°C on Saturday), the second half less so. There was a ground-frost on Monday morning, the temperature overnight dipping to just 2°C in Taunton.  Sunday evening’s announcements on the gradual easing of the lockdown seemed to clarify and confuse in equal measure, but one thing we do know is that, from today, we’re free to take as much exercise as we like, and to drive as far as we like to take it – as long as that doesn’t involve driving into Wales, where the ‘stay at home’ instruction still applies. On the face of it, then, for some of us this may open up new possibilities for exercising/botanising further afield. I’m tempted, but I think for now I’ll be continuing to stick pretty close to home. Besides, I’m enjoying the lack of traffic…

Not many non-botanical highlights to report, although Helena seems to be chalking up a new ‘personal best’ of one sort or another each time she dons her Lycra. Her latest was a two-mile run, the first of which she completed in 9 minutes 13 seconds. (She doesn’t say how long the second mile took.) Usually she makes a few plant records while she’s out running—like we all do, I suppose—but now everything’s becoming a bit of a blur, apparently. We’ve also had three first-sightings of Common Blues, Georgina on the 7^th, me on the 10^th and Andrew on the 12^th.  And I had a Red Admiral this morning, presumably a newly-arrived migrant rather than surviving over-winterer.

Right!  First flowerings. Another good week, but suddenly everything seems to be coming at once, and in no particular order. 123 records and 94 species. I’m beginning to lose track. Anyway, we saw 16 of the 20 species on our target list for Week 8, or 18 if you include records from the ‘eastern enclave’ otherwise known as Fred. Only Viper’s-bugloss, Echium vulgare, and Common Cow-wheat, Melampyrum pratense, seem to have evaded us altogether. The following summarises our Week 8 records: target species, as usual, with their names emboldened, other notables slotted in as and when, and the whole lot loosely arranged in alphabetical order by scientific name…

‘A’.  There have been patches of winter-flowering Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, on some road verges this year (my first record of Yarrow in flower in Taunton was between Christmas and New Year), but this is unusual and the decadal (2008-17) average FFD for it is 15^th May. So the spring flush of new flower-heads noted in Taunton on the 7^th and Wellington on the 9^th (Linda) is much in line with expectations. Ground-elder, Aegopodium podagraria, has yet to be spotted flowering in Somerset, the only record so far being from the eastern bloc, in St Michael’s churchyard in Aldershot. Two more records for Black-grass, Alopecurus myosuroides, during the week, Helena in Paulton, and Jeanne between Blue Anchor and Watchet, both on the 10^th.  Jeanne found it in a field of (flowering) Crimson Clover, Trifolium incarnatum subsp. incarnatum – a stunning plant which used to be much grown as a fodder crop. (Interestingly, on the 9^th Maureen Webb, a member of Somerset Botany Group, had Crimson Clover in another field, near Kilve.) Georgina had a ‘hairy’ day in Mendip on the 7^th, with both Hairy Lady’s-mantle, Alchemilla filicaulis subsp. vestita, at Black Rock, Mendip, and Hairy Rock-cress, Arabis hirsuta, at Velvet Bottom. Andrew recorded (and photographed) a gorgeous ‘Star of Persia’, Allium cristophii, growing beside a rhyne on Middle Street on the 9^th – possibly a first or second record for VC6 and Somerset, and one of a number of unusual aliens to be mentioned in dispatches this week.

‘B’. This was the week for Quaking Grass, Briza media, with first-flowering records from Winford on the 9^th (Margaret), Thurlbear and Brent Knoll on the 10^th (me and Andrew), and Ubley Warren and Runnington on the 12^th (Georgina and Chris L.). The unlikeliest ‘B’ came from Margaret’s garden in Winford, with a report of self-seeded Interrupted Brome, Bromus interruptus, now flowering in one of her flower pots!

‘C’. Spiked Sedge, Carex spicata, actually made its first appearance in Week 7, Margaret seeing it in Winford on the 7^th, and Ro at Lilstock on the 5^th.  Some species, though, really seem to be getting ahead of themselves, and I’ve had two this week, both bindweeds, both in Taunton: Hedge Bindweed, Calystegia sepium, on the 7^th, and Field Bindweed, Convolvulus arvensis, on the 11^th – the first in South Street, the second on Upper Holway Road. It’s been quite a week for thistles too: Spear Thistle, Cirsium vulgare, our ‘target’ thistle, was seen by Linda in Wellington on the 9^th and by Val in Glastonbury on the 13^th. Pat, also on the 9^th, had a very early Creeping Thistle, C. arvense, at Nettlecombe, while Alastair saw flowering Marsh Thistle, C. palustre, at Crowcombe on the 8^th.  And Georgina recorded Musk Thistle, Carduus nutans, in Cheddar Gorge on the 7^th.  As if to emphasise how much later some parts of the county can be than others, Chris B. had her first-flowering Pignut, Conopodium majus, at East Harptree on the 10^th, almost three weeks after its earliest sighting near Wellington. Finally, Alastair saw Hound’s-tongue, Cynoglossum officinale, starting to flower at Dunster beach on the 10^th.

‘D’. Common Spotted-orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii, has been popping up all over the place – at Ivythorn Hill on the 8^th (Fiona), Langford Heathfield on the 9^th (Ian Loudon), Thurlbear on the 10^th, and Middle Street, Brent Knoll, on the 12^th (Andrew). Ian had flowering Heath Spotted-orchid, D. maculata, also on the 9^th, and also at Langford Heathfield.

‘E’. I had Square-stalked Willowherb, Epilobium tetragonum, in Taunton on the 7^th, while Fred reports it in flower in Bordon on the 9^th. I know, I’d never heard of Bordon either. It’s between Alton and Haslemere. Chris B. had an Eyebright, Euphrasia agg., in East Harptree on the 10^th, while Andrew reminds me that he saw early-flowering Euphrasia tetraquetra at Uphill on 23^rd April.

‘G’. Huge excitement beside the river Tone on the 12^th, with drifts of Meadow Crane’s-bill, Geranium pratense, just starting to flower—only 43 days earlier than Watson’s FFD for it! Also Flote-grass, Glyceria fluitans, in Taunton on the 9^th, and Middle Street, Brent Knoll, on the 12^th.  And Margaret had Plicate Sweet-grass, G. notata, at Dundry Hill on the 9^th.

‘H’. Barely worth mentioning but, following last week’s flurry of records, I can report that Common Rock-rose, Helianthemum nummularium, was just starting to flower at Thurlbear on the 10^th.

‘I’. I’m not sure what to make of the yellow-flowered variety of Stinking Iris, Iris foetidissima var. citrina. Margaret had a flower of it at Sand Point in March, and I’ve now found another patch – the first time I’ve seen it in the Taunton area – flowering nicely in a roadside hedge in Killams. I’m guessing it’s either deliberately planted there or else a garden escape/throw-out. Does this variety tend to flower especially early, I wonder? And is it generally regarded as a native variety, or as a plant in cultivation that sometimes leaps the garden wall?  Can anyone shed any light please?

‘J’.  ‘J’ is for Senecio… Two more records this week for Common Ragwort, Jacobea vulgaris aka Senecio jacobea – Linda in Wellington on the 9^th, and Andrew in Highbridge on the 12^th.

‘L’. Our first Meadow Vetchling, Lathyrus pratensis, was seen by Linda in Wellington on the 9^th, while there were two further records for Rough Hawkbit, Leontodon hispidus, in Brent Knoll churchyard on the 6^th (Andrew) and in Taunton on the 11^th (me); also I’ve had our first Lesser Hawkbit, L. saxatilis, flowering on the road verge where I’d seen Sea Pearlwort, Sagina maritima, and Sea Hard-grass, Catapodium marinum a few weeks earlier.  We’ve also had Privet, Ligustrum vulgare, spotted by Val in the Glastonbury area earlier today.And finally, there was a precocious Honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum, flowering in a hedgerow at Killams, Taunton, on the 9^th.

‘M.’ Common Mallow, Malva sylvestris, is now flowering quite widely, with records this week from Minehead (Alastair) and Middle Street (Andrew). Our only flowering Wall Lettuce, Mycelis muralis, was annoyingly from the eastern enclave, so remains on the list as one of our targets for Week 9.

‘O’. Once again, Brent Knoll leads the charge, with the county’s first (and so far only) record of flowering Corky-fruited Water-dropwort, Oenanthe pimpinelloides – on the 10^th, in Brent Knoll village, where Andrew says, “I was amazed to see these plants, which went from basal rosettes to 18 inch stems and first flowers in less than a week!” A couple of alien ‘O’s too this week: Linda had flowering Star-of-Bethlehem, Ornithogalum umbellatum, on the 9^th in Wellington, while I had Upright Yellow-sorrel, Oxalis stricta, on the 12^th, growing as a pavement weed on East Reach.

‘P’. A motley collection of ‘P’s this week, only one of which was on the target list – Creeping Cinquefoil, Potentilla reptans, seen by Andrew on the 9^th at Middle Street, and by me in Taunton on the 12^th. Another Common Poppy, Papaver rhoeas, this time at Dunster beach on the 10^th (Alastair), while Pat had an extraordinarily early Corn-parsley, Petroselinum segetum, at Nettlecombe on the 6^th. Andrew’s Hoary Plantain, Plantago media, on the 10^th at Brent Knoll, was also very early – its 2008-17 decadal average FFD for the Taunton area is 31^st May.Lastly, I had Common Knotgrass, Polygonum aviculare, on the 8^th on Cotlake Hill, Trull. Another early date: Watson would have been amazed, his own FFD for P. aviculare from the 1920s/30s was 16^th June!

‘R’. Lots of Yellow Rattle, Rhinanthus minor, seen this week, including Chris B. at East Harptree on the 4^th, Margaret at Winford on the 9^th, me at Thurlbear on the 10^th, and Sue Carpenter (a new contributor) in St James’s churchyard, Taunton, on the 12^th. Other than that, our first Weld, Reseda luteola, was flowering well on waste ground on Canal Road, Taunton, also on the 12^th, along with my own first Bramble, Rubus fruticosus agg., which, as expected, was ‘Himalayan Giant’, R. armeniacus. And today, Alastair has seen Marsh Yellow-cress, Rorippa palustris, flowering at Wimbleball Reservoir.

‘S’. Like Chris B’s Pignut, so also Ellen’s just-flowering Elder, Sambucus nigra, on the 8^th, which again illustrates the difference in FFDs between the ‘balmy south’ and the ‘frozen north’. A ridiculously late ‘first date’, really, given that our earliest FFD for it this spring was on Easter Sunday, 12^th April—but even Ellen’s date would have seemed early to Watson, his FFD (from the Taunton area, don’t forget) was 20^th May!  See also ‘U’, below.

More ‘S’s… First, Schedonorus pratensis, Meadow Fescue – and how did its old name sneak onto last week’s list? – which several of us have seen, including Pat at Nettlecombe on the 6^th, and me in Trull on the 11^th. And Fred’s had it in the Far East too. Ragged Robin, Silene flos-cuculi, was flowering in Longrun on the 7^th, while Chris L. had Bladder Campion, S. vulgaris, at Thorne St Margaret on the 8^th. Several more records of Bittersweet, Solanum dulcamara, this week too, including Taunton, Minehead and Aldershot. And early records for Branched Bur-reed, Sparganium erectum, in Taunton on the 9^th, and Lesser Stitchwort, Stellaria graminea, at Nettlecombe, also on the 9^th (Pat). We’ve had two records for Hedge Woundwort, Stachys sylvatica, at Sandford on the 7^th (Andrew) and in Taunton on the 11^th.

‘T’.  Andrew spotted first-flowering Knotted Hedge-parsley, Torilis nodosa, at Oldmixon on the 8^th, and we have had another good record for Salsify, Tragopogon porrifolius, this time Linda in Wellington on the 9^th. Our target ‘T’ was Hop Trefoil, Trifolium campestre, which Alastair spotted in flower on the 7^th on North Hill, Minehead.

‘U’. Ellen would, I’m sure, want everyone to know that on the 8^th, on Greendown, she saw Common Nettle, Urtica dioica. In an email entitled ‘Catching up with Taunton’, she says: “[I’ve had] my first flowering Urtica—and I had to go out of my way to find it out of thousands searched…” Here in Taunton, meanwhile, I’m struggling to find any that’s not flowering!  Interestingly, very few of you have reported this species, so I’m starting to wonder, could Taunton be out of kilter with the rest of the county? If it’s any consolation, Watson’s FFD for it was 22^nd May—so you’re in good company, Ellen!

‘V’. Heath Speedwell, Veronica officinalis, seems to be flowering quite widely now, with records this week from Black Rock, Mendip (Georgina), Langford Heathfield (Chris L.) and Wimbleball (Alastair). Plus a record from Bramshill (Fred). And, for what it’s worth, I’ve finally seen Brooklime, Veronica beccabunga, at Thurlbear on the 10^th.

Winding up for another week, here are a few lines from a poem, about spring, printed in last week’s Guardian Weekly:

“… the lights of the flowers / coming in waves / as I walked with the budburst / and the flushing of trees …”

Exactly. 

Week 8’ Preview : 7^th – 13^th May

First, the four species carried over from last week:

Square-stalked Willowherb, Epilobium tetragonum; Quaking-grass, Briza media; Common Spotted-orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii; Spear Thistle, Cirsium vulgare

To which we can add the following 16 species:

Flote-grass, Glyceria fluitans; Spiked Sedge, Carex spicata; Hedge Woundwort, Stachys sylvatica; Creeping Cinquefoil, Potentilla reptans; Weld, Reseda luteola; Meadow Vetchling, Lathyrus pratensis; Corky-fruited Water-dropwort, Oenanthe pimpinelloides; Lesser Hawkbit, Leontodon saxatilis; Meadow Fescue, Festuca pratensis; Hop Trefoil, Trifolium campestre; Eyebright, Euphrasia sp/agg; Wall Lettuce, Mycelis muralis; Ground-elder, Aegopodium podagraria; Viper’s-bugloss, Echium vulgare; Privet, Ligustrum vulgare; Meadow Cow-wheat, Melampyrum pratense

Other species, already recorded, but which may soon be starting to flower more widely, would also be worth recording if you see them:  e.g. Common Ragwort, Jacobea vulgaris (= Senecio jacobaea); Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea; Ragged Robin, Silene flos-cuculi; Yellow Rattle, Rhinanthus minor; Smooth Hawk’s-beard, Crepis capillaris

As always, I’d be very pleased to hear from anyone seeing any of these (or other) spp coming into flower in the next week, by email to simonleach@phonecoop.coop.

With all good wishes for the coming week.

Simon

‘Week 7’ Roundup : 6^th May

I dived into my emails on Saturday morning and alighted immediately on an incoming message with the subject title “BOOM!!” It was from Linda. Two days before, on the 30^th, she had emailed with a photo of her first – our first – Black Bryony, Tamus communis. I suggested, in reply, that all she needed now was White Bryony, Bryonia dioica, to complete the set. I imagined this would be unlikely so early in the week, and besides, I had my own plans for White Bryony; last year there had been a great sprawling, clambering – and early-flowering – patch of it in a riverside tangle at Roughmoor, so that was where I’d be heading. This would be one of the easier plants, I fancied, in the week ahead – just a matter of getting the timing right, really.

But the next day, May Day, Linda took a stroll out to Nynehead, where – expletives deleted – she stumbled upon the first flowering Bryonia of the year. In VC6 this would be called a squeak; in VC5, evidently, it’s now to be known as a BOOM. Attached to her email there were three photos: one of the plant, a close-up of the flowers, and one of a woman with a Cheshire cat grin, standing beside a hedge. The subject title, the message and the photos said it all, really, revealing both the plant and the pleasure, plain as day, in black and white – black one day, white the next… The complete set, damn it! 

Black Bryony has had quite a week. Along with its white namesake (no relation – one’s a monocot, the other’s a dicot),it was on our list of potential Week 7 first-flowerers. But whereas our first flowering dates (FFDs) for most species have tended to span several weeks – varying according to microclimate, aspect, altitude, distance from the sea, etc. – the onset of flowering of Black Bryonyhas shown a remarkable synchronicity across the county. Following Linda’s trail-blazer on 30^th April, Val (Glastonbury), Ro (Honibere) and I (Orchard Wood) all reported it for the first time on May Day, followed by Liz (Wedmore) and Chris (Wiveliscombe) on the 2^nd – and then Helena and Jim (Paulton) on the 3^rd, who took a seven-mile hike to Chewton Wood and saw “nothing from the Week 7 list until we were almost home when … we finally found Tamus.”  So it’s a fair bet that others will start seeing it in the next few days. Note that the earliest flowers tend to be on the lowest (least conspicuous) axillary racemes, while the upper, more visible, racemes are still tightly in bud.

To put these FFDs for Black Bryony into context, in twelve years of recording first flowerings my earliest date for it was 29^th April, in 2011, while the latest was 2^nd June, in 2013.  For the Taunton area, the 2008-17 decadal average FFD for Black Bryony was 18^th May; Walter Watson’s, from almost a hundred years ago, and similarly based mainly on observations around Taunton, was 2^nd June. By any measure, then, for Black Bryony the spring of 2020 is proving to be an especially early one…

… Which is hardly surprising, given the weather we’ve been having. The long, warm, dry spell has been only briefly punctuated by cooler, damper conditions. We had a taste of these during Week 7, with fronts bringing cloud and rain on Thursday, Sunday and Tuesday, and with temperatures for the most part well down on previous weeks. One evening we even lit the fire. The rain was badly needed and, despite the cooler temperatures, has probably helped to further accelerate spring rather than slow it down.

Before we tackle the rest of this week’s hit-list, let’s quickly highlight a few other happenings in the natural world…

• It’s been another good week for butterflies: holly blues are still in abundance, while I had my first Small Heaths, Grizzled and Dingy Skippers on the 4^th at Thurlbear. Georgina reported her first ‘dingy’ on the same day, at Ubley Warren, but her first ‘grizzly’ was much earlier, on 19^th April – same date as in 2019, apparently. Has anyone had a Common Blue yet?
• And what about dragonflies? My first Beautiful Demoiselle, Calopteryx virgo, was on the 2^nd, beside the river Tone at Obridge. No damsels, although surely others are seeing them by now?
• If you’re on the Levels you’ll wonder what all the fuss is about, but in Taunton this year we appear to have at least four singing Cetti’s Warblers – one each at Hankridge, Obridge, Longrun and Roughmoor.
• Last week’s Swifts vanished, so we had to endure several days of empty skies, until the 4th when there was a sudden arrival of new birds – and these turned out to be our birds! From midday onwards screamers were circling high overhead, while later in the afternoon some of the birds began hurtling about at rooftop height …
• And then one of them peeled away from the rest of the group, suddenly dipping and dropping, then curving round and up for a first, hurried ‘fly-past’ of its nest-site. It’s hard enough to comprehend the length of the journey this bird must have been on since it was last here, yet harder still to appreciate the precision of its return; back from Africa, somewhere south of the Sahara, to the familiar, slightly warped fascia board on the gable-end of 16, Gordon Road, TA1 3AU.

This week, the seventh since the start of ‘lockdown’, produced the largest batch of first-flowerings yet: more than 160 records and about 100 species, shared between 18 recorders. We saw 16 of the 20 species on our target list. Here they all are, as usual in roughly alphabetical order, with a few ‘extras’ getting a mention along the way…

‘A’. At last, we’ve ‘ticked’ Black-grass, Alopecurus myosuroides. I’d begun to think we’d never get it. Ro was the first, at Lilstock, on the 4^th, followed by Andrew in Highbridge and me in Trull, both on the 5^th. The Trull plants were growing along an arable margin with new-flowering Black-bindweed, Fallopia convolvulus. Two days earlier, on the 3^rd, Andrew also had Horse-radish, Armoracia rusticana, on Wick Lane, near Brent Knoll.

‘B’. White Bryony, Bryonia dioica. As a footnote to Linda’s record, my phone ‘pinged’ a few minutes ago and it was an incoming WhatsApp photo of a White Bryony flower, from Helena in Paulton. Which means we have now had two records for it this week, neither of them mine.

‘C’. This week’s sedges have included a very early Pale Sedge, Carex pallescens, recorded by Chris at Langford Heathfield on 30^th April, and several records of False Fox-sedge, Carex otrubae, including Linda in Wellington on the 1^st, Liz near Wedmore on the 2^nd, and Ro at Lilstock on the 4^th.  Remote Sedge, Carex remota, is now widely flowering in the south of the county, with records this week from Wellington, Langford Heathfield, Taunton, Thurlbear and Orchard Wood. Dogwood, Cornus sanguineus, has been slow to blossom, but Ro saw it at Lilstock on the 4th, while I had it the next day at Trull.  We’ve also notched up two of this week’s target ‘C’s. Smooth Hawk’s-beard, Crepis capillaris, was seen by Alastair in Minehead on 24^th April (so actually in Week 6), while Dee had it in Clevedon on the 30^th.  Crested Dog’s-tail, Cynosurus cristatus, was coming into flower on a road verge in Taunton this morning. But perhaps the most exciting – and certainly the most photogenic – ‘C’ of the week was Chris’s record of first-flowering Meadow Thistle, Cirsium dissectum, at Langford Heathfield. This isn’t a species I routinely record, so I’m not sure whether this is especially early or not – but Walter Watson would have been flabbergasted: his FFD for it was 12^th June!

‘H’. In Week 6, Hilary visited Purn Hill where, on 23^rd April, she recorded not only Common Rockrose, Helianthemum nummularium, but also White Rockrose, H. apenninum, and the hybrid between the two, H. x sulphureum. Andrew also saw Common Rockrose in Week 6, at Cross Quarry on the 25^th, while in Week 7 Ellen had it at East Harptree on the 1^st, and Anne at Broadmead Quarry on the 3^rd.  It isn’t flowering yet at Thurlbear.

‘L’ to ‘P’.  Just the one record for Rough Hawkbit, Leontodon hispidus, Helena seeing it in the churchyard in Midsomer Norton this afternoon (6^th). ‘L’ of the week, though, should probably go to Andrew for his first-flowering Pale Flax, Linum bienne,at Uphill on the 2^nd. (The only ‘L’ I could produce was Rye-grass, Lolium perenne, in the back garden on the 2^nd.)  Water-cress, Nasturtium officinale, was spotted by Liz on the 2^nd.  The first record for flowering Corn Poppy, Papaver rhoeas, was also on the 2^nd, as Gill pushed her bike up the hill coming out of Nunney. I had it this morning, in less desirable surroundings, on a road verge in Taunton. But ‘P’ of the week, although not on our list, must surely be Greater Butterfly-orchid, Platanthera chlorantha, recorded at Thurlbear Quarrylands (me) and Ivythorn Hill (Fiona Davis), both on the 4^th – an exceptionally early first date. My decadal average FFD for Greater Butterfly-orchid is 28^th May, while Watson’s first date for it was 4^th June.

‘R’. The first bramble to come into flower is usually Dewberry, Rubus caesius. Watson’s dates were 5^th May for Dewberry and 21^st June for Rubus fruticosus agg. While the latter is now flowering much earlier than that, FFDs for Dewberry have hardly changed at all. Anyway, we’ve had both during the week: the first R. caesiusrecords were from Orchard Wood on the 1^st, Roughmoor on the 3^rd and Lilstock on the 4^th (Ro), while the sole R. fruticosusrecord was from Station Road, Brent Knoll, on the 3^rd (Andrew). Early-flowering ‘fruticosus’, at least in Taunton, tends to be the alien – and delicious – ‘Himalayan Giant’, R. armeniacus, which should start blooming within the next week. Elm-leaved Bramble, Rubus ulmifolius, usually follows about a fortnight after the ‘Giant’…

We had three ‘S’s on the list, and we found them all! Annual Pearlwort, Sagina apetala/filicaulis, was recorded in pavement cracks in Taunton on the 4^th and Midsomer Norton on the 6^th. White Stonecrop, Sedum album, was flowering on a road verge in Taunton, again on the 4^th, and in Burnham-on-Sea on the 5^th.  Chris had what seemed to be the first record of White Campion, Silene latifolia, at Runnington (near Wellington), on 30^th April, followed by Andrew’s at Berrow, beside the churchyard, on the 4^th. Then Alastair, in an email this afternoon, listed it with several other species as having been in flower at Dunster beach on 26^th April (Week 6); but then another email, close on its tail, was to say he’d just remembered that White Campion was already flowering there several weeks earlier, on 27^th March (Week 2) – and he attached a photo to prove it! That’s a very early record for it, but there’s no doubting its veracity. Another ‘S’ of note, by the way, was an early Bittersweet, Solanum dulcamara, recorded by Liz near Wedmore on the 2^nd.

‘T’ is for Tamus. Nothing to add on that one. But a brief nod here to Goat’s-beard, Tragopogon pratensis, which several of you have reported for the first time this week, including Liz in Wedmore, Val in Glastonbury, Ro at Lilstock, and Andrew at Lympsham. It should probably have been one of our Week 7 targets. Another ‘T’, White Clover, Trifolium repens, is now popping up all over the county, from Nynehead and Lilstock in the south and west to Midsomer Norton in the far north.

And finally, ‘V’. This week’s ‘V’ is Heath Speedwell, Veronica officinalis, which was flowering nicely at Thurlbear Quarrylands on the 4^th.

Amongst the other more interesting FFDs this week: Bugloss, Lycopsis  arvensis, at Dunster beach on 26^th April (Alastair) and Wellington on 4^th May (Linda); Downy Oat-grass, Avenula pubescens at Berrow on the 4^th (Andrew); a second Rough Chervil, Chaerophyllum temulum, this time on Cotlake Hill, near Trull, on 30^th April; Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, at Hurlstone on the 2^nd (Alastair); Common Spike-rush, Eleocharis palustris, near Wedmore on the 2^nd (Liz); Smooth Tare, Ervum tetraspermum (= Vicia tetrasperma), at Nettlecombe on the 6^th (Pat);Tall Ramping-fumitory, Fumaria bastardii, at Lilstock on the 2^nd (Ro), plus White R-f, F. capreolata, at Wedmore, also on the 2^nd (Liz); Small-flowered Crane’s-bill, Geranium pusillum, in the churchyard at Berrow on the 4^th (Andrew); Common Water-crowfoot, Ranunculus aquatilis, near Wedmore on the 2^nd (Liz), and its coastal counterpart Brackish Water-crowfoot, Ranunculus baudotii, at Dunster beach on 26^th April (Alastair); second records of Yellow Rattle, Rhinanthus minor, from Chewton Mendip on the 1^st (Ellen), and Wild Clary, Salvia verbenaca, in and around Ro’s garden at Lilstock on the 3^rd; Common Figwort, Scrophularia nodosa, at Greenaleigh on the 1^st (Alastair);Sea Campion, Silene uniflora, at Blackmoor, Mendip, on the 4^th (Georgina);Bog Stitchwort, Stellaria alsine, on Croydon Hill, also on the 4^th (Alastair); and Field Pansy, Viola arvensis, at Nynehead on the 1^st (Linda).

Oh yes, and one more ‘first’ this week, from Ellen: “The first forage harvester heard howling on the hill beyond the village … [which] always marks the transition from spring to summer for me.”

Many thanks, as usual, for your records, and apologies if I’ve inadvertently omitted anything of particular interest. You’ve brightened up my week no end.

Simon

This time he introduces us to Miss Isobella Gifford. a leading botanist of the mid 19th century. Maybe you don’t need an introduction, but I did, and was glad to have it.

• 

the guidelines for the new look photo competition have arrived! You can access them in the “Instead of Meetings” menu. Only members can enter, of course, but new members are always welcome.

‘Week 7’ Preview : 30^th April – 6^th May

First up, ten species carried over from last week, namely:

Black-grass, Alopecurus myosuroides; White Stonecrop, Sedum album; Bramble, Rubus fruticosus (agg.); Annual Pearlwort, Sagina apetala/filicaulis; Black Bryony, Tamus communis; Crested Dog’s-tail, Cynosurus cristatus; Rough Hawkbit, Leontodon hispidus;Water-cress, Nasturtium officinale (agg.); Heath Speedwell, Veronica officinalis; White Campion, Silene latifolia

To which we can now add a further ten:

Dewberry, Rubus caesius;Corn Poppy, Papaver rhoeas; Square-stalked Willowherb, Epilobium tetragonum; White Bryony, Bryonia dioica; Quaking-grass, Briza media; Common Rock-rose, Helianthemum nummularium; Common Spotted-orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii; Horse-radish, Armoracia rusticana; Smooth Hawk’s-beard, Crepis capillaris; Spear Thistle, Cirsium vulgare

Several other species, for which early FFDs have already been recorded, should soon be coming into flower more generally, so it would be well worth keeping a note of when you first see them:

e.g. Fairy Flax, Linum catharticum; Black Knapweed, Centaurea nigra; Rough Chervil, Chaerophyllum temulum; Yellow Rattle, Rhinanthus minor; Ragged Robin, Silene flos-cuculi; Yellow Flag, Iris pseudacorus

As always, I’d be very pleased to hear from anyone seeing any of these (or other) spp coming into flower in the next week, by email to simonleach@phonecoop.coop.

With best wishes to one and all.

Simon

‘Week 6’ Roundup : 29^th April

When I’m kerb-crawling I always think of Clive. I mean this, of course, in the nicest way possible. He and I share, along with many others in the group, a particular fondness for road-verge botanising, and this week I’ve been reflecting on why this might be so.  It may have something to do with the lure of the unexpected. Absolutely anything can pop up on the kerbside, so you never quite know what you might come across next. It could be a scarce alien, like the (flowering) plants of Annual Toadflax, Linaria maroccana, I stumbled upon a couple of weeks ago on the edge of Canal Road, near the site of Taunton’s old livestock market – only the third record for this species in VC5 this century! Or what about the Woolly Clover, Trifolium tomentosum, found last year, and again this, on the cut-and-scalped verge outside Wickes?

Aliens are all well and good, but often it’s roadside coastal plants that generate the greater excitement. This week’s offering (after last week’s Sea Fern-grass, Catapodium marinum, Sea Pearlwort, Sagina maritima,and Bird’s-foot Clover, Trifolium ornithopodioides) has included (fruiting) Sea Stork’s-bill, Erodium maritimum, on Trenchard Way – the new road on the south side of Taunton railway station – and Lesser Chickweed, Stellaria pallida,a sand dune annual masquerading as a pavement weed in Bridge Street near the wholefood shop. Botanically, these verges often have a distinctly maritime feel to their flora; so if, like me, you’re an inland dweller desperate for a whiff of sea air, a stroll along a (relatively) deserted highway could be the answer. You can’t go to the seaside, so why not investigate your local road verge and see if the seaside’s come to you?

Still on verges, several of you are noticing that flowery roadsides have (so far) escaped their usual ‘spring cut’. Not so in Taunton, where the mowing gangs – and the gang mowers – have been much in evidence this week; frustrating, I agree, if the plants you were willing into flower end up decapitated before their time, but a pleasing sight, for Clive and me at least, since many of the little annuals in these places – Knotted Hedge-parsley, Torilis nodosa, and Small-flowered Buttercup, Ranunculus parviflorus, for example – seem to thrive on a regular close shave – plus, ideally, a combination of spring/summer drought and the odd pinch of de-icing salt in winter.

Week 6. Another dry, warm week, until a late hiccup of rain yesterday and today which, in a parallel universe, annoyingly led to the final day of the championship match between Somerset and Hampshire being a wash-out. It would have fizzled out as a draw, probably. In this universe, Steve Parker spotted his first swifts while clapping for carers in N. Petherton on the 23^rd.  Maureen Webb, who lives in Priorswood – a real hotspot for breeding swifts – had two flying over her house on the 25^th, while we had high-altitude ‘screamers’on two evenings, the 24^th and 27^th, but despite much sky-scanning we have yet to actually see them. Anyway, the main thing is: THEY’RE BACK! Which, as Ted Hughes says, “… means the globe’s still working, the creation’s/still waking refreshed, our summer’s/still all to come …”

Other summer migrants touching down this week have included lesser whitethroats (Eve Tigwell’s on the 26^th, mine on the 27^th) and cuckoos (Eve, in Mendip, on the 24^th; Maureen, on Cothelstone Hill, on the 25^th). Still no sedge warblers though. And as for tree pipits, pied flycatchers, redstarts and wood warblers; well, for those of us unable to visit wooded combes on Exmoor or the Quantocks, these birds are the stuff of dreams…

Turning now to ‘first flowerings’, it is interesting to see how varied first flowering dates (FFDs) are from different parts of the county. Several of you have noted how onset of flowering is affected by altitude, distance from the coast, aspect, etc. As Ellen McDouall and Eve will testify, anyone high up on a north-facing slope a long way from the sea should expect to be perhaps 2-3 weeks behind the rest of us. Even in the ‘deep south’, this is the case. The moment of ‘peak bluebell’ at Thurlbear Wood (80-90 metres a.s.l.) was about 10 days ago, but at Cothelstone Hill (250 metres a.s.l.) they’ve only just begun to look their best, with the peak probably still a few days away.  It is noteworthy, though, that since the middle of March everyone has seen something in flower before anyone else – even those who feel that they’re generally trotting along about two weeks behind the rest of us.   

This week, the sixth since ‘lockdown’, was another bumper week for first flowerings, with seventeen of you contributing more than 110 records involving 86 species. Our target list for ‘Week 6’ comprised 24 species, of which 14 were seen and 10 weren’t. Here’s a summary of the 14 we did see, arranged, as usual, in roughly alphabetical order, with others of particular interest getting an honourable mention in passing…

Starting with the ‘C’s… Welted Thistle, Carduus crispus, was just starting to flower near Roughmoor on the 28^th, where it grows in a scrum of tall herbage on the banks of the river Tone. Remote Sedge, Carex remota, is yet to start flowering in Taunton, but Andrew Robinson had it in Brent Knoll churchyard on the 21^st.  Other sedges have been widely noted, and it’s been a good week, especially, for Grey Sedge, C. divulsa: Steve had it in N. Petherton on the 23^rd, while Caroline Giddens, also on the 23^rd, saw it flowering in Alcombe, followed by Dee Holladay in St Mary’s churchyard, and Liz in Wedmore, on the 25^th. 

Following my (bracketed) mention of back-garden Starved Wood-sedge, Carex depauperata, Fred Rumsey – from his tiny enclave of would-be Somerset within a region otherwise known, apparently, as Hampshire – reports no fewer than 18species (or hybrids) flowering in his sedgecollection. Many are northern ‘exotica’ that aren’t found in Somerset, and, frankly, shouldn’t really be in Hampshire either, like Fibrous Tussock-sedge, Carex appropinquata, String Sedge, C. chordorrhiza, Bird’s-foot Sedge, C. ornithopoda and Sheathed Sedge, C. vaginata. Not to mention a Lady’s-slipper, Cypripedium, called ‘Hank Small’. On the 23^rd, he saw Yellow Pimpernel, Lysimachia nemorum, and Marsh Valerian, Valeriana dioica, in a nearby local nature reserve. Talking of which… Back in Somerset proper, Gill Read encountered Marsh Valerian on the 28^th at Postlebury. A really interesting ‘first’, this one, as it’s probably not something many of us are likely to come across on our home patches. It’s certainly not on mine!

Returning to ‘C’, the large form of Fern-grass, Catapodium rigidum,subsp. majus, was found flowering as a pavement weed on Holway Avenue, Taunton, on the 26^th. It had been ‘in bud’ for about 10 days, and then suddenly – overnight – the yellow anthers emerged. These made the whole inflorescence look ‘gritty’, as if it had become covered with minuscule sand grains.

Moving on to ‘E’. Just the one this week, Broad-leaved Willowherb, Epilobium montanum, which was seen by Steve in N. Petherton on the 20^th, in Week 5, but its identity wasn’t confirmed until the start of Week 6. I had it in Taunton, another pavement weed, on the 26^th.  Then there’s a couple of grasses. Yorkshire Fog, Holcus lanatus, was seen in Taunton on the 26^th and by Linda Everton in Wellington on the 27^th, while on the 25^th Andrew had Rye-grass, Lolium perenne, on Brent Knoll. Within a week or so it will probably be everywhere…

We did well with the ‘P’s: we had two to find and we found them both. Graham Lavender recorded first flowers of Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Pilosella officinarum, on the 23^rd, and close-up examination of the hairs on the involucral bracts identified his plants as subsp. euronota(described in ‘Sell & Murrell’, but not in ‘Stace’). Andrew also saw it on the 23^rd, at Uphill, Dee had it in Clevedon on the 24^th, Linda in Wellington on the 25^th, and finally, finally, I saw it just coming into flower at Thurlbear on the 27^th.  Silverweed, Potentilla anserina, was spotted by Andrew in a lay-by at Webbington, while Linda saw it in Wellington, both on the 25^th.  Helena Crouch, also on the 25^th, dashed past it while on a two-mile run with her daughter Jenny. Doubtless spurred on by the Silverweed, Helena notched up a new ‘personal best’ of 20 minutes 45 seconds.

We did even better with the ‘R’s. Two of you reported Celery-leaved Buttercup, Ranunculus sceleratus: Andrew in Brent Knoll village on the 19^th (so actually in Week 5), and Liz McDonnell in Wedmore on the 28^th. Dog-rose, Rosa canina(agg.), was flowering at Roughmoor on the 28^th, and at Obridge on the 29^th. I anticipate a flood of Dog-rose records during Week 7. The first Curled Dock, Rumex crispus, was on the 24^th, in Taunton, although Graham or Clive might well have determined it as a ‘probable hybrid’. But as it was me determining it, this simplified things enormously!

One species I thought we wouldn’t get this week was Wild Clary, Salvia verbenaca. Certainly, its sites around Taunton are all too distant or difficult to get at easily. Anyway, I needn’t have fretted, as Andrew turned it up on his visit to Uphill on the 23^rd – along with Honewort, Trinia glauca: another of those Mendip specialities that, to me, feel like the half-forgotten inhabitants of a former world, a world where Somerset would doubtless have trounced Hampshire within three days…

White Clover, Trifolium repens, on the other hand, is a plant we can all relate to, and one we’re all bound to get sooner or later. Probably sooner, since Andrew and I both had it on the 24^th – me near Taunton railway station, and Andrew on Brent Knoll. Four days later it was coming into flower more widely in Taunton, including in Longrun Meadow.

And finally, our ‘V’ of the week was Guelder-rose, Viburnum opulus, reported from Bossington by Caroline’s friend Ruth Hyett on the 21^st, Brent Knoll churchyard on the 24^th (Andrew) and Roughmoor on the 28^th (me).

Amongst the other more interesting FFDs this week: Kidney-vetch, Anthyllis vulneraria, at Uphill on the 23^rd (Andrew); Lesser Pond-sedge, Carex acutiformis, and Oval Sedge, C. leporina, at Wedmore on the 28^th and 27^th respectively (Liz); a second FFD for Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes, this time at Ubley Warren on the 23^rd (Georgina Shuckburgh); Swine-cress, Lepidium coronopus, in Trull on the 25^th (me), and Wedmore on the 28^th (Liz); Ivy Broomrape, Orobanche hederae, in Clevedon on the 23^rd (Dee); Lousewort, Pedicularis sylvatica, at GB Gruffy nature reserve on the 26^th (Georgina), and near Wellington on the 27^th (Linda, with Tormentil, Potentilla erecta); Yellow Rattle, Rhinanthus minor, at Uphill on the 23^rd (Andrew); Ragged Robin, Silene flos-cuculi, at Rew Mead nature reserve, nr Wellington, on the 25^th (Linda); Salsify, Tragopogon porrifolius, in N. Petherton on the 23^rd (Steve); a second record of Brooklime, Veronica beccabunga, this time at Nettlecombe on the 29^th (Pat Wolseley); a second record for Yellow Flag, Iris pseudacorus, near Wellington on the 25^th (Linda), following a record on the river Tone in Taunton on the 20^th; and, lastly, Biting Stonecrop, Sedum acre, on Priory Bridge Road, Taunton, on the 24^th – that’s almost four weeks earlier than my previous-earliest FFD for it, and more than six weeks earlier than Walter Watson’s FFD in the 1920s/30s.

Contender for the strangest find of the week, though, was a Camassia, a single plant of which was discovered in a field/wood-border in Trull. I’m hopeless on garden plants, so didn’t have a clue what it was, but a WhatsApp photo pinged across to Helena produced an immediate response. The key in the European Garden Flora indicated that the Trull plant was most probably C. leichletlii, rather than C. quamash which curiously is the only Camassia species mentioned in ‘Stace’. Many thanks to Helena for sorting this one out. It’s a beautiful plant, so worth googling if you don’t know it.

Other than that, I’ve been playing catch-up for much of the week, with Lesser Trefoil, Trifolium dubium, on the 24^th,Greater Celandine, Chelidonium majus on the 25^th, Prickly Sow-thistle, Sonchus asper, on the 26^th, and Yellow Pimpernel, Lysimachia nemorum, on the 27^th.

Many thanks, as usual, for your records. And for your stories too.  On days when every piece of news seems destined to depress, there’s always fun to be had from peering into my in-box.

‘Week 6’ Preview : 23^rd – 29^th April

There are four species to be carried over from last week, namely:

Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Pilosella officinarum; White Clover, Trifolium repens; Black-grass, Alopecurus myosuroides; Guelder-rose

To which we can now add the following twenty species:

Fern-grass, Catapodium rigidum; Curled Dock, Rumex crispus; White Stonecrop, Sedum album; Welted Thistle, Carduus crispus (= acanthoides); Remote Sedge, Carex remota; Broad-leaved Willowherb, Epilobium montanum; Rye-grass, Lolium perenne; Wild Clary, Salvia verbenaca; Yorkshire Fog, Holcus lanatus; Dog-rose, Rosa canina (agg.); Bramble, Rubus fruticosus (agg.); Annual Pearlwort, Sagina apetala; Celery-leaved Buttercup, Ranunculus sceleratus; Silverweed, Potentilla anserina; Black Bryony, Tamus communis; Crested Dog’s-tail, Cynossurus cristatus; Rough Hawkbit, Leontodon hispidus; Water-cress, Nasturtium officinale (agg.); Heath Speedwell, Veronica officinalis; White Campion, Silene latifolia  

As always, I’d be delighted to hear from anyone seeing any of these (or other) spp coming into flower in the next week, by email to simonleach@phonecoop.coop. If you could please try to submit any records by about 3 p.m. on the ‘seventh day’ – i.e. next Wednesday – that would be really helpful.

With best wishes for the week ahead.

Simon