The Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI) is encouraging all county recorders to produce a County Rare Plant Register.   Members of Somerset Rare Plants Group have been working towards the goal of a Rare Plant Register for Somerset since the group was first formed.  With the publication of the new Red List, “The Vascular Plant Red Data List for Great Britain” (Cheffings and Farrell, 2005), work on the Somerset Rare Plant Register has accelerated.  It is intended that this will become available both as an online resource and as a book.

The Rare Plant Register

The list of species qualifying for inclusion can be viewed here.  Columns following the taxon indicate the reasons for inclusion on the draft list. 

All taxa on the Red List (and found in Somerset) have been included in the Rare Plant Register, including those currently on the Waiting List, Parking List, or Data Deficient.  Some of these will be taken off at the Checking of Records stage, which is now in progress.

Hybrids with a parent on the list have been included.  Many other hybrids are also locally rare or scarce, but these will be listed as an appendix.  In many cases, their distributions are incompletely known and they may only appear rare or scarce because they are under-recorded.

The three critical groups, Rubus, Hieracium and Taraxacum, have not been included yet, but lists of these will be added.

A table of Extinct species has also been prepared and can be viewed here. Each extinct species will have a full account in the Somerset Rare Plant Register and these are in progress.

Further details about the Rare Plant Register can be seen by clicking below

What is a County Rare Plant Register?
Geographical Area
Criteria for selecting species for inclusion
Checking of Records
Writing of Species Accounts

What is a County Rare Plant Register?

A County Rare Plant Register (CRPR) is a statement of our knowledge of the “rare” plants of a county at the time of publication.  At its most basic, it may be simply an inventory of qualifying species, but the more information is included, the more useful it will be as a tool for conservation. It is generally considered nowadays that there is greater threat to the survival of our rare species from ignorance of their distribution, leading to lack of protection or unwitting destruction, than from wilful damage.  Rare species cannot be conserved and protected unless their locations are known precisely.  It is essential that detailed information, in a standardised format, is provided for use by government agencies and conservation organisations, to inform planning decisions and the development of appropriate management regimes.

Geographical area

BSBI guidelines suggest that the geographical area for a CRPR should be a single Watsonian vice-county.  In practice however, several counties which are split into two vice-counties, including Somerset (vc5 and vc6), are opting to produce a single publication to cover both vice-counties, with the vice-counties treated separately within the one publication.  This is more meaningful to those end-users not familiar with the concept of vice-counties.

Criteria for selecting species for inclusion

The criteria used for identifying which species to include in the Somerset Rare Plant Register follow those recommended by the BSBI (Lockton, Whild and Pearman, 2001, amended and updated by Ellis and Pearman, 2005).  Any species in Somerset which falls into at least one of the following categories has been included in the Draft Priority Species List.  The categories are:

* Here a “site” is a moveable 1km square, sometimes called a “Wells” square, such that if discreet populations of a species are found within 1km of each other, they count as one site.

Checking of Records

A CRPR is most effective if the records within it are as up-to-date as possible.  To this end, the existing records for each species on the list are being collated and checked, and updated where possible.  It is planned that only records post-1987 will be included in the Somerset RPR, but it is hoped that most records will be post-2000.  Members of Somerset Rare Plants Group are now focusing their efforts on making new and updated records for species on the priority list. 

Writing of Species Accounts

The final stage is the writing of species accounts, once it is felt that the available records accurately describe the distribution of the species.  This stage is in progress.  Species accounts will include names of locations, grid references, population counts and descriptions of distribution with historical details, maps and photographs.

References

Cheffings, C. and Farrell, L. (eds.) 2005.  The vascular Plant Red Data List for Great Britain.  JNCC, Peterborough.

Lockton, A.J., Whild, S.J. and Pearman, D.A. (2001). County Rare Plant Registers.  Amended and updated (2005) by Bob Ellis and David Pearman.  Available as a download on the BSBI website.

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