Spergularia bocconei (Greek Sea-spurrey)
Sharon Pilkington, VCR for VC7 was in the Porlock area of Somerset for contractual work a few weeks ago. In the process she managed to find and confirm Spergularia bocconei, a new record for Somerset. The purpose of this page is to alert botanists to its presence in Somerset and consider looking very carefully at those Spergularia rubra (Sand Spurrey).
Spergularia bocconei
Probably with bocconei what catches the eye is the paler flowers than rubra and also bocconei has whitish base to petals whereas rubra one colour to petal. The BSBI website Plant Crib page has an excellent comparison of features but it’s worth taking the opportunity of counting filaments when flowers open as filament numbers are one of key separations together with seed. The seed of rubra is dark brown, almost black compared to much lighter brown of bocconei, which seems to seed freely so should be no problem collecting.
If anyone wants reference pictures, I should be able to provide them but here is a photo of a seed from Sharon Pilkington’s bocconei.
At the moment it seems a second bocconei has been found in VC5 in a new hectad and whilst awaiting confirmation it does suggest it is probably overlooked.
I have a pressed specimen from Sharon’s site ready for the Taunton herbarium.