Somerset Rare Plants Group

‘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

‘Week 5’ Roundup : 22^nd April

This was the week when someone, maybe flagging just a little, asked the question: how long, exactly, is this first-flowering malarkey going to go on for? Until the end of spring, perhaps? Well, yes. Certainly let’s try to keep going until the end of spring. But what exactly is spring? And how can its end be best determined? Meteorologists keep it simple – four seasons, each one precisely three months long. For the weather-watcher, then, spring neatly starts, without fail, on the first day of March, then carries on until the last day of May. Come June, come summer! The rest of us do something similar, but using equinoxes and solstices as our seasonal dividers; so the start of spring coincides with the spring equinox, while the summer solstice marks its ending. 

Tim Dee, on the other hand, suggests in Greenery (p. 9) that the year may be more fittingly divided into two seasons rather than four…

“But I see, and have always seen, the year in two halves. I feel it like that: a coming, spring, and a going, autumn; six months forward before six months back, six months up before six down, six months of lengthening days before six of longer nights, six greening months before six browning, six growing before six dying; in autumn things fall apart, in spring things come together …”

Viewed this way, it’s not that summer and winter don’t exist, exactly, but that they represent moments of overlap between spring and autumn. So ‘summer’ becomes the time when spring overlaps with autumn, while ‘winter’ is when autumn overlaps with spring. Maybe that’s why we so happily, and productively, begin our search for the ‘first signs of spring’ in the depths of winter. Equally, though less obviously, why we might discern the last signs of spring at the back end of summer, even though our chatter then is all about ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’, and the garden, each morning, is slung with spiders’ webs.

If anything speaks of springtime it’s surely ‘first flowerings’, yet there are hosts of plants that don’t start to bloom until long after the summer solstice, by which time many others are – to use Dee’s terminology – ‘on their way down’. So, perhaps we should stretch our notion of spring in both directions, not only by beginning it around Christmas-time with the first flowering of, say, Spurge-laurel, Daphne laureola, but also by not ending it until about the second week of September when Ivy, Hedera helix, begins to blossom. Which means that we can keep going for another four to five months if we want it to!

‘Week 5’ then: another dry, sunny week, except for Friday and Saturday that were grey, chilly, damp and, in Taunton at least, intermittently drenching. One of the stranger aspects of the last five weeks of coronavirus ‘lockdown’ has been how for almost all of this time we’ve been bathed in warm sunshine. It pains me to say it, but never has there been such a perfect start to a cricket season, weather-wise. It’s just the complete lack of cricket that’s the problem. Friday, on the other hand, felt like a throwback to another life, a day sitting in the pavilion watching covers being removed and replaced, removed and replaced, without a single ball bowled; a time for ‘business as usual’, reminding us – just for a day – of a pre-virus world marked by endless rain, rivers full to bursting, ground saturated, mud everywhere. Who would have guessed that we might hanker after such days, before the pause button was pressed, before the weather changed and everything else changed with it?  Anyway, yes, it’s been another mainly dry, fine week – and, it has to be said, another truly remarkable week for first flowerings too.

First, though, a nod to things non-botanical.  Vicki and I had our first swallow on the 16^th, then on the 17^th we heard newly-arrived reed warblers – several of them – chug-chug-chugging from riverside bramble patches between Obridge and Creech Castle, in the reed-beds and willow scrub behind B&Q, then on the 19^th from the little patch of reeds around Roughmoor pond. No sedge warblers yet, which seem to have declined in this area as the reed warblers have increased. Still much activity amongst the mining bees and mason bees, while Eve Tigwell says in her area St Mark’s flies, Bibio marci, have been much in evidence in the last few days.On the 21^st Vicki and I spotted our first dragonfly: a southern hawker, Aeshna cyanea, patrolling the herbage bordering the footpath through Orchard Wood – the place where, three weekends ago, we were due to hold our first field meeting of the year. My old dragonfly book suggests A. cyanea should be on the wing mid-June to mid-October, while the British Dragonfly Society website suggests May onwards. So, is 21^st April especially early for it, does anyone know? A sign, perhaps, that not only wild flowers are quick to respond to such ‘unseasonal’ weather…

This week 21 of you, including two friends of Caroline’s, Ruth Hyett and Sue Lloyd, contributed more than 130 records involving 96 species. We had 15 target spp to look out for, 10 new ones and five rolled over from ‘Week 4’. Many of these were species of more open habitats, so it felt like we were finally emerging from beneath the trees. Early spring involves a lot of rooting around on the forest floor, but most woodland herbs have now been ticked off, and indeed many – like Moschatel, Adoxa moschatellina,Wood Anemone, Anemone nemorosa and Bluebell Hyacinthoides non-scripta – are already at or well past their peak of flowering.

Of the 15 target spp, only Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Pilosella officinarum, White Clover, Trifolium repens, Black-grass, Alopecurus myosuroides, and Guelder-rose, Viburnum opulus, have evaded us this week.  Here’s a summary of the 11 we did see, arranged, as usual, in (roughly) alphabetical order, with various others getting a mention here and there…

Black Mustard, Brassica nigra, was seen by me coming into flower on the bank of the river Tone at Creech Castle on the 19^th, but the more remarkable riverside find was the next day when Vicki and I witnessed the first fully-open flowers of Yellow Iris, Iris pseudacorus.The only sedge on this week’s list was Carnation Sedge, Carex panicea, recorded by Chris Loudon on the 20^th at Langford Heathfield (with Pale Dog-violet, Viola lactea, and/or possibly the hybrid between lactea and Common Dog-violet, V. riviniana). But other sedges seen for the first time this week included Hairy Sedge, Carex hirta, at Longrun Meadow on the 18^th, and two records of Greater Tussock-sedge, Carex paniculata from VC6, one by Steve Parker on a work trip to Shapwick.(And there’s Starved Wood-sedge, C. depauperata, in my garden – but that probably shouldn’t count, should it?)

Other‘C’ species included the first records of Pignut, Conopodium majus, seen by Linda Everton nr Wellington Monument on the 21^st, and Sue Lloyd nr Selworthy on the same day. We also had second sightings for Rough Chervil, Chaerophyllum temulum, by David Hawkins on Tickenham Hill on the 19^th, while Steve had Hemlock, Conium maculatum, in N. Petherton, also on the 19^th.

Turning to shrubs… On the 16^th Andrew Robinson recorded flowering Dogwood, Cornus sanguineus, in Burnham-on-Sea, while Vicki and I notched up Spindle, Euonymus europeaus, today, at Roughmoor. More of you are now reporting Elder, Sambucus nigra, including Ro in Lilstock and Steve in N. Petherton. Elder is one of a number of white-flowered shrubs/small trees – others include Blackthorn, Prunus spinosa, Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna, Wayfaring-tree, Viburnum lantana, Rowan, Sorbus aucuparia etc. – that seem to be flowering earlier now than they did, say, fifty years ago.  I see that neither Elder nor Rowan are mentioned in the Ladybird book ‘What to look for in spring’, illustrated by Charles Tunnicliffe; instead they’re featured in the companion ‘… summer’ volume, published in 1960, with the telling comment that Elder blossom “… most distinctly speak[s] of June and midsummer…” Not any more, it doesn’t! (Although it may still do in other parts of the country, of course.)

Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill, Geranium dissectum, has been recorded beginning to flower this week on grassy banks, verges and arable field margins: the first sighting of it was on the 19^th in Trull (me), then on the 20^th in Middle Street (Andrew), and the 21^st at Nettlecombe (Pat Wolseley).The plea for records of ‘proper’ Oxeye-daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare, was answered by Ro Fitzgerald on the 15^th (Nether Stowey), me on the 19^th (Taunton, various places), and Alastair Stevenson on the 21^st (Hurlstone). Back beneath the trees, Yellow Pimpernel, Lysimachia nemorum, was spotted by two of you on the same day, the 20^th: by Linda, in Wellington, and by Gill Read at Postlebury. I think Gill’s was probably first, though, as she’s usually tramping around her patch while the rest of us are still fast asleep!

Docks aren’t especially eye-catching, they’re easily overlooked and do little to raise the pulse. Nevertheless, several of us have turned up Sorrel, Rumex acetosa, this week: me and Andrew on the 16^th, in Taunton and Burnham-on-Sea respectively, closely followed by Margaret Webster on the 20^th in Winford, and Hilary Blewett on the 22^nd at Uphill (where she also saw Green-winged Orchid, Anacamptis morio, and picked up a second very early record for flowering Betony, Betonica officinalis). We’ve also had a couple of other docks, Clustered Dock, R. conglomeratus, and Wood Dock, R. sanguineus, coming into flower this week, both on the 18^th in Taunton, and surprisingly early – certainly the earliest recorded first flowering dates (FFDs) for these in at least the last twelve years.

Procumbent Pearlwort, Sagina procumbens, has now started flowering in many parts of the county, including Minehead on the 15^th (Caroline Giddens), Taunton on the 17^th (me), Wellington on the 21^st (Linda) and Burnham, also on the 21^st (Andrew). An exciting discovery was Sea Pearlwort, Sagina maritima, on the 22^nd, growing on the verge of the A38 in Taunton.  Exciting, not because it was flowering, but because this appears to be the first record of it for the Taunton area. It was growing with Common Stork’s-bill, Erodium cicutarium, Sea Fern-grass, Catapodium marinum, and large numbers of tiny plants of (flowering) Bird’s-foot Clover, Trifolium ornithopodioides – the last was a big surprise, being only the second inland locality for it in VC5. (Also, while we’re on the subject of clovers…. Another of this week’s highlights, for me, was a healthy colony of now-flowering Least Trefoil, T. micranthum, within spitting distance of the Subterranean Clover, T. subterraneum, found a couple of weeks ago. But, amazingly, still no Lesser Trefoil, Trifolium dubium, in this corner of the county…)

Last but not least, I can report that Rowan, Sorbus aucuparia, was in full blossom in Taunton on the 17^th, in the ‘children’s wood’ by the river Tone. Helena Crouch says that in the ‘far north’ many species seem to be behind in their flowering, but she reports that her garden Rowan is in full blossom.

Other highlights this week have included FFDs for (the highly photogenic) Herb-Paris, Paris quadrifolia, in Harptree Combe on the 14^th (Chris Billinghurst) and at Long Wood, Mendip, on the 21^st (Georgina Shuckburgh), and Purple Gromwell, Aegonychon purpureocaeruleum (= Lithospermum), on the 18^th (Anne Cole). Liz McDonnell had flowering Blinks, Montia fontana, in two flower pots in Wedmore.In the far west of the county Alastair recorded Sheep’s-bit, Jasione montana, at Hurlstone on the 21^st, and Grass-vetchling, Lathyrus nissolia, at Minehead on the 20^th. Amongst my own ‘earliest yet’ FFDs were Wood Millet, Milium effusum, at Thurlbear on the 16^th and Hairy Tare, Ervilia hirsuta (= Vicia), in Longrun Meadow on the 22^nd.  Meanwhile, up at Portishead on the 17^th, David had an unusually early Brooklime, Veronica beccabunga. More mundanely, we have two reports of (the easily ignored) Rough Meadow-grass, Poa trivialis, in flower this week – in Taunton and N. Petherton.

Apologies to anyone whose records I should have mentioned, but the night is no longer young and neither am I.

: 16^th – 22^nd April

Shall we see if we can keep this up for another week? In which case, there are five species to be carried over from last week, namely:

Ox-eye Daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare; Rowan, Sorbus aucuparia; Procumbent Pearlwort, Sagina procumbens; Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill, Geranium dissectum; Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Pilosella officinarum

To which we can add the following ten species:

White Clover, Trifolium repens; Black-grass, Alopecurus myosuroides; Sorrel, Rumex acetosa; Black Mustard, Brassica nigra; Yellow Pimpernel, Lysimachia nemorum; Pignut, Conopodium majus; Carnation Sedge, Carex panicea; Dogwood, Cornus sanguinea; Guelder-rose, Viburnum opulus; Spindle, Euonymus europeaus 

As always, I’d be very pleased to hear from anyone seeing any of these (or any other) species 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.

Please look after yourselves, stay safe, and I hope you all have a good week. Only another fortnight and the swifts will be back…

Simon

This morning I took delivery of Greenery: Journeys in Springtime, a new book by Tim Dee. If you haven’t read anything by Tim Dee, he’s well worth a try. His latest book is a fitting accompaniment to what we’re trying to capture about this particular spring, the spring of 2020, in our ownparticular neck of the woods. Tim Dee lives for much of each year in Bristol, and his parents live in Minehead. So our own neck of the woods is his, too. You’ll find references in Greenery to many familiar places – Dolebury Warren, Dunkery Beacon, Black Down, Burrington Combe, and Ham Wall – as well as to many less familiar, in East Anglia, Africa and Scandinavia, for example. It’s a book about places, yes, but it’s also a book about life and death, about happy coincidences, about loss and longing. About spring, but also about the meaning of spring.

My own week has included several highlights, not all of them botanical, but the best of the lot came on Bank Holiday Monday when Ben persuaded me to ‘break cover’ and dare to head out of town to Thurlbear Wood. In the car it took us nine minutes to get there, and seven to get back – being downhill on the return leg – so it was, I admit, marginally further away from home than the five-minute ‘rule’ for how far you can drive to reach a place for purposes of taking your daily exercise. It was strange to be sitting in a car again – my first trip out on four wheels in almost a month – and when we reached the wood I felt slightly light-headed, woozy. The wide open spaces seemed to me to be somehow wider than I remembered them, the lush greenery seemed greener and lusher than I had anticipated. The bluebells, carpeting the woodland floor, were somehow bluer – but the star-bursts of woodruff lining the paths were just as I was expecting them to be. We walked in the woods for about an hour, Gilly having a field day with sticks, me having a field day with flowers. We met one other person up there, so social distancing was a doddle. I think it may have been the bluebells, but I got a bit emotional; and it was a reminder – if I needed it – to never take a place like this for granted ever again.

So, spring continues its glorious gallop towards summer, a fact reflected over and over again in this week’s batch of first flowering dates.  Of course, the weather helps, doesn’t it? It’s been a dry week, and for the most part remarkably sunny and warm; here in Taunton we had four days in a row – Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday – with temperatures above 23°C. By my reckoning, it was the warmest, and sunniest, Easter weekend for at least a quarter of a century.  And while the sunshine has continued, the last couple of clear nights have produced grass frosts, even here in the middle of Taunton.

Let’s begin, like last week, with a few non-botanical happenings. It’s been another good week for butterflies: orange tips all over the place, plus our first green-veined whites on the 9th, speckled woods on the 10^th, and then this morning (15^th) the first small copper of the year. Flower bees and bee-flies continue to patrol the lungwort and primroses in the back garden, while mason bees emerged about a week ago and are busy around the ‘bee boxes’. We’ve also noticed large numbers of mining bees nesting on areas of bare, dry soil. Many such areas seem to be far less disturbed/trampled than usual, so this could prove to be an excellent year for mining bees.

On the bird front, last week’s ‘fall’ of willow warblers proved to be a transient affair; no sooner had they arrived than they left again – and I haven’t heard one since. But other summer visitors have taken their place. On the 10^th, sand martins were back at their little colony beneath a road bridge at Creech Castle, Taunton – their nest-sites situated in drain pipes set into a concrete retaining wall. Then today Vicki had house martins down near the cricket ground, while I enjoyed ten minutes listening to my first whitethroat, singing lustily from a hedgerow on the northern flank of Cotlake Hill, Trull. Whitethroats make me smile. They seem to take everything terribly seriously, and get so easily agitated – like me on a bad day.

Turning now to botany – “at last!” you cry – it’s been another bumper week for first flowerings. Very many thanks, once again, to everyone for sending in their records. During ‘Week 4’ we have made, between us, more than 130 records and at least 75 species. A fantastic effort! And who would have anticipated that this week’s offering would include rarities such as Petty Whin, Genista anglica (Langford Heathfield, on the 14^th, seen by Chris Loudon), Soft-leaved Sedge, Carex montana (Ubley Warren, on the 8^th, Georgina Shuckburgh), and Green-winged Orchid, Anacamptis morio (Stoke Camp, Mendip, on the 10^th, seen by Georgina’s niece, with a pin-sharp WhatsApp photo to prove it)?

This week we had 16 target species to look out for, four of them carried over from ‘Week 3’. Between us, we saw 11 of them during the week. Here’s a summary, in (roughly) alphabetical order…

The first report of Bugle, Ajuga reptans, was on the 5^th. It came from Libby Houston, who saw it in her garden – the proper wild plant, not a garden variety – but then she realised that it shouldn’t really count because she doesn’t live in Somerset! The first records for Somerset sensu stricto came a few days later, when Margaret Webster saw it at Winford on the 12^th, and then it was seen at Thurlbear (me) and near Wellington (Linda) on the 13^th.

I have still not seen Greater Celandine, Chelidonium majus, flowering in Taunton – although my chances have diminished significantly as a result of Vicki’s enthusiastic weeding of the back path (a former stronghold for it) over Easter weekend! However, Linda produced a photo of it in flower which she’d taken in Wellington on 21^st March – a very early date for it – while Alastair Stevenson saw it flowering in Minehead a few days later, on the 25^th.  The only person to see it coming into flower during ‘Week 4’ was Andrew Robinson, who recorded it in Brent Knoll village on the 9^th.

And now for a few grassland species… I had my first Cat’s-ear, Hypochaeris radicata, on the 14^th, in a front garden on South Road, while two of you recorded Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Lotus corniculatus, this week – Andrew at Cross Quarry on the 12^th, and Hilary Brownett at Bleadon Hill on the 13^th. No doubt others will follow in the days ahead. Smooth/Spreading Meadow-grass, Poa pratensis/humilis, was noted on Taunton road verges for the first time on the 14^th, while Salad-burnet, Poterium sanguisorba, was one of a whole clutch of first-flowerers up at Thurlbear on the 13^th, although Andrew had already seen it flowering on Brent Knoll on the 10^th. 

Broad-leaved Dock, Rumex obtusifolius, and Common Comfrey, Symphytum officinale, were both found just starting to flower in Taunton, by the river Tone, on the 11^th. The comfrey was more than three weeks later than last year’s first flowering date (FFD), possibly delayed due to high river levels and flooding in February and early March. Other early-flowering comfreys reported during the week included White Comfrey, S. orientale, and Creeping Comfrey, S. grandiflorum.

Elder, Sambucus nigra, was seen in Henlade on the 12^th, the third earliest FFD for this species in the last twelve years. Pat Wolseley also had it on the 12^th, at Nettlecombe, while Andrew saw it on the 14^th, at Brent Knoll. Sanicle, Sanicula europaea, also recorded its third-earliest FFD, being about three weeks earlier than the average FFD for the last decade in the Taunton area. Helena and Jim Crouch were the first to spot it, ‘up north’ at Chewton Wood on the 12^th; this was followed in the next three days by records from Nettlecombe (Pat), Langford Heathfield (Chris), Thurlbear (me) and Postlebury (Gill Read).  

Lastly, Anne Cole recorded Lesser Trefoil, Trifolium dubium, at Hill Lane, Mendip, on the 9^th, while Pat had it at Nettlecombe on the 14th.

Of the target species from earlier weeks, you have been sending in lots of records this week for the likes of Sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, Horse-chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum, Sweet Vernal-grass, Anthoxanthum odoratum, Pendulous Sedge, Carex pendula, Woodruff, Galium odoratum, Yellow Archangel, Lamiastrum galeobdolon ssp montanum, and Wood Speedwell, Veronica montana.  But the species with the most records, by a country mile, was Early-purple Orchid, Orchis mascula, with reports of it from Gill (Postlebury, 10^th), Anne (Littlestoke, 10^th), Georgina (Long Wood, Mendip, 11^th), Helena and Jim (Chewton Wood, 12^th), me (Thurlbear, 13^th), Linda (Wellington, 13^th), and Pat (Nettlecombe, 14^th).

While on the subject of orchids, two of us – me and Chris – recorded Common Twayblade, Neottia ovata, in flower on the 14^th. This compares with an average FFD over the last 12 years of 4^th May, and Walter Watson’s date from the 1930s of 23^rd May. Grey Sedge, Carex divulsa, was seen by me in Trull this morning (15^th), the earliest FFD for this species in the last decade, and (like Common Twayblade) more than five weeks earlier than in Watson’s time.

We’ve had several notable records of summer-flowering species ‘getting ahead of themselves’, so to speak. The most extraordinary, surely, has to be Linda’s record of Betony, Betonica officinalis, which she found on the 13^th near Wellington. To put her date into some sort of context, Watson’s average FFD for Betony in the 1930s was 9^th July, while my own average FFD for the decade 2008-17 was 5^th July. The earliest FFD in the last 12 years was 6^th June!  Almost as surprising was Andrew’s report of Fairy-flax, Linum catharticum, on the 12^th at Cross Quarry – a species that usually doesn’t start flowering until mid-May. Alastair’s Common Ragwort, Jacobaea vulgaris, and Pat’s Wild Carrot, Daucus carota, also seem to be in the same category; although some species, and maybe Common Ragwort is a good example, can sometimes continue flowering right through the winter, such that early flowering in the spring is perhaps best viewed as being exceptionally late flowering from the previous summer – since the flowers often continue to appear on the previous year’s shoots.

You recorded a number of other species during the week that are, broadly speaking, probably flowering at about the right time, but which weren’t on the target list due to a paucity of data from previous years – usually because they occur only very infrequently (or not at all) in the Taunton area. These included Lousewort, Pedicularis sylvatica,Heath Milkwort, Polygala serpyllifolia, Pill Sedge, Carex pilulifera, and Flea Sedge, C. pulicaris, all recorded flowering by Chris at Langford Heathfield on the 14^th, and Bitter-vetch, Lathyrus linifolius, seen by both Chris on the 14^th at Langford Heathfield, and by Linda on the 13^th, on a lane bank near Wellington. Also Thin-spiked Wood-sedge, Carex strigosa, seen by Gill on the 10^th at Postlebury, and by Chris on the 14^th at you-know-where. And lastly, as a follow-up to Linda’s Wood-sorrel, Oxalis acetosella, on the 7^th, there were two more records of it during the week, both of them ‘up north’: at Charterhouse (Georgina, on the 10^th ), and at Postlebury (Gill, on the 15^th).

Oh yes, and Pedunculate Oak, Quercus robur, was recorded coming into flower during the week too, the first records being from Chris Billinghurst by the river Chew on the 10^th and from Steve Parker in N. Petherton on the 11^th.  My own date this year was Easter Day, the 12^th, in Ruishton and Henlade. It’s not a species I routinely record – heaven knows why not – but the dates I do have for it suggest very little variation from year to year, the FFDs normally falling (like this year) between 10^th and 20^th April.

Right, that’s it! I’ve run out of steam, and need to get to bed. Apologies to anyone whose records should have been mentioned, but weren’t – like Andrew’s Buck’s-horn Plantain, Plantago coronopus, and Common Milkwort, Polygala vulgaris,Alastair’s White Ramping-fumitory, Fumaria capreolata, Margaret’s Soft-brome, Bromus hordeaceus, my own Yellow Oat-grass, Trisetum flavescens, etc, etc…

Right, here we go again! First, we have four spp carried over from last week, namely:

Bugle, Ajuga reptans; Common Comfrey, Symphytum officinale; Lesser Trefoil, Trifolium dubium; Elder, Sambucus nigra

To which we can now add the following 12 spp:

Greater Celandine, Chelidonium majus; Smooth/Spreading Meadow-grass, Poa pratensis/humilis; Salad-burnet, Poterium sanguisorba; Ox-eye Daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare; Rowan, Sorbus aucuparia; Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Lotus corniculatus; Cat’s-ear, Hypochaeris radicata; Procumbent Pearlwort, Sagina procumbens; Broad-leaved Dock, Rumex obtusifolius; Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill, Geranium dissectum; Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Pilosella officinarum; Sanicle, Sanicula europaea

As last week, this hopefully gives you a decent range of species to watch out for in your local patch, whether that’s the back garden or slightly further afield while taking your permitted exercise – with or without a dog! You’ll see that I’ve included Ox-eye Daisy, even though on road verges in Taunton it’s been flowering – much like Yarrow, Achillea millefolium and Cock’s-foot, Dactylis glomerata – since the start of the year. It would be good, though, to see if we can get a date for it away from road verges, i.e. in ‘proper’ grassland.

I’d be very pleased to hear from anyone seeing any of these (or any other) species 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. This should increase the likelihood of me getting to bed at an earthly hour! Tonight I’m still here, banging away on the keyboard at 1 a.m. The new weeks has already begun. Eeks!

Look after yourselves, stay safe, and I hope you all have a good week.

Simon

It’s amazing how no sooner than one week ends, the next one begins. There’s no let up, is there? A steady flow of emails and WhatsApp messages too! The spread-sheet is proving its worth, all the records neatly stacked and sorted. Without it I’d be in a complete pickle by now.

The warm weather, especially in the last couple of days, has really kept spring rattling along nicely. Not botany, I know, but yesterday several of you reported your first orange tips. (I saw my first this morning when walking out to Roughmoor.) Also yesterday we had our first small whites here, while two days ago there was a big arrival of willow warblers. We had one singing in a neighbour’s garden first thing in the morning; then along the river, between Obridge and Creech Castle, I counted at least twenty in full song where two days earlier there’d been none! Several of you have reported swallows, too, suggesting many summer migrants have been arriving in the last few days, no doubt helped on their way by the southerly breeze.

Despite the continuing ‘lock down’, 14 of you have submitted records during the week, which is a considerable achievement in the circumstances. It may be different in the countryside, of course, but in town the police are now a much more visible presence, with regular patrols of parks and open spaces to break up any gatherings and to check that no-one’s exercising further away from home than strictly necessary. For now, though, we have continued to be able to do our usual daily walks, which means being out of the house for about an hour-and-a-half. Having a dog seems to help, and it certainly feels easier botanising in town when Gilly’s trotting along beside me. It’s as if a dog provides an immediately obvious explanation for why one might be ‘out and about’, and so mucheasier to just say you’re walking the dog than having to admit that what you’re really doing is searching for flowers on some plant or other.

So, it’s been another good week for first flowerings. In all, we made more than 80 records in ‘Week 3’, and these included first sightings for more than two-thirds of the target species. But before we get to these, let’s have a quick look at some of the species you’ve found that weren’t targets. These include a few real rarities, like Spring Cinquefoil, Potentilla verna, which was recorded flowering at Black Rock (Cheddar) by Georgina Shuckburgh on 31^st March – so actually at the end of ‘Week 2’ – and Alpine Penny-cress, Noccaea caerulescens, also found by Georgina, this time at Blackmoor, on the 2^nd. And she attached a lovely photo to prove it, too. Such Mendip specialities seem a world away at the moment to those of us holed up in the ‘deep south’.

It’s also been a week of ‘strange umbels’, in that we’ve had some incredibly early sightings of three umbellifers (Apiaceae) that one wouldn’t expect to see in flower until late June, or even July!  Ro FitzGerald saw Wild Parsnip, Pastinaca sativa, in flower at Lilstock on the 5^th, while Georgina had Rough Chervil, Chaerophyllum temulum, at Ubley Drove on the 2^nd (both records supported by super photos); and then today, to cap it all, Andrew Robinson reported Upright Hedge-parsley, Torilis japonica, flowering at Brent Knoll. Extraordinary! Will these prove to be ‘one-off’ anomalies, I wonder? Certainly, it would be worth folks keeping an eye out for these species in the coming weeks.

An unusual record of my own, on the 6^th, was Subterranean Clover, Trifolium subterraneum, several patches of which were flowering nicely in a road verge near the roundabout by the Shell garage on Priory Bridge Road, Taunton. It was growing there with flowering Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill, Geranium molle, and Scarlet Pimpernel, Lysimachia (= Anagallis) arvensis. Another highlight of the week was Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes, seen by Pat Wolseley at Nettlecombe on the 5^th, while she was also able to confirm this week an earlier sighting of Three-nerved Sandwort, Moehringia trinervia, on 31^st March.

For some species I’ve been playing ‘catch-up’ this week, including Cuckooflower, Cardamine pratensis (Longrun Meadow) and Goldilocks Buttercup, Ranunculus auricomus (Cotlake Hill), both on the 5^th, and at last,Shining Crane’s-bill, Geranium lucidum, on the 6^th, in a flower bed on Eastbourne Road, Taunton.

Turning now to the 15 target species for ‘Week 3’, the following 11 (names emboldened) were seen by one or more of us, either during the week or, in one or two instances, towards the end of the previous week. Running through them in alphabetical order…

Sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, was recorded by David Hawkins on the 1^st, at a location ‘up north’ to such an extent that it was actually just in VC34 apparently. We’ll let him have it though, shall we? On the 7^th Anne Cole reported Sycamore flowering on Mendip, while I had two trees starting to flower in Taunton, also on the 7^th. (Incidentally, Caroline Giddens, in Minehead, had her first Horse-chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum, flowers on 29^th March, and she says that her earliest blossom, like mine, always seems to be on the same tree each year.)

Barren Brome, Anisantha sterilis, was actually seen by Andrew flowering on Brent Knoll last week, on 30^th March, while this week we’ve had three more records for Sweet Vernal-grass, Anthoxanthum odoratum – Helena Crouch, in Paulton, Pat, at Nettlecombe, and me, in Longrun Meadow, all of them today. Helena has also notched up the first record of flowering Winter-cress, Barbarea vulgaris, on a road verge in Paulton, while interestingly David and Andrew both report having seen American Winter-cress, Barbarea verna, during the week. B. verna is actually quite a scarce plant in Somerset, and an alien, whereas B. vulgaris is a widespread native, pretty common through most of the county apart from in the far west. I’ve seen the latter in bud this week, but not yet in flower…

Chris Billinghurst had Greater Pond-sedge, Carex riparia, flowering in the Molly Brook – a tributary of the river Chew – on the 1^st, while I had it just starting to flower on the river Tone in Taunton on the 5^th. (Pendulous Sedge, Carex pendula, by the way, is now flowering in many places in the Taunton area, although it has yet to be reported from other parts of the county.)

I saw a just-opening ‘capitulum’ of Beaked Hawk’s-beard, Crepis vesicaria, in Taunton today, along with flowering Lesser Swine-cress, Lepidium didymum. Both of these I’d happily swap, however, for the Early-purple Orchids, Orchis mascula, seen this week – by Chris Loudon on the 2^nd at Langford Budville, by Pat at Nettlecombe on the 5^th, and by Hilary Brownett on Hutton Hill (nr Weston-super-Mare) on the 7^th. Linda Everton’s Early-purple Orchids were in bud in woodland below Wellington Monument on the 7^th, so will surely be blooming there by the middle of ‘Week 4’. (She also saw Wood Sorrel, Oxalis acetosella, on the 7^th. Has anyone else seen this in flower yet?)

Red Clover, Trifolium pratense, is starting to make its presence felt, with records of it flowering on the 2^nd and 5^th in Taunton (me) and on the 7^th in Wellington (Linda). Common Nettle, Urtica dioica, has also made its first appearance this week, being seen flowering in Taunton today (me).

And finally a couple of ‘V’s – Wood Speedwell, Veronica montana, which was seen by Anne at Hill Lane (Mendip) on the 2^nd, and by Andrew on Brent Knoll today. And while Andrew was busy racking up first flowerers on Brent Knoll – lucky sod – I was scuffing about the not-so-salubrious verges of Taunton, with dog by my side, where as well as Beaked Hawk’s-beard, Lesser Swine-cress and Common Nettle I also spotted a single but very ‘showy’ flower of Common Vetch, Vicia sativa. The plant was growing on the grassy bank beside Tangier car-park, just a stone’s throw from Riverside Chambers, where Natural England used to have its local HQ, and where I spent many a long year filling in spread-sheets, writing reports and generally keeping my nose clean.

Those were the days….

Week 3’ Preview : 1^st April

Right, here we go again. ‘Week 3’, if you’re up for it, runs from tomorrow, 2^nd April, until next Wednesday 8^th April. Five species are carried over from last week, namely:

Sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus; Bugle, Ajuga reptans; Beaked Hawk’s-beard, Crepis vesicaria; Red Clover, Trifolium pratense; Common Vetch, Vicia sativa

To which we can now add the following ten spp:

Lesser Swine-cress, Lepidium didymum (= Coronopus didymus); Early-purple Orchid, Orchis mascula; Common Comfrey, Symphytum officinale; Barren Brome, Anisantha sterilis; Greater Pond-sedge, Carex riparia; Winter-cress, Barbarea vulgaris; Wood Speedwell, Veronica montana; Lesser Trefoil, Trifolium dubium; Elder, Sambucus nigra; Common Nettle, Urtica dioica

Hopefully this gives you a decent range of species to look out for, whether you’re out in the sticks or an out-and-out townie. Incidentally, if spring continues advancing at the same pace as it has up until now, we probably ought to have knocked all these off by about the 12^th. (By which time the swallows will be back! There’s always something to look forward to, thank goodness.)

As usual, I’d love to hear from anyone seeing any of these (or any other) species coming into flower in the next week, preferably by email simonleach@phonecoop.coop

Many thanks, take care everyone, and best wishes. Hope you all have a good week.

Simon

‘Week 2’ Roundup : 1^st April

Each evening I peer into my email in-box to view the little parcels of unopened treasure lined up in a column, with subject titles like ‘flowering dates’, ‘first flowerings’, ‘FFDs’, ‘Carex?’ and ‘Only Charlock!’. It’s like Christmas come early, and almost as good as having been there in the field with you and seen them myself! It’s been a remarkably good week for records, too, despite the extent to which daily activities have obviously been curtailed by the Coronavirus ‘lock down’. In fact, you’ve sent in so many records I’ve had to construct a spread-sheet to hold them all; which means that I can now sort the records by date, species, recorder, etc. Mind-boggling stuff….

Anyway, thanks to everyone for sending in their records, not just to those who contributed in ‘Week 1’, but now also Ann Fells, Anne Cole, Chris Billinghurst, David Robins, Dee Holladay, Jeanne Webb, Pat Wolseley and Val Graham, who all joined in the hunt at some point during ‘Week 2’ (Apologies if I’ve missed anyone out.)

In all, you submitted more than 100 records in Week 2, covering at least 50 species. If ‘Week 1’ was wood-rush week, ‘Week 2’ was cowslip-and-foxtail week. As reported last time, Cowslip, Primula veris, was seen by three of us on the 20^th, but these widely separated early records heralded a wave of first flowerings for this species across the county: Linda saw her first, near Wellington, on the 23^rd, Helena had them already flowering well in her garden in Paulton on the 26^th, and then there were records from Somerton on the 27^th (David R.), and Chewton Mendip (Ellen) and Winford (Margaret) on the 28^th. Meadow Foxtail, Alopecurus pratensis, wasn’t on the target list – omitted because it had already been found flowering exceptionally early, on the 18^th, in Taunton. That didn’t stop a surge of first dates for it during the week, though, from Brent Knoll (Andrew), Winford/Frog Lane (Margaret), Postelbury (Gill), Paulton (Helena) and Clevedon (Dee).

Turning now to the 17 target species for ‘Week 2’, a total of 12 were seen either during the week or, in one or two instances, towards the end of the previous week. Running through them in alphabetical order…

Horse Chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum, began flowering in French Weir Park (Taunton) on the 30^th. It always seem to be the same tree each year, but still a very early date for a species that should be at its peak of flowering at the start of May, just when the swifts return. (Something to look forward to, eh?)

Glaucous Sedge, Carex flacca, was seen at Brent Knoll on the 30^th (Andrew) and at Kilve today, 1^st April (Ro). Very early dates! Pendulous Sedge, Carex pendula, has been seen too, in Wellington on the 29^th (Linda), and along the banks of the Sherford stream, Taunton, on the 31^st (Simon). In a matter of days we’ll probably find it popping into flower right across the county. (Also on the sedge front, Andrew recorded Wood-sedge, Carex sylvatica, flowering at Brent Knoll; that’s a third record to add to the two from Week 1.)

So far, just the one record of Woodruff, Galium odoratum, from Wooten Hall on the 24^th (Ellen). I saw it in bud in Thurlbear Wood on the 20^th, but haven’t been back since, for obvious reasons. I imagine some of the woodland paths up there will be lined with its star-burst of flowers by now; I absolutely love Woodruff, and it’s intensely frustrating that I can’t pop out there to see it…

Or maybe Week 2 should be called the ‘week of the Geranium’. We had three of them on our ‘hit list’, and all of them have been notched up by someone somewhere in the county. Shining Crane’s-bill, Geranium lucidum, was seen by Margaret at Winford/Frog Lane on the 26^th, and by Steve in North Petherton on the 27^th. I’ve been searching hard for this in Taunton – as Vicki will testify – but maddeningly there’s been no sign of it in flower yet, although (slight digression) several patches of it have had leaf-roll galls caused by the mite, Aceria geranii. Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill, Geranium molle, is just starting to flower now in Taunton – first seen this morning, down near the cricket ground, while Andrew also had it today at Brent Knoll. The first sighting of it, though, was by Steve, in North Petherton, on the 28^th.  Hedgerow Crane’s-bill, Geranium pyrenaicum, too, was on my tally of ‘new flowerers’ this morning, down at Firepool Weir, but Jeanne actually reported it already in bloom last week, on the 21^st, on the roundabout at Tropiquaria – while, needless to say, she was out there sampling dandelions!

Meadow Buttercup, Ranunculus acris, has now been seen by three people: Caroline, in Minehead, actually saw it last week, on the 21^st, while Steve saw it in North Petherton on the 27^th and Gill, at Postelbury, on the 30^th. In Taunton there’s plenty of Bulbous Buttercup, R. bulbosus, on the road verges especially, but still no sign of R. acris.

Of the willows, Crack-willow, Salix fragilis, catkins are about the last to appear. Goat Willow, S. caprea, and Sallow, S. cinerea, were both ‘flowering’ in the last week of February, but it’s only this week that Crack-willow has finally made its appearance. Jeanne saw it on the 24^th in the community orchard in Old Cleeve, while I had it on the 28^th, on the banks of the river Tone. Today, during daily exercise, I noticed that many Crack-willow trees were now in catkin, and looking very splendid too.

Dee got in touch to say she’d recorded Charlock, Sinapis arvensis, flowering in Clevedon on the 19^th, at the start of ‘Week 1’, but the only other record for this species was today, from Helena. Ro had hedge Mustard, Sisymbrium officinale, at Kilve on the 22^nd, while it was also seen in Taunton on the 27^th (Simon) and North Petherton on the 28^th (Steve).

Common Chickweed, Stellaria media, is a plant you can find in flower pretty much at any time of the year, but its larger cousin, Greater Chickweed, S. neglecta, doesn’t tend to flower until the end of March or early April. And, as if on cue, two of you have seen it this week: Steve in North Petherton, and Linda in Wellington – and both on the 27^th.

Amongst the other noteworthy finds of the week were: Tormentil, Potentilla erecta, seen by Pat out at Nettlecombe on the 31^st; Hemlock Water-dropwort, Oenanthe crocata,also by Pat, on the 26^th, a very early record; Hemlock, Conium maculatum, by me, this morning, down at Firepool Weir where it was growing on waste ground close to the Hedgerow Crane’s-bill; and a second very early record for Wood Melick, this one by Anne from nr Rodney Stoke on the 25^th.

We have also had records this week for Wild Strawberry, Fragaria vesca, while three more records for Wood Spurge, Euphorbia amygdaloides, and five for Bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, provide ample evidence – along with the Woodruff and Wood-sedge already mentioned – that spring is galloping along in our woods.

The strangest find of the week for me, though, was on the 29^th when I stumbled upon a young tree of Bird Cherry, Prunus padus, growing nr the river Tone in Taunton, in a strip of rough secondary woodland behind ‘Go Outdoors’. I was flabbergasted. And it was blooming nicely too! I was absolutely convinced this would be a new monad, and maybe even a new tetrad or hectad. No such luck; a quick look on the BSBI database showed that it had already been recorded, at that very spot, in 2019. What? I couldn’t believe it! Who could possibly have recorded it there? On my patch!

And then I looked again and saw, to my amazement, that the recorder’s name matched my own…