Two weeks, that's all that's left until we hit 2022.
The first thing I'll be doing in January is participating in the BSBI New Year Plant Hunt. Then I'll be relocating elsewhere to do a second (and third? Fourth..?) hunt later that same day. I'm stuck at work until around the 18/20th January, but then I'm heading to Cornwall for 3rd Feb where I'm Best Man at my mate's wedding. Again. Hopefully it works out better for him this time! Before that I'll be touring around a little, meeting various folks in southern England, seeing lots and lots of lovely plants that simply don't occur this far north, and then I need to be back for work sometime near the tail end of February.
If I'm to have even the slightest hope of seeing a thousand species of wild plant in 2022, I need to make good use of my time whilst I'm down south. I did myself a spreadsheet listing various 'target species' I ought to take the effort to find. These target species need to be 1) at an identifiable stage in Jan/Feb, 2) alive (I'm not including dead heads or seedpods), 3) not easily available for me to find in Scotland and 4) they must be wild/fully naturalised. There are some surprisingly common species on the list, things like Mistletoe, Stinking Iris, Alexanders, Alder Buckthorn (I have my twig ID key!), Hoary Plantain, Black Horehound, Early Dog Violet, Annual Mercury....the list goes on.
Cornwall should prove to be very productive regards bumping up my plant yearlist (my lifelist too, I have gen for a few bits and bobs I've never encountered before. But more on those in a later post). Whilst south I'll do a little tour of some of my old stomping grounds around South London/mid-Surrey, I should be able to secure a decent number of species in the warmer suburbs. I'll hopefully drop in at Portland Bird Obs for two or three days too, there are some pretty special plants on Portland that I ought to try for whilst on my little tour and it would be great to catch up with Martin and some of the regulars again. It really has been far too long since I last visited. Plus I'll be staying with my good friends Mark Telfer in Bedfordshire and The Ghost down in Hampshire. Plenty of opportunity for me to scope around and find some decently 'southern' plants!
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| Purple Toothwort seen in Feb 2018 in Hants. And hopefully in 2022 too! |
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| Toothwort seen in Dorset in Feb 2018. Again, hopefully I'll see this in 2022 |
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| Greater Snowdrop found naturalised in a Hants churchyard during Feb 2018 |
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| Alpine Cotula in Yorkshire - a bit of a detour but I may try for it on the way back up again |
Just in case, there's easy mistletoe at the modern art gallery in Edinburgh and Stinking Iris here in the Bay
ReplyDeleteAah...that's good to know, cheers!
DeleteIf you look vaguely in an upwards direction when driving up the High Street here then Mistletoe shouldn't be a problem. But then I guess you'll be staring intently at the pavement to try to get a certain alien grass!
ReplyDeleteI was gonna hit Bushy Park for eye-level Mistletoe, but it seems that between you and Ali all of my Mistletoe requirements are pretty much in the bag. As for that certain alien grass, hell yeah bring it on!
ReplyDelete