Daan Saaarf - Pt1

This week I have been mostly on holiday... 

I put in a few hours' worth of effort at work on Tuesday 18th Jan, packed my bags and aimed The Gibstermobile south-eastwards towards Fife. I reached Dalgety Bay in a little over five hours and arrived at Ali's house just as dinner was being dished up, perfect! Ali has been relentlessly square-bashing his home hectad for plants this winter and has found a number of species I've never seen before. Between us we formulated a plan; I would divert to Fife on my way down to England and scoop as many target plants as possible in one day. Mad schemes such as this will be necessary if I'm to have the slightest hope of seeing 1000 species of wild plant in 2022. 

Ali provided me with a 'shopping list' of plants, I highlighted the ones I was most keen to see, pinged the list back and that was that. I spent a comfy night on Ali's sofabed and in the morning we hit the woods, trading estates, parks and backstreets of Fife in an attempt to chase down the target species - finding a few extras in the process too. 

Agreed, this is not a plant! But we don't have these on Skye so I was happy to say hello to this one

We did a short circuit of the local woods, picking up my first Lords & Ladies and Stinking Iris of the year (both absent from Skye) alongside a hearty patch of Broad-leaved Bamboo Sasa palmata soon followed by a garden escape Rose Campion Silene coronaria, the latter two constituting my first lifers of the day. Back at Ali's house, I re-identified the Biting Stonecrop on his driveway as Tasteless Stonecrop Sedum sexangulare (my third lifer of the morning!) before we jumped into the car and and headed off further afield into Ali's hectad.

We began at Rosyth where, from the safety of a boardwalk, we reached out and grabbed a few strands of Nuttall's Waterweed from the middle of a lake. Water Mint was the only other addition to the year's plant list at this site, though Bogbean and Yellow Iris were added to my ever-growing Fife Plant List.

Nuttall's Waterweed Elodea nuttallii - a problematical non-native species

This strand went into a plastic ziploc bag for later examination and was not returned to a waterbody. Elodea nuttallii is a well-known invasive alien species and technically, though I have no idea who would enforce this, anybody releasing it into the wild in Britain is breaking the law. Next we headed for a bunch of garages in a dead end lane by some woods, where my next lifer patiently awaited our arrival.

Reflexed Stonecrop Petrosedum rupestre thriving on a weedy patch of hardstanding at the end of a lane

The next location on our whistle-stop tour was the famous Cullaloe SWT, a nature reserve that Ali used to warden and hence knows intimately well. Top priority, in my eyes at least, was to locate the patch of Common Wintergreen Pyrola minor that Ali had found beneath trees, a native plant that had eluded me thus far. We spent a few minutes unsuccessfully grapnelling for aquatics in a large lake before heading into the wooded area in search of the Pyrola. A short while later and...

Common Wintergreen Pyrola minor

I don't often encounter wintergreens. They do occur on Skye but I've never seen one there yet, so I spent a little time familiarising myself with these before we moved on in search of yet more goodies. We headed back into town towards a brownfield site, stopping only for me to leap from the car to eyeball a sprawling patch of Leopard's Bane Doronicum pardalianches

Leopard's Bane Doronicum pardalianches 

I've only seen Leopard's Bane once before, and that was over twenty years back. From memory the leaf shape was less rounded and more jaggedy, I know that because I took the time to draw it in my notebook. I'm wondering now what it really was that I saw all those years ago because I'm pretty certain it wasn't this...

A short while later we pulled up in the disused section of a large trading etstate. I love brownfield sites, well I love slum botany in general, I guess. It's always exciting to botanise such areas and there's a good chance of stumbling across unexpected species including garden escapes and invasive aliens. This site provided all of this and more. Before we'd gone more than about twenty metres, I homed in on a spoil heap at the side of the road and got stuck in. 

I've no idea what this is! It smelled aromatic, I think it's a culinary herb of some sort

Narrow-leaved Ragwort Senecio inaequidens

Previously, I've only seen Narrow-leaved Ragwort in coastal North Kent, an area well-known for it's alien species. Quite what it's doing way up here in Fife is a bit of a mystery to me, but there was plenty of it and it's clearly settled in very well. 

Pirri-pirri-bur Acaena novae-zelandiae

There was a small patch of this stuff growing beneath tall vegetation, quietly awaiting a passing fox, dog or walker to spread the burs far and wide.  

I scanned the kerbsides for ruderals and soon found myself looking at several huge alder catkins. I looked up to see a mature tree, festooned with huge catkins and gigantic cones. Erm? Evidently some kind of alder, but not the native one. Ali gave a big "Ah right!" and hurried me along to view some nearby self-seeded saplings

Does my shadow look big in this.....

Ali had found these saplings last year and had keyed them through whilst they were still in leaf. I took pics of the twigs and buds and then we found some fallen leaves below, which helped confirmed the species involved

Italian Alder Alnus cordata - the first time I've seen it in a properly tickable state

Ali explained that he'd found these saplings, the tallest of which must have been seven feet tall, and keyed them through to Italian Alder, but had no clue where they'd come from. Hence the "Ah right!" when I pointed out the parent tree some fifty metres away. 

We quit the trading estate and headed for a flooded quarry near the shore at Inverkeithing. Ali had recently found Curly Waterweed in this quarry and I was keen to see it for myself. Within just a few seconds of reaching the water's edge we found our target plant. Wow, that must be the easiest aquatic tick ever!

Curly Waterweed Lagarosiphon major

Many years ago, I used to work in a fisheries and we used to sell this stuff in packets of 100 bunches. Back then it was known as Elodea crispa and I must have handled my own bodyweight of the stuff in times gone by. But this was the frst time I'd encountered it in the wild. The fish trade certainly has a lot to answer for, I'm glad it's more regulated these days. 

I spied a frond of Myriophyllum growing amongst the Lagarosiphon. It looked a bit different to the Myriophyllum alterniflorum I'm used to seeing in the acidic lochans on Skye. I plunged my camera underwater for a 'dramatic' shot. It didn't really work out, but here it is anyway

This plant proved to be Spiked Water Milfoil Myriophyllum spicatum, an unexpected lifer for both of us

We took a quick walk around Hopeward Point, finding a few extra species for our yearlists but all too soon we lost the daylight and my time botanising Dalgety Bay had come to an end. I had planned to head off pretty soon, but as soon as Chinese takeaway was mentioned I opted to stay for dinner! But finally I had to set off towards England. In the morning I would be in Hampshire and once again teaming up with my dear friend The Ghost for fun and adventures in the far south.   

Here's a bunch of nutters for you. Entertaining yes, but still nutters. However, anybody who pens a ditty entitled The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee has my undying respect. This song is the story of the main character in Gloryhammer's mad world, one Angus McFife who generally goes around saving the entire universe and doing battles with bad guys. It's pure nonsense, but so what? Hope you enjoy!