Lost on Portland

Dorset Pete was keen to head into the Church Ope/East Weares area, a huge jumble of rocks, scree and dense scrub. It's also home to a suite of incredibly rare and localised lichens and bryophytes, with the liverwort Southbya nigrella topping his Most Wanted List. After a bit of online digging, I managed to come up with a couple of dozen grid references for it, most of which were in the military compound and hence very definitely out of bounds! However, I made a note of several griddies in the Church Ope area. I'd been shown Southbya by Nicola Bacciu several years back, it's very small but quite distinctive. I recalled that we found quite a few patches, and I vaguely remembered whereabouts we were at the time. Should be a doddle... I did hope we'd score today, Pete was proper keen for it. 

But before all that, I forgot to mention the Oblong (Balkan) Spurge that was a lifer for Pete yesterday. John Martin noted it some years back and spread the word. It grows in a small area of waste ground and seems to be spreading, I counted several plants as opposed to the solitary plant that I remember being here in previous years. Terrible pics (I was leaning over a fence at the time) but you get the gist

Oblong (Balkan) Spurge Euphorbia oblongata in wasteland

Back to today - we headed out and descended through the woods near Pennsylvania Castle, noting carpets of vegetative Creeping Comfrey beneath the trees. We spun a few rocks embedded in the damp soil, finding many Kontikia ventrolineata, an alien flatworm that clearly appears to be flourishing here. But before all that, we stopped to admire a few shrubs. Wilson's Honeysuckle, Chenault Coralberry, Shrub Ragwort and more Mediterranean Spurge quickly fell. A large daisy with heavily dissected leaves caught our attention, it appears to be Argyranthemum frutescens which is a new one for me. Problem is, I can't now recall whether it was planted or naturalised (note to self - don't leave it so bloody long between the events and writing them up!) I suspect this was outside the big house at the top of the footpath that leads down through the woods, so is probably planted. Pete - what say you, buddy? Here's a couple of pretty poor piccies of it anyway. 

Presumed Argyranthemum frutescens - aka Paris Daisy/Marguerite Daisy

Exiting the woods, we descended the stone steps and headed northwards across the hillside and down into the Weares proper. This is a really good area for Wild Madder and we saw tonnes of the stuff. Much of it was pristine, but we also found a goodly amount exhibiting leaves that had been chomped by larval Mecyna asinalis, a small moth which, as a caterpillar, grazes off the underside of Wild Madder leaves. As can be seen below

Unchomped Wild Madder Rubia peregrina

And this is a Wild Madder that has played host to a Mecyna asinalis larva

Wild Madder doesn't occur in Scotland, which made it yet another valuable addition to my yearlist. By now we were well down the slope into The Weares and were homing in on the first grid reference for the Southbya. Plants that were new for the year included Horseshoe Vetch, Laurustinus, Rock Stonecrop and Portland Spurge. 

Horseshoe Vetch Hippocrepis comosa - common on barish earth

Rock Stonecrop Petrosedum forsterianum - not looking at its best at this time of year!

Laurustinus Viburnum tinus - very common amongst the jumble of boulders in The Weares

After much back and forthing between boulders, we realised that the first grid reference was lost beneath a huge jumble of Buddleja and Cotoneaster. Arse. Southbya nigrella requires exposed, largely unvegetated ground, if it was somehow clinging on beneath all that vegetation we wouldn't be able to find it anyway. Not a cool situation, considering its rarity in Britain. Luckily for us I had a second grid reference to track down, it wasn't too far away either. Guess what...it too was completely overgrown to buggery. The third option looked to be on an entirely unsuitable patch of cliff, again heavily overgrown. We noted that many Cotoneasters were brown and dead, some sort of a contact spray has clearly been used on them. We also noted that the herd of goats have been working well, with many Cotoneasters nibbled back almost to ground level. But it's the Buddleja that seems to be the biggest problem here. Who, if anybody, is tackling that?? Not the goats by the looks of things. Throw in a healthy amount of Atlantic Ivy and various bramble species, all of which are very successfully covering a decent amount of bare ground, and I feel it's only a matter of time before the incredibly rare bryophytes and lichens that occur here are lost.  

Eventually we worked our way out of The Weares and walked up to Broadcroft Quarry in search of the Snake's-head/Widow Iris Iris tuberosa. Pete has seen it here once before, I've looked but never found it. Would this be our lucky day? No, no it woudn't. Meh, today was all going a bit pants really! We did find a different naturalised alien growing beneath the Monterey Cypresses, a lifer for Pete (and seemingy new to Dorset according to the BSBI maps) but relegated to a mere month tick for me.

Note the 'teeth' along the leaf edge. This is Schmidt's Elephant-ear Bergenia x schmidtii

I life-ticked Schmidt's Elephant-ear Bergenia x schmidtii just a couple of weeks back on the shingle at Pagham, West Sussex. Now here I was looking at it again. I suddenly wondered if my record of Elephant-ear Bergenia crassifolia (from Portland no less!) could actually be of this species. Hmmm...I'd hate to lose a species from my PSL, but better that than to hold on to a wrong ID, I guess. The BSBI maps show Bergenia crassifolia occuring across Portland and a complete absence of Schmidt's Elephant-ear. Broadcroft Quarry is a bit of a botanical hotspot and, judging from the size of the patch, this Bergenia has been here for a number of years. Clearly it has been misidentified in the past (same as the Pagham plant, in fact!) I made sure Pete took some pics and suggested he submit the sighting to his county recorder as a 'first for county'. As for the poxy Snake's-head Lily, we never did find it. One of these years....

At some point, I forget exactly when but it could have been the previous evening, we stopped off at the Cheyne Weares car park in order to check the Hairy Canary-clover that grows there. Once again I'm indebted to Kev Rylands for the ID of this plant. We'd both puzzled over it's identity for a couple of years before he suddenly contacted me with the name. Not sure how he sussed it, I don't think the Veg Key was published back then, but that's what it is. Anyway, it was a full on lifer for Pete and a yeartick for me, a few pics seem appropriate

Hairy Canary-clover Lotus hirsutus at its sole Dorset site. Who even knows how it got there

Pete had to hit the road early, we travelled in convoy down to the Sailing Academy at Ferrybridge where I showed him the naturalised Mediterranean Spurge, Broad-leaved Glaucous-spurge, some Lambs-ear that has escaped its flowerbed, and of course I showed him the Wild Asparagus in all of its berry-laden glory. 

And then he was off, westward bound. I headed back to Portland Bird Obs and tried to bribe Martin into letting me peruse the bookshop. Sadly, he'd just finished painting the floor and was not about to let me tromp all across it. Heartbreaking stuff for a book addict such as myself. 

This is one of my all time favourite SOAD tracks, Lost in Church Ope. It's an absolute classic, all about a young liverwort who moves to Portland Bill looking for stardom, would you believe... Hope you enjoy!