The Joys of Manhood

Ghostie and I decided that today, by way of a change, we would temporarily ditch the plant-twitching and just crack on with a bit of proper botanising. Screaming off to a known site for known plants is all well and good, and indeed entirely necessary on my part if I am to have any hope of seeing a thousand species of wild plant this year, but it's nowhere near as satisfying as finding your own stuff. We had a little ponder and decided to head down to Pagham Village on the eastern side of the Manhood Peninsular, over in West Sussex. 

I've been birding Pagham since the late eighties and over the years I've encountered numerous scarce and rare species. But it's also a fantastic area for plants. The coastline is essentially one huge long raised shingle beach and folks live right up to the edge of this beach, resulting in a rather unusual habitat - vegetated shingle strewn with garden escapees. We were looking forward to finding some unusual plants amongst the shingle specialists - should be a good day.

We parked up in a dump of a carpark, abandoned van in the corner, rubbish strewn all along the perimeter fenceline, weeds everywhere. Perfect! We split up, walking the edges in search of exciting ruderals and alien colonisers.

Ghostie called me across to check out a patch of Slender Speedwells Veronica filiformis that were flowering at the base of the fenceline. Nice find, I know of just one site for Slender Speedwell on Skye and they get strimmed on a regular basis, hence are all rather small and rarely have time to flower. It made a pleasant change for me to see a thriving patch in rude health. Ghostie was on a roll and soon called me over to check out some Caper Spurge in a corner. This plant doesn't occur on Skye, so it was a nice to jam into it here.

Caper Spurge Euphorbia lathyris growing amongst the litter

We found an area of hardstanding that was covered in weeds and dived straight in. A surprise find was a solitary Jersey Cudweed Gnaphalium luteoalbum flowering away amongst the mosses and Sea Plantain rosettes 

Jersey Cudweed Gnaphalium luteoalbum - the first one I've seen away from The Scillies

Nearby were a mass of alien fleabanes, all growing at the base of a wall. This tricky genus can essentially be broken down into two groups, those with a hairy capitula and those with a glabrous capitula. In this part of the world there are two options for each. I bagged several samples for later determination, though they all proved to be Bilbao's Fleabane Erigeron (Conyza) floribunda, another species that doesn't (yet) occur on Skye. 

Despite the size variation, these are all Bilbao's Fleabane Erigeron (Conyza) floribunda

There are more Red Dead-nettles in this image than I've ever seen on Skye!

It took us over 30mins to make it out of the carpark, but eventually we headed towards a dogshit-infested area of field and hedgebank where we soon found plenty more plants of interest.

Lesser Mexican Stonecrop Sedum kimnachii forming a large patch beneath gorse bushes

Sweet Alison Lobularia maritima along the vegetated edge of a gravel track

Honesty Lunnaria annua flowering beneath a gorse bush

I spotted a honeysuckle that didn't look quite right, sprawling through a long hedgerow. Out with Stace 4 and Poland's Veg Key. Just a few minutes later Japanese Honeysuckle was safely added to our lifelists. 

Japanese Honeysuckle Lonicera japonica - one of three patches we found around Pagham Village

Eventually we were on the shingle itself and peering left and right for signs of anything big enough to be identifiable. Ghostie spotted a clump of something in the distance and set off to investigate. I figured I ought to check it out too, can't have him seeing stuff without me!

He's a man on a mission....

What the actual heck is that??

We quickly figured it was probably a hellebore. I jokingly suggested Holly-leaved Hellebore and, back indoors that evening, we discovered it was Corsican Hellebore Helleborus argutifolius, also known as - would you believe it - Holly-leaved Hellebore! Even more ridiculous, this was not a lifer for me. I'd previously encountered it as a garden escape in March 2002. Clearly hadn't made much of an impression in my memory banks...

The shingle here is beautifully vegetated and pretty soon we were knocking up quite a decent plant tally. We commonly encountered large patches of what appeared to be a very large chamomile. A quick bit of detective work and with a bit of help from the Veg Key...

Sicilian Chamomile Anthemis punctata - a lifer for both of us

 

There were plenty of more familiar plants scattered along the top of the beach, some of the more notable (from a Skye-centric perspective, at least) being this bunch

Sticky Groundsel Senecio viscosus trying to trick us with its atypically outspread rays

Yellow Horned-poppy Glaucium flavum is abundant at the top of the beach

Sea Beet Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima is well-established all along the shingle here

Ghostie once again spied a large patch of something that looked interesting. As we approached closer, I could see that it was a Bergenia. I remembered that there were several species at large in Britain and the Veg Key once more came to our rescue. Here's the patch, pay particular attention to the spiny leaf margins

The Veg Key mentioned 'hairs' along the leaf margins. I initially misinterpreted this feature, thinking I was looking at spines rather than hairs - hence the rather gung-ho dissection of the flower in an attempt to find other features that matched the keys. Basically, the 'spines' I was looking at were enlarged hairs and by following the "yes the leaf has hairy margins" option (the other option being "without hairs"), this rapidly drops out as Schmidt's Elephant's Ears Bergenia x schmidtii, another lifer for both of us. Interestingly, looking at the BSBI distribution maps, this plant has been erroneously identified as Bergenia crassifolia ever since being discovered a couple of decades back. Oops Sussex Flora Group, you need to check this again methinks!

The shingle just kept on giving, providing us with more plants for the year and a couple more lifers too. 

Rose Campion Silene coronaria - lots of this between houses and the open shingle

Snow-in-summer Cerastium tomentosum thriving in the thin grassy sward

Curry-plant Helichrysum italicum - just one whiff and....

We didn't recognise the greyish plant depicted in the three lower images, though it was merrily forming little clumps along a decent stretch of the shingle. Happily, I'm in the habit of smelling/tasting anything that looks unfamiliar (less so with inverts, obvs) and this plant smelled very strongly of curry. Aha, could it be Curry-plant, I wondered? Online searches revealed a perfect match and the BSBI maps showed it to be present all along the shingle beach here at Pagham. Nice one, that was yet another unexpected lifer for both of us. A short walk further and we found a small clump-forming bush that looked familiar. Dredging the memory banks, I suggested Shrub Ragwort. Ghostie looked blank. "Like a daisy bush type of thing, it should have yellow flowers in the summer" I said. "Like this one?" Ghostie asked, pointing at a yellow flower I hadn't noticed

Shrub Ragwort Brachyglottis x jubar - yet another lifer for both of us!

Spanish Broom Spartium junceum colonising the shingle away from gardens 

Finally we were off the shingle and cutting inland through the village. We found more Japanese Honeysuckle in a couple of hedges as well as, rather excitingly for me, quite a bit of Wall Barley in roadside verges.

Wall Barley Hordeum murinum - this abundant lowland grass is entirely absent from Skye!

Lamb's Ear Stachys byzantina - a garden escape and another species entirely absent from Skye

Spotted Medick Medicago arabica - you guessed it, also entirely absent from Skye

Our decision to forgo plant twitching in favour of proper botanising had been a great success, both of us scooping a fistful of lifers and a bucketload of yearticks. My five lifers were Japanese Honeysuckle, Sicilian Chamomile, Schmidt's Elephant's Ears, Curry-plant and Shrub Ragwort, all alien species doing very well for themselves on the Manhood Peninsular. At the end of the day my plant yearlist stood at 342 species. 

Music time, folks. I'll hold my hands up, I've never even heard of this guy until now. I was trawling YouTube for inspiration and came across The Shingle Song by Peter Hammill. Bit of a slow start, but overall pretty good I reckon. By the end of the song I'd decided that his voice was somewhere between that of Andrew Eldritch and David Bowie. A bit weird, I guess, but I liked it anyway. Hope you enjoy!