5 September 2013
1-2 hours
If in Newbury with
a couple of hours to spare in September it is worth seeking out the wasteland
flowers.
We started at the most productive
site, the station car-park, handy whether arriving by train or car. We immediately spotted Oxford ragwort Senecio squalidus [South Europe] with
its lax umbels of flowers larger than common ragwort, along with redleg Persicaria maculosa, annual mercury Mercurialis annua, weld Reseda luteola and thyme-leaved sandwort
Arenaria serpyllifolia, right next to
the station platform.
Beside these was a
single clump of rough bristle-grass Setaria
verticillata [also from warmer climes to the east].
Rough bristle-grass
Immediately then
came the first of many Bilbao 's fleabanes Conyza floribunda [South
America ]. Similar to
Canadian fleabane, the latter has red-streaked roughly hairy stems (the
quickest field character) and (with a good lens) 5-lobed disc-flowers (4 in C. canadensis). While Canadian fleabane was at one time the
commonest of these Conyza species,
here at least Bilbao's has become dominant, to the extent that we could not
find any canadensis here at all, nor
in other parts of central Newbury. Bilbao 's fleabane was first recorded in this car-park in
2001 (Crawley 's Flora of Berkshire) and has
thus become thoroughly naturalised.
A bank across the
car-park had fennel Foeniculum vulgare
[Europe], wild carrot Daucus carota,
hemp-agrimony Eupatoria cannabinum,
Canadian goldenrod Solidago canadensis [North
America], and purple toadflax Linaria
purpurea [Italy ]. Looking for Conyza species a specimen with red phyllaries (outer bracts around
the flowers) seemed at first to be Argentinian fleabane, but we eventually
realised that it was more like the commoner blue fleabane Erigeron acer, the two genera being very close. It had red stems, while those of Argentinian
fleabane seem to remain green, while only the tips of the bracts are red. A close look revealed pale purple outer ligules
to the flowers, but these were much more reduced than normal in blue fleabane
and the plant was more branched and bushy. We wondered whether it was a hybrid between
blue fleabane and a Conyza species. A hybrid between blue fleabane and Canadian
fleabane has occasionally been found and is named X Conyzigeron huelsenii. It
usually has some abortive capsules, while our specimen seemed fully
fertile, which would not be expected for a hybrid. The photographs compare our
possible hybrid with a true blue fleabane photographed at Beedon, just north of
Newbury, where it was abundant in one field. [We have received a comment from Artur Pliszko in Poland saying that this specimen is ssp serotinus of Erigeron acer, which is different from the type species (heads in a raceme rather than a panicle, leaves undulate and down-turned, red stems), but the distributions of ssp serotinus and ssp acer do not seem to have been studied in Britain. We have accordingly re-labelled the following pictures - 20 March 2015.]
Erigeron acer ssp serotinus
Blue fleabane ssp acer
This bank by the
car-park and others on the far north side were dominated by a strange tall
white-woolly mullein with large yellow flowers.
This was Broussa mullein Verbascum
bombyciferum [Turkey ],
first recorded at this very site in 2004 (Crawley 's
Flora of Berkshire). Apart from its odd
appearance, the species has narrow spathulate stigmas and the anthers on the two
"lower" stamens running down on to the stamen rather than being sat
crosswise on top like the other three.
(Stace uses "lower" but this refers to the position in the
flower and not to their length, as these two stamens tend to be taller than the
others - very confusing!)
Broussa mullein
Algerian ivy
The warm
micro-climate of the car-park, apart from favouring these plants from warmer
climates, was also popular with field grasshoppers Chorthippus brunneus.
Field grasshopper among
young plants of Broussa mullein
Leaving at the
west end of the car-park we crossed into Bartholomew Street , going north through a
main shopping area to St Nicholas's Church.
The churchyard had harebell Campanula
rotundifolia in less frequently cut grass areas on the north side, with
pellitory-by-the-wall Parietaria judaica. A cultivated strip by the walls of the church
on the east side had lesser meadow-rue Thalictrum
minus and "Japanese" lantern Physalis
alkekengi [Europe] with its bright orange seed-cases. The latter is recorded in Crawley 's
Flora of Berkshire as abundant here in 2001, but there were now just a few
plants. The same source only gives the
meadow-rue for a rubbish-tip in Newbury in 1961, so this is a new addition to
the churchyard. Autumn crocus Crocus nudiflorus is recorded here but
we were too early to see any, even if it does survive.
Japanese lantern
We then crossed
the market-square to the east and wended our way through other car-parks back
to the station. The only fleabane we saw
other than Bilbao 's was one very large clump of
Guernsey fleabane Conyza sumatrensis [South America ] beside one wall, growing with buddleia Buddleja davidii. Apart from being tall and bushy this fleabane
is conspicuously hairy. This made it a
three-fleabane day, four if one counts the possible hybrid. It also completed our tour of the world
inside one square kilometre.
You captured Erigeron acris subsp. serotinus (Weihe) Greuter, not a hybrid fleabane.
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