Happy birthday, Tyler

James and I celebrated Midsummer's Day by going to the Breckland to look for some of the special beetles of disturbed ground.  The widening of the A11 has created some excellent conditions for these species as weeds have appeared in abundance on the spoil and bare areas along the side of the new road.  Near Thetford there are some stretches dominated by Flixweed Descurania sophia, which is host to a couple of uncommon weevils.

The bigger one is Ceutorhynchus rapae, similar to the common obstrictus, but with a slightly different pronotum shape.  It is separated in the keys by the tooth on the hind femora, but this can be very small and easily overlooked; one of my specimens does not seem to show it at all.  An easier distinction is in the claws, which are brown and toothed in rapae, black and slender and untoothed in obstrictus.

 

The small one is Ceutorhynchus pulvinatus, more densely covered in white scales but otherwise like the very common typhae.  The rare species can be identified by its swollen pronotum, like a moghul dome, and the long last tarsal segment.

The Flixweed was growing with other ruderal and waste-ground plants, including some nice Tower Mustard Arabis glabra, Corn Chamomile Anthemis arvensis, and the delightfully named (in English and Latin) Loose Silky-bent Apera spica-venti.

  

How long will this resource last?  I hope the authorities will not destroy it all by planting the road verges or sowing them with grasses and killing off the rare plants, but they usually do, spending thousands of pounds in the process and calling it greening or landscaping, which is just a euphemism for destruction. All it needs is a bit of disturbance every now again and this could be a refuge and a corridor for many of the scarce Breckland species that are in decline because there are not enough rough corners and disturbed tracks in the countryside.

You could not complain about a lack of disturbance at our next site.  The ground next to the power station is used by scramblers, karts, and other vehicles, which have churned up the sand and made a lot of bare ground.  There is perhaps too much disturbance here, but at the edges of the tracks some plants are able to establish themselves.  When we arrived we were somehow recognised as entomologists by some of the fathers of karting children.  They wanted to know what the black and yellow bugs were that were accumulating in the footwell and front of the kart as it was racing through the vegetation.  We were able to confirm that they were Cinnabar caterpillars as one of them had suspected.  We learned that Tyler, one of the kart drivers, was a keen entomologist himself, and he was here celebrating his birthday with some friends.  Later, James was called over by Tyler to examine the by-catch again.  When he returned with Tychius quinquepunctatus in a tube I was almost speechless.  Actually, I had plenty to say, but none of it is repeatable here.

I had just been handed one of our rarest weevils, but we had no idea where it had come from.  This species feeds on vetches, which were not much in evidence among the churned up sand.  We asked the karters where they had been, and we followed their route and looked among the legumes around the edge of the site but we could not find any more.  So the provenance of the weevil is a mystery.  It must have come from somewhere on the site, but who knows where?  Nevertheless, it was a remarkable find, even though it had lost a few scales and gained a bit of dust during its journey among the seed and sand in the footwell.  Many happy returns, Tyler.

Would Whites?

A sunny start to June and I had a free Sunday; it was a day to go out and see something.  Col and I headed west to Salcey Forest hoping to see some Wood Whites Leptidea sinapis.  I was not sure where to go, but we parked up, Col got out and immediately said 'That's that one, isn't it?' and went across to the opposite side of the car park where a white butterfly had just landed.

He confirmed that we had indeed found our quarry within ten seconds of arriving.  Here it was perilously drinking from mud just behind the back wheel of a butterfly-squishingly heavy car.

There were three others doing the same at the edge of nearby puddles, and we found another as soon as we crossed the road.  Hurrah for co-operative insects.

Ghost plants

Last week my dad sent me some plant photos to identify.  I opened them when I was on the phone to mum and said 'Bloody Hell' when they came up on the screen.  For there was a group of eerie Toothwort Lathraea squamaria spikes looming out at me.  This is not such an uncommon plant in parts of Britain, but East Anglia is almost devoid of it and I had never seen in my home county, let alone the wood where I spent a lot of my early days botanising and birding.  So today, with the sun and the bluebells both out, I went back to Stevenage to see the new-found Toothwort for myself.

I do think it is rather an ugly plant, or perhaps unkempt would be fairer, but it is nonetheless beguiling, perhaps because it looks so unplant like.  There is something about its texture that gives it the look of bone and scales; teeth set in a jaw is an apt analogy.  So is Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors if you look at each flower individually when they are young with gaping mouths (see the photo at the top).

All this strangeness is possible because Toothwort has no need for leaves or greenery because it attaches its roots to those of another plant and helps itself to the good stuff.  All you see is the flower spike when it emerges through the leaf litter.  As with all the other Toothwort I have seen, these spikes were growing under Hazel Corylus avellana, which is the usual victim in Britain.

That was the morning's activity.  In the afternoon I went to Potton Wood, which can be relied upon to provide Marsh Tits.  It is also home to a small population of Oxlips Primula elatior, which seems to be getting smaller because of deer, brambles, and shade.  There were a still few flowers, but only a few.  For how much longer will Bedfordshire be able to claim Primula elatior as part of its flora?  The rest of the spring flowers were looking good, with Bluebell Hyaconthoides non-scripta, Lesser Celandine Ranunculus ficaria, and Wood Anemone Anemone nemorosa providing colour in the dappled shade.  And a couple of Marsh Tits.

Delusion

This is one of my favourite plants.  The Summer Snowflake Leucojum aestivum has an enchanting English name, crisp white lampshade flowers that dangle seductively from the top of a neat stalk, each petal tastefully adorned with a pure green spot, and shiny green leaves with a squeaky texture that arch out from the base of the plant.  It is a beautiful thing to start the flower season with.

After my meeting at Wallingford today I had a quick walk down to the Thames to admire the snowflakes.  They were growing along the edge of a small inlet rather than along the river itself, among nettles and willows as is often the case.  Summer Snowflake is listed in most British floras as a rare native, but I do not see how it can be.  I wish it were.  How I wish it were: it would lovely to have it as one of our native plants.  But to give it native status you have to ignore so many things.  First, it was not discovered in the wild until 150 years after it was first recorded as a garden plant.  It was first found wild between Greenwich and Woowich in 1788 in a place where its discoverer thought 'no garden could ever have existed', but downstream from any number of London, country estate, or Oxford college gardens.  Second, its supposedly native distribution is arbitrarily defined as the Thames and its tributaries.  Perhaps including the Somerset Avon too.  And the Meon in Hampshire.  And Maybe Littlehampton in Devon.  Possibly even in Suffolk.  In other rivers the plant occurs in no less wild situations as an acknowledged escape from gardens.  These show that Summer Snowflake can establish itself along rivers and take on the appearance of a natural part of the vegetation.  Why are some of these considered native, while others are not?  (The assertion that the obvious escapes are all Leucojum aestivum subsp. pulchellum and that subsp. aestivum is not grown in gardens is not true.  I have seen subsp. aestivum in Norfolk, where its grows with Spring Snowflake Leucojum vernum, both clearly the descendants of garden plants.)  The places I have seen it are rather uncomfortably near gardens, some of which even have snowflakes in them, and I see no reason to assume that the wild plants were moved to the garden rather than the other way around.  Last, as David Pearman has found out, it does not seem to be regarded as a native in any of the adjoining countries on the continent.

 

So I would love to believe that the Summer Snowflake belongs here, but it does seem to be a plant of southern Europe.  But, like the Fritillary Fritillaria meleagris, another plant that has traditionally been thought of as native but whose credentials fall down when you look at them objectively, it seems a harmless addition to our flora and it it has a place in the history and culture and heart of the few areas where it grows wild.  So in that sense it does belong and we should look after it.

Fond farewell

I had only a couple of hours this morning before I had to leave for the airport.  I spent the first of them among the orchids on the slope below the cabin.  Ophrys orchids are one of the best things in the world.  Among David Attenborough’s prolific outputs is a series called Attenborough’s Ark in which he chooses his favourite and most extraordinary animals, those that he would save on an ark if there were a cataclysmic disaster.  Ophrys would be in my ark.  First, they are so pleasing to look at.  The neat spike of flowers is a work of architectural excellence, and each floral decoration is full of character.  Two side petals to suggest ears; the pollinia or small glands are a pair of eyes; and the lip is a nose or a whole body with arms and legs if you fancy.

Then there is the pattern and texture of the lip.  It seems so velvety and soft and it contrasts perfectly with the almost plastic-looking speculum (the smooth bit in the middle).  I think this is part of the appeal: instead of being part of the natural world, the flower looks as though it is artificial, even though it is not.

All this is very attractive, but we haven’t even considered the amazing biology behind it.  When I first heard about it I couldn’t believe it: it does what?  It turns out that the flowers are not like this to please me but rather to fool a male wasp into mating with them.  All the colours and textures are there to mimic a female insect.  The visual and sensual cues are supplemented with pheromones.  All this is so convincing that passing males will eagerly mount the lip and get the pollinia stuck to their head.  They will carry these to another orchid flower if they try to have go on that one too.

The Mediterranean is the centre of diversity of Ophrys: there are many more species here than further north (only four in Britain).  How many more is a matter of fierce debate.  The trend, as in most plants and animals, has been one of recognising more and more species.  This has been taken to the extreme by Pierre Delforge’s book on Orchids of Europe, which lists 251 Ophrys species.  If you flick through the pages you will find dozens of seemingly identical plants all given different names and separated by rather inconsequential features.  To me, some of the photos contradict the descriptions and keys and they do not make a strong case for separating all the entities he has named.  He has described even more species since.  Other people have found this approach too much, and they have produced genetic evidence to suggest that it would be more sensible to recognise only a dozen or so species, each of which is more readily separable from the others but has many local forms, some of which are produced by ancient or modern hybridisation.

 

On my hillside I found myself in agreement with the lumpers.  I looked at the amount of yellow around the edge of the lip, the shape of the speculum, and its colour.  I could see as much variation here, sometimes even within the same plant, as there seemed to be between some of the Delforgian species.  I was happy to call everything Ophrys fusca, apart from a couple of lutea that were not quite in flower.

I went up to the limestone rocks above for a last time, past a couple of Orchis conica that I had overlooked.  The Iris planifolia was now gone over, but Mediterranean Spurge Euphorbia characias, a plant that I associate very much with holidays, was in flower.

The pretty little Veronica cymbalaria, one of the week’s common plants, was here too, and I found a not too flighty Spanish Festoon and Provencal Hairstreak.  And with that it was time to stuff as much ham and biscuits as I could into my luggage and go back to Britain.

A final word of thanks to the Departamento de Biología Vegetal at Universidad de Málaga, and the publishers who have made the floras (one each for eastern and western Andalucia) available online for anyone to download for free.  Both are extensively illustrated, the western volumes with line drawings of every species, and the eastern set with beautiful photographs, making them much easier to use than most keys.  Does anywhere else in Europe have such a useful and readily available identification resource for visiting or resident botanists?  Congratulations once again to Andalucia on taking the lead.

I also need to mention Flora Iberica, which was very helpful once I got back to an internet connection.  Like the Andalusian floras it is available online, thanks to the Real Jardín Botánico.  I cannot praise highly enough the public spirit of these institutions in making works available so that anyone can enjoy and appreciate the wonderful plants of Spain.

Getting my goat

On my last full day I drove back through the cork oak forests to Grazalema and on to Benoacaz to the Salto del Cabrero trail.  From the edge of the village a narrow path passes goat pens and oak woodland before emerging on a pasture with many orchids and a carpet of Narcissus papyraceus along the side of a stream.  The Paper-white Narcissus is a good English name for this flower, which looked particularly delicate and papery in the dappled shade under the oaks.

Ophrys tenthredinifera and Ophrys fusca were here in good numbers, and Spanish Festoons cruised over the meadow.

On the far side, the trail and I climbed up the rocks to the pass above.  It is easy to ignore crucifers; a lot of them are rather similar, and to me there is something about the form of their flowers that is not as pleasing as those of many other plants.  Perhaps they a little ungainly.  However, Biscutella baetica caught my attention here because of its unusual fruits: two flat discs joined together like a pair of cartoon eyes.

 I approved and moved on until a bright red bug brought me to another stop.  Thanks to the helpful guide by Luis Vivas, I was able to identify it as Spilostethus pandurus.

I had lunch while listening to a Black Wheatear singing from a nearby boulder while Griffon Vultures flew to and from the crags, then I headed back down and across the pasture just as the goats were heading out.

As I drove to Benamahoma, I noticed a group of naked men on a stalk so I immediately tried to find somewhere to pull over so I could stop for a better look.  After a short walk back along the road I reached the site where there were many Naked Man Ocrhids Orchis italica.  Closer inspection revealed that the little figures at the top of the stalks were not only naked but very clearly male, and well endowed males at that.  Victorian ladies would probably have found the plant too much.

Most of the orchids were in grassland, but some were growing under oaks, where they were joined by Spanish Bluebells Hyacinthoides hispanica and Narrow-leaved Helleborines Cephalanthera longifolia.  The latter is a plant I have not seen in Britain, where it is much scarcer than White Helleborine Cephalanthera damasonium.  Floras often make a meal of telling them apart, suggesting that you need to decide whether the leaves are ovate or ovate-lanceolate, as if that were helpful, but they are distinctive plants: Narrow-leaved has short bracts, so the inflorescence arises abruptly from the leaves and towers above them; White Heleborine’s bracts are much longer and make the flower spike look like a leafy continuation of the rest of the stem.

 

Back at my car parking spot Ophrys lutea was flowering; the bright buttercup yellow border was striking even from a few metres away.  I left the car here and walked down the road to the start of the trail along the river.

Three-cornered Leek Allium triquetrum was frequent under the trees along the banks, but the dense scrub left little room for other plants.  I reached a more open clearing where I had an encounter with a co-operative Large Psammodromus Psammodromus algirus, then I decided to leave the crowds and take road over the Las Palomas pass.  There were still ibexes to be seen somewhere, and I thought the higher I can get the better my chances of finding them would be.

Before the pass, I came to more jonquils on rocks near the Pinsapar trail car park.  I thought they might be Narcissus cuatrecasasii on their typical ledge habitat, but they turned out to be assoanus.  I tried to convince myself that these were big boulders among vegetation rather than sheer cliff faces, but I was a little disappointed that perhaps I did not understand the ecology of these species as well as I had thought. I drove over the pass and down the other side, past many more jonquils, all without a convenient car park nearby so they remained unexamined.  A group of Giant Orchids Himantoglossum robertianum needed no stopping for identification, but a small layby had been provided for my convenience so I used it.  The giants were growing with normal-size Orchis olbiensis and a large and attractive legume, Erophaca baetica.

The sun was now setting so I had to let go my hopes of ibex and turn back over the pass to Grazalema and home.  And of course it was now, just as there was enough light left to see them, that two large animals ran in front of the car and up the bank beside the road where they were good enough to pause and start grazing.  They confused me at first because they did not have the full horns or beard of a male ibex, so I assumed they must be Mouflon Ovis musimon. But the horns were the wrong shape, so they must have been a couple of young male Spanish Ibex Capra pyrenaica.  Talk about leaving things until the last minute.  If you can prove that they were ibexes, please let me know.  If you can prove that they were not, then you should probably let me know, but don't expect me to be pleased about it.