Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles

My report for the second half of 2012 is now on my home page.   There is nothing in it to surprise regular readers of this blog.

I have tagged all entries on this blog for 2012 as “Plants”, “Moths”, “Mammals” etc.

The previous post is a summary from WordPress.

A hawkweed collected by Michael Usher on Canna earlier in the year has been determined as Hieracium uistense (Island Hawkweed).  Known from several sites on Skye and with older records from Guillemon Island (near Scalpay) and Rum, this is the first recent record and the first from Canna.

Christopher Fraser Jenkins has been at RBGE and has had another look at one of his 1988 collections from Struan  which he seems quite sure is C. diaphana (Diaphanous or Greenish Bladder-fern). According to Murphy & Rumsey (Watsonia 25: 255–263 (2005)) this plant was first recorded in the British Isles in 2000 from Cornwall and then identified from several localities in the south-west of England.  Since that publication some older records have been added to the BSBI Database, but from the information given there it is unclear whether the records for NW Wales and southern Ireland are escapes from cultivation.

“Struan” is a pretty vague location but the plant is wintergreen and judging from the known localities, likely to be at low altitudes and perhaps along a river in damp shaded habitat.  The vein endings seem to be a good character to look for ending in the notches of the lobes on toothed leaves, not into the lobes themselves.

I am away at present and again for Christmas, New Year and some time afterwards but this has to be worth a try…..