Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles

Steve has sent over 860 Skye records from June including many interesting additions, such as X Dactylodenia st-quintinii (Gymnadenia borealis x Dactylorhiza fuchsii) near Torrin, Dactylorhiza traunsteinerioides (Narrow-leaved Marsh-orchid) with unmarked leaves from Coire-chatachan and Baldellia ranunculoides (Lesser Water-plantain) from the Broadford River downstream from its known location in Loch Cill Chriosd.

He also passed on some records from Tim, including a new site near Calligary for Cephalanthera longifolia (Narrow-leaved Helleborine). This is not far from a known site but five days later the single plant had disappeared.

Michael Braithwaite has sent me a specimen from Muck of Cirsium x celakovskianum (C. arvense x palustre). This is a first for the vice-county and perhaps needs to be looked out for elsewhere.

Cirsium x celakovskianum from Muck

Last month I was puzzled by a shrub at Ellishader and the consensus after folks looked at my images was that it was probably an Escallonia.  Today on the way to Staffin Island I stopped for another look and it is now flowering. I still think it is an Escallonia but it is clearly not the standard Escallonia rubra var. macrantha. Here is a photo of a piece beside  one of the standard issue:

Later: Mike Wilcox says it looks like looks like Escallonia x langleyensis.

Druim na Coille is a lower stretch of the Trotternish Ridge and lies within tetrad NG45H for which there were until today just two records, Gymnocarpium dryopteris (Oak Fern) and Salix caprea (Goat Willow), both of which I re-found today, along with 173 other taxa.

Gymnocarpium dryopteris

The Druim (ridge) does have some trees (Coille = wood): Betula pubescens (Downy Birch), Corylus avellana (Hazel), Salix aurita (Eared Willow), Salix caprea (Goat Willow) and Sorbus aucuparia (Rowan) in contrast to stretches of the ridge to the north and south.

The Lòn Shobhar-airigh is a rich burn with two sites for Orthilia secunda (Serrated Wintergreen).

I also spotted this on an apparently unnamed pinnacle below Druim na Coille.

Unnamed pinnacle

The only previous record for this species in the 10km square NG46 is from 1968 “near Steinscholl”.

There were montane plants on the ridge like Oxyria digyna (Mountain Sorrel) and Saxifraga oppositifolia (Purple Saxifrage) and plants that were both up high(ish) and along the burn like Saxifraga hypnoides (Mossy Saxifrage) and Trollius europaeus (Globeflower). There was moor and bog and Epilobium alsinifolium (Chickweed Willowherb) and Saxifraga stellaris (Starry Saxifrage) in springs and rills.

All in all a very pleasing day.

Unless it is in flower, I have trouble with Carex bigelowii (Stiff Sedge), not just because it is rather like some forms of Carex nigra (Common Sedge) but also because the two hybridise (Carex x decolorans). However, yesterday there were some nice flowering specimens at about 800m above Coir’ an Eich. It is usually very much an upland species.

Carex bigelowii

Some key things are the clustered flower spikes and the short lowest bract – in C. nigra and C. x decolorans the lowest bract is about as long as the whole inflorescence.

Also, the red-purple stem bases and rhizome scales exclude C. nigra.

In theory one can distinguish the two parents and the hybrid by checking for stomata on both sides of the leaves: both = hybrid, lower surface only = C. bigelowii, upper surface only = C. nigra BUT C. nigra can have a few on the lower surface. And then there is robust C. panicea in some of these habitats.

I had a few hours yesterday after a lunchtime appointment in Portree and so headed a little way north on the A855. I had two things in mind – to up the taxon count for NG44Y from 73, which I did, to 163, and to re-find a 1991 record for Equisetum pratense (Shady Horsetail) at Lòn Druiseach, SE arm, NG5047. This too was easily accomplished with over 200 shoots by the upper reaches of this burn.

I parked in a lay-by by the A855 where garden rubbish has obviously been dumped in the past and found Carex pendula (Pendulous Sedge) and Epilobium hirsutum (Great Willowherb) there. I wonder which gardens in Portree have Carex pendula?

There were several clumps of Parnassia palustris (Grass-of-Parnassus) with flower buds in a marshy area by the Lòn Druiseach.

Parnassia palustris in bud