Its a Mixed up Muddled up Shook up World

West Yorkshire has more than its fair share of post industrial land. Much of it has now been reclaimed by nature and a lot of it has been 'restored'. The latter normally means too little patience to let nature take its course, so seed mixes and plantings are thrown about like they are going out of fashion. The end results are always a delight for the eye and provide much of interest for botanists, who are also the only people likely to notice whats wrong.

St Aidan's (VC64) is one such place, and as its behind my village it is a good local spot in easy reach from home. Five years in it is still throwing up new plants for me. I spent Sunday afternoon on The Hillside. I hadn't appreciated how many rose species there were up there. Within an hour, and ignoring the undoables, I had Sweet-briar (Rosa rubiginosa), Dog-rose (Rosa canina groups Lutetiana and Transitoriae), Glandular Dog-rose (Rosa squarrosa aka group Dumales), Hairy Dog-rose (Rosa corymbifera aka group Pubescentes), the common hybrid Rosa x dumalis sens. lat. (canina x vosagiaca), Soft Downy-rose (Rosa mollis) which surprisingly had white flowers (but perhaps bleached as pink beneath and in bud) but otherwise (pending fruit) looked typical, and Sherard's Downy-rose (Rosa sherardii). Last two in sequence below.

Rosa mollis

Rosa sherardii

However, the best was yet to come. I have been  waiting for Round-leaved Dog-rose (Rosa obtusifolia) for so long. You really do have to scrutinise and mull every bush to find the goods. Delightfully delicate furry leaves, and white flowers.

Some of the planted and regenerating birches had tiny leaves and originated from further north, completely the wrong form for lowland Leeds. This was Fragrant Downy Birch (Betula pubescens subsp. tortuosa).

Elsewhere the grasslands had Rough Hawk's-beard (Crepis biennis) (terrible photos) and the tussock-form of Red Fescue (Festuca rubra subsp. commutata).

Next up and one of the treasures of June was the impossible to photograph Grass Vetchling (Lathyrus nissola) by the line drag, and then Cultivated Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa subsp. sativa) on the causeway.

And to end on an orchid, here is one of the many hundreds of Common Spotted x Southern Marsh-orchid (Dactylorhiza x grandis). The orchids are getting better year on year.

Finally, not in St Aidan's but near home (VC63) there was this stunning hybrid ragwort (Senecio x albescens). I must remember to go back and see in flower.

Great Gransden and Abbotsley (VC31)

Last weekend while the HFFS were busy in Averseley Wood and being rewarded with orchids, I spent Sunday in the far south of the county plugging gaps for the BSBI Atlas 2020 project. It turned out to be a wise choice and turned up a lot of interest, including species that might have been missed if I had been only a few weeks earlier or later or taken a slightly different route. A lot of the time botanical recording does seem to be as much, if not more, about serendipity as it is about planning, something that can be lost when targets and recording plans are allowed too much sway in decision making.

Within ten minutes of parking the car and walking up Hardwicke Road, I came across the first big find of the day. A large and previously unrecorded colony of Crosswort (Cruciata laevipes) - for those outside the county this may not sound that interesting but it is a mega rarity in this part of the world.

Further along the lane, and the first of several sightings that day, was Rough Hawk's-beard (Crepis biennis). There are few historical records for this species and, given it is easily overlooked as yet another "yellow compositae" and can go over early, I suspect (based on the number of records made on one day) that it is under-recorded in the south of the VC.

Wikimedia Commons image by Enrico Blasutto

Sands Lane gave Rock Crane's-bill (Geranium macrorrhizum 'Bevan's Variety') in the corner of a plantation, only the 3rd record of the species.

A tour of the lanes provided a range of other notable finds, including Spotted Medick (Medicago arabica), Grey Sedge (Carex divulsa subsp. divulsa), Spurge-laurel (Daphne laureola) and Chinese Teaplant (Lycium chinense). The identification of the latter has been clarified in recent years and I am starting to suspect that the truism that it is much less common than Duke of Argyll's Teaplant (Lycium barbarum) is premature, at least in this part of Britain.

Chinese Teaplant (Lycium chinense)

Moving on to Abbotsley, which also had Rough Hawk's-beard, the best find was a new species of pink-sorrell for the VC. Large-flowered Pink-Sorrell (Oxalis debilis) was found naturalised in the grassland of the churchyard.