ESSEX BOTANY AND MYCOLOGY GROUPS
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ESSEX BOTANY AND MYCOLOGY GROUPS |
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Ajuga:
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Ajuga chamaepitys
(L.) Schreber |
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Essex Status: Probably Extinct Native. Ground Pine is at the northern limit of its range in Britain, where it occurs in disturbed open chalk habitats in arable fields that escape vigorous weed control or in rabbit grazed grassland. It has only ever been found in 42 of our British hectads, and its range has been reduced to 20 squares post 1970. In Essex it has only ever been recorded from the Purfleet area, where it was seen in cornfields in 1791 by Edward Forster; and `near the same place', an undated record, by Jacob Rayer (Gibson, 1862). Looking at the map, the only suitable outcrop of chalk in the Purfleet area occurs in the monads TQ55,78 east to 58,78. Although still found in the same hectad, in tetrad TQ57R in Kent, just across the Thames, virtually all the Essex chalk around Purfleet is now either built on, or excavated as chalk pits and quarries, and it seems very unlikely that Ground Pine is still present in Essex. A Purfleet plant, gathered by Edward Forster in 1791, was used for the illustration in English Botany (Smith & Sowerbury) [click here to see it]. |
