Allium:

ESSEX BOTANY AND MYCOLOGY GROUPS

Allium: Scan down for Allium shoenoprassum

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Allium oleraceum L. Field Garlic ___________________________________________________________________________________

Essex Status: Native or long established Alien.

Although widespread, the Field Garlic appears to be rapidly decreasing in Britain, but may simply have been overlooked in recent years, as it is a difficult species to spot, except early in the season, when its rapid growth, light green colour and pair of long, floppy, green spathes, quite different from Crow Garlic (Allium vineale), cause it to stand out above the grassy swards that later on envelop it. It is a perennial that curiously occurs in two widely differing habitats viz: in dry, south-facing grassy (usually calcareous) sites subject to summer drought, and mainly in the north, in riparian habitats, either on sandy river banks or in flood plain meadows (Stace & Dixon, in Stewart et al, 1994). It has been recorded in 292 hectads in total, ever, but in only 112 since 1970. In eastern England it is only now known from 8 hectads post 1970, 5 of them in Essex. The best place to see it locally is on Benfleet Downs, where at least 1,000 plants stand out above the grassy sward in late June/ early July, at the bottom of a low bank at the top of the first large expanse of grass eastwards from the western end of the downs.

Essex Records:

TL(52)53	54 ,38	19	Saffron Walden, hedgebank nr. Fairy Croft, c.1862, Joshua Clarke, (Gibson, 1862).
	502,352	19	Wendens Ambo, small patch, south-facing chalk bank by lane, 30 July 1982. Joan Mummery.
	53 ,39	19	Saffron Walden, The Vinyard, in meadow. 1971.Stanley T. Jermyn.

TL(52)54	54 ,41	19	Lt. Walden, roadside north of Stone Bridge. 1972. David Dupree. (Jermyn, 1974).

TL(52)62	67-8,20	19	Felsted, bank near gardens. 1971. Stanley T Jermyn.

TL(52)72	75-6 ,20	19	Black Notley, in a cornfield belonging to the Hall, called Westfield, adjoining Leez Lane, plentifully, John Ray [so welldocumented that we can almost allocate a 1 km grid reference.] (in Gibson, 1862). [from: Fasciculus Stirpium Britannicarum post editum Plantarum Angliae Catalogum observatarum p.2. 1688. 'by John Ray and his friends' published by Fairthorne.]

TL(52)90	91 ,06	18	Osea Island, September 1888, Prof. Bulger et Essex Field Club. Essex Naturalist 2. 251. 1888.

TQ(51)78	78 ,85	18	Benfleet Downs, several hundred plants, August 1996. Stephen Massey.
	78,85	18	ditto. At least 1,000 plants at base of narrow steep bank, at top of first large area of grass eastwards from the western end of the Downs, just east of a patch of thorn located approximately half way along the northern edge of the open area. July 1999. Tim Pyner & K.J.Adams et BSBI.
	7824,8576	18	Benfleet Downs, grassy slope 26 June 2013. Roger Payne.

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Allium schoenoprasum L. Chives __________________________________________________________________________________

Essex Status: Garden Escape.

Although Chives is apparently native on thin soils on rocky cliffs in a few sites in Britain, in Essex it only occurs as a garden escape.