ESSEX BOTANY AND MYCOLOGY GROUPS
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ESSEX BOTANY AND MYCOLOGY GROUPS |
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Althaea txt:
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___________________________________________________________________________________ Althaea officinalis L. Marsh Mallow ___________________________________________________________________________________ Essex Status: Native, endangered. A very attractive perennial mallow of brackish ditches, banks and damp grassland on marine alluvium near the sea, and on the upper reaches of saltings, frequently where woodland reaches down to the shore, the plants often clustering in an arc of vegetation beneath the canopy that coincides with the outermost roots of the trees (usually oak). A rather local, but often abundant plant along the south coast of Wales and the Severn estuary, the south coast from Dorset to Kent, and north to Lincolnshire. Found in 77 English hectads post 1970, lost from a further 40. In Essex it used to grow all along the Thames, at East Mersea near the Strood, along the Colne estuary at Colchester, and along the Stour from Manningtree to Harwich. Today it is confined to the Stour, where it has been recorded as small colonies at Cattawade, just east of Nether Hall, and the largest remaining colony off the eastern flank of Copperas point. Its apparent association with shore-side woodland is probably due to its protection from disturbance in this habitat. At Nether Hall intensive grazing has recently been extended down onto the saltings, thus destroying some of the intermediate brackish habitats. In contrast, with the acquisition of the Copperas site by the RSPB, and the consequent cessation of horse riding on the saltings, during the past 10-15 years the colony there has been steadily increasing (teste Russell Leavett). In 1991 a group of students from Otley College mapped the population off the point in detail and located 2,500 plants. They were growing in a band up to 22m wide on patches of slightly raised sandy ground with Tripleurospermum maritimum and Atriplex sp., just beyond the tree line, and with scattered plants along the shore line amongst a band of fallen trees. Probably as a consequnce of this large patch upstream, further small colonies have recently begun to appear around the bay between Copperas Point and Parkeston.
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Apera interrupta (L.) P.Beauv Dense silky-bent _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Essex Status: Casual alien. This species and the next are, in the author's opinion, almost certainly long established crop aliens that have spread out opportunistically into other light soil habitats, - although A. interrupta is claimed to be possibly native on the Breckland heaths of East Anglia (Easy 1992). It is a poorly competing annual grass of arable soils and well-grazed heathland and grassland, with short-lived colonies appearing in gravel and chalk pits and on bare waste ground in the eastern half of England. Comparison of the 1962 and 1994 BSBI Atlas maps suggest that it is slowly extending its range. In Essex it has so far only been recorded as a short lived casual on two occasions. The genus Apera differs from Agrostis only in respect of its long firm awns which arise from the tip of the much larger lemma, which is as long as the glumes. A. interrupta is a slender wispy grass, unlikely to attract attention but for its very long awns.
All records:
TQ(51)67 61 ,78 18 Grays Chalk pit, on reseeded bank on the east side of the pit by Badger's Dene. Presumed introduction with seed mixture. 1986. Arthur Copping. Watsonia ??? TL(52)92 91, 23 19 Marks Tey, nr the station, 1843 gone by 1860. Dr Ezekiel Varenne. (Gibson, 1862).
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