Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris)

Dear Readers, first up a round of applause for the folks at the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) for getting the results of all the plant surveys that were done for the New Year Plant Hunt collated and analysed within a few weeks of the event closing. Well done! No mean feat. But with the results in, what does it show?

As usual, daisy was the plant most often seen in flower, followed by dandelion and groundsel – out of a total of 1,499 surveys, these plants were seen in 1,000 of them. In total, 647 species of plant were found in flower. Of these, 340 species were flowering later than expected, with about half of the remaining species flowering early. It seems that the effects of climate change mean that many plants find conditions conducive to a longer flowering season, rather than bringing them into flower early. The remaining plants, such as the ‘top three’ listed above, flower all year round, whenever conditions are suitable.

Dandelions in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

There were a few surprises in the plant count, though. First up, Little Robin, a rare plant usually associated with Cornwall, was found blooming in Peterborough. Any resemblance to Herb Robert is completely understandable, as this little plant is another wild geranium.

Little Robin (Geranium purpureum) Photo By Franz Xaver – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7394991

The traffic wasn’t just from the West Country to east though: a specialist plant from East Anglia, Bur Chervil, was found in flower in Cornwall.

Bur Chervil (Anthriscus caucalis)  Photography by Curtis Clark, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=921598)

Annual Buttonweed is a rare non-native plant (from Australia originally), but it appears to have jumped over the wall and was found in Lincolnshire this year, only the second record for the county.

Annual Buttonweed (Cotula australis) Photo By Macleay Grass Man – https://www.flickr.com/photos/73840284@N04/8423170956/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26714979

In general, during the Plant Hunt coastal areas (which tend to have less frost) had longer plant lists than inland areas, southern locations had more plants than northern areas, and urban areas had more exotic non-natives in flower, largely due to the wide range of novel microhabitats that can be found in cities, and the heat island effect, which keeps things warmer. But all in all, the trend is definitely for longer flowering seasons for many plants, and early flowering for some. How this will play out with the rest of the ecosystem, finely balanced as it is, only time will tell.