Ian Bennallick, County Plant Recorder, reports on Lizard wildflowers
Ian Bennallick, Cornwall County Plant Recorder
The first visit was to some meadows on the north side of the Helford River, south of Constantine. A public footpath runs south from Goongillings to Scott’s Quay, where Polpenwith and Polwheveral Creeks meet.
At 10:30 with the owner Charlie Pugh, the group walked down the hill from Goongillings and in the first field north of Scott’s Wood at SW736278 we stopped to have a look at yellow-flowered Yellow Bartsia, a hemi-parasite on the grasses in the field. This was abundant but mostly past flowering. Swallows and House Martins swooped over the meadow feeding on the many small insects and several Meadow Brown butterflies were flying despite the strong northerly wind.
The two southernmost fields at Goongillings, at SW737276 and SW737274 south of Scott’s Wood are more species-rich with much yellow-flowered Large Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Cat’s-ear and Smooth Hawk's-beard, White and Red Clover, and the purple-flowered Selfheal. Common Bent, Sweet Vernal-grass, Crested Dog's-tail, Yorkshire-fog and Perennial Rye-grass are the most common grasses here. The recent dry weather meant that earlier meadow flowers had already flowered and the other hemi-parasite in the fields, Yellow-rattle, was already ripening with the seeds rattling in the seedpods.
There were many grasshoppers in the sward, and at the entrance to the last field at SW736274 Charlie stopped and pointed out the sound of Field Crickets in the south-facing field. Almost extinct in the British Isles by the 1980s, this species has been reintroduced to some sites in southern England, and at Goongillings had been introduced to the field as part of a scientific study by Prof. Tom Tregenza of Exeter University at Penryn. Though an introduction site, the crickets were doing well with an estimated 500 to 1,000 present from the original 50 specimens introduced.
Leaving Goongillings at noon, a short drive west, south then east via Gweek and through Mawgan and St Martin led us to the second stop of the day – Kestle Barton at Helford. Most of the group arrived from 12:30 onwards and enjoyed pasties from nearby Gear Farm, kindly laid on by Exeter University, in the lovely garden of Kestle Barton. Here the owner, Karen Townshend, has created and developed a wonderful meadow.
In 2008 the topsoil of the field south of the Barton at SW753253 was stripped off (to reduce the fertility of the field) and this was used to create a hedgebank to shelter the newly planted orchard. A seed-mix of traditional meadow species native to the British Isles was introduced to the field and these have established well to create a diverse and flower-rich meadow. Earlier in spring the field is yellow with Cowslips, a species that was not in the original seed-mix but has somehow established and increased, then later in spring white with Oxeye Daisy.
These had mostly gone over at the time of our visit but the field was in the summer colour of purple with the ray-flowered form of Common Knapweed, Selfheal and a few Betony plants. Yellow-flowered Large Bird's-foot-trefoil, Rough Hawkbit and Cat's-ear are common. Yellow-rattle was mostly in fruit and in a few places, we saw the yellow-flowered Lady's Bedstraw and the white-flowered Lesser Stitchwort. The commonest grasses included Common Bent, Sweet Vernal-grass, Crested Dog's-tail, Yorkshire-fog and Perennial Rye-grass with abundant Quaking-grass. We followed the mown path through the field to a small area that had been sown with arable plants. The beautiful blue Cornflower, yellow Corn Marigold and white Corn Chamomile were flowering but Corncockle was still in bud with only a few pink flowers showing. On the banks we admired the pink Musk-mallow and some Bladder Campion.
Leaving Kestle Barton at 14:30 we drove southwest across the Lizard to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust Windmill Reserve, a few kilometres north of Lizard Village. At 15:00 we met Nick Marriott, the West Cornwall Reserves Manager for the Trust, who gave us an introduction to the reserve, the habitats present, and the management.
A former dairy farm, the Trust acquired the site in 2002 and have since managed the fields traditionally, created small scrapes and pools and have grazed the grassland and the heathland parts of the site with traditional Devon Red Ruby cattle. Our aim was to look at three small fields at SW691155 that had been ‘broken in’ from existing heathland over a hundred years ago. Both Yellow Bartsia and Yellow-rattle were present in numbers, and with the drier than normal May and June, the vegetation in the fields was short but the familiar mix of grasses was like the fields at Goongillings with Common Bent, Sweet Vernal-grass, Crested Dog's-tail, Yorkshire-fog and Perennial Rye-grass. A nice addition to the list was Heath Grass, colonising from adjacent heath or heathy grassland, and lots of Oval Sedge with some Soft Rush.
Large Bird's-foot-trefoil was frequent and some plants had enlarged flowers which had been galled by the gall midge Contarinia loti. This is only the second record for this gall on the Lizard but is probably under-recorded. Pale Flax was found in a couple of places and this had not been recorded in this 1km square since before 1950! Three fruiting plants of Southern Marsh-orchid was found at SW69091559. In a damp rushy corner of the northernmost field Common Reed in spreading into the field and here we saw the pink Ragged-Robin and white Marsh Bedstraw.
We finished the walk at 16:30.
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