NT18 - You've sunk my Hellebore!

Went for a lunchtime wander around Aberdour, an old town with plentiful gardens and garden escape possibilities

It was mostly routine stuff. Oxford rag is shooting up all over the place right now, and there was plenty of that about. There's also a Myosotis (Forget-me-not), which I think is arvensis, that's filling many pavement edges. The leaves don't fit M.ramossissima (Early), so far as I can tell.

There's one passage parallel to the railway line where an embankment is dotted with various Cotoneasters. I haven't by any means figured all them out, and maybe I never will!

H.argutifolius

Best find was a flowering Corsican Hellebore (Helleborus argutifolius) that is perched oddly on top of an old wall. It seems that this is the only square in Fife where it has been recorded and, had I not gone down this exact backstreet, I would never otherwise have come across it.

BSBI Atlas square

That's species 287 for NT18 this year, and there may be one or two more still to ID from yesterday. If I really, really pushed it I might have been able to get to 300 by end of February. But I'm not going to.

In further news I discovered an old record of Siberian Squill at ... Cullaloe! By the entrance road!! That can't still be there. Can I really have been missing it for 30 years?

The Who aren't a band I think about very often, but somehow this song came to mind. Seek and ye shall find.

NT18 - Inverkeithing

NT1282, a square with a harbour, a railway line, a park and ride/bus station, allotments and a cemetery, is surely a square with potential. Over 50 spp., recorded but with nothing particularly out of the ordinary, except this rampant Persian Ivy. It has the ize, the leaf shape, the smell, the red petioles, but I couldn't find any of the stellate hairs, which was disappointing. I guess I need to snag a younger part of the plant.

I only managed a wander down the main road and a bit bordering the allotments. There were, as usual, some mystery plants, so I expect there might be yet some surprises in store here.

I also stumbled across, almost literally, this giant puffball, which must have looked lovely last year

A promising looking pile of mulch yielded almost nothing on the beetle front, which was disappointing. I figure it was quite a new pile and hasn't been populated yet.

NT18: Aberdour loop, NT1884

Presented with a two hour window of free time yesterday I headed for a square not botanised this year, but also carrying a tray and sieve. 

The botanical haul in NT1884 was fairly routine, but gave a reasonable account of the square in February. Perhaps not enough woodland/arable covered as I skirted the coast and golf course. I found a lovely marshy area which will require further bothering for invertebrates later in the year, but which already delivered on a brief prodding.

I found this Leistus fulvibarbis under the loose bark of a large log, under which was a nest belonging to a quickly-escaping small mammal. I hope it returned happily after I left.

The marshy area held a few Stenus, including S.bimaculatus, which was only new to Fife from Cullaloe a couple of years back.

Finally looking at other habitats than tussocks I had a bit of a seaweed shake and found Cafius xantholinus and Omalium laeviusculum. The latter appears new to me, though I can't quite believe that. Must have forgotten to write it down at some point, surely.

Cafius

Omalium

Last night I found something even more intriguing on the Cafius - a Laboulbeniomycete, which appears to be the host-specific Laboulbenia littoralis, only described in 2014. That requires some more confirmation (though I'm claiming it!) as it doesn't yet appear on NBN. The species is known from Belgium and France, the locations under consideration in the original 2014 description. I have a sneaking suspicion that I remember a Laboulbeniomycete new to Britain was documented by Mark Telfer in the recent past. It couldn't be this one, could it? (no - it was on a millipede). It looks like this:

a femur-full

mature fungus, spores escaping at the tip

In order to complete my loop I had to wander out and in of my 1k square, which threw me into a street full of Mind-your-own-business. This is a plant scarce in Fife, and previously known from the St.Andrews area. Since the start of the year, this is the 2nd location in NT18 that I've found it running wild.

A small sample of far more extensive cover. 

New plants for the year in NT18 were Veronica beccabunga (Brooklime), Hypericum tetrapterum (Square-stalked St.John's Wort) and Iris pseudacorus (Yellow Flag Iris).Current total 283.

NT18 - beetles

It wasn't really my intention to go big on beetles in 2022, but in a cold February when there's not a huge amount of gains to be made on plants and flies are in short supply, what's a boy to do? (typical winter sports of bryophytes and lichens aside, that is). A few exploratory trips and suddenly NT18 beetles 2022 stumbled into the light.

So far I've submitted 45 records of 37 species, 8 of which have been new to me. Other than the first records, which were of incidental ladybird observations, that means one new species per outing. I'll take that. It's not like I'm keying masses out, either. There's just enough variation between sites to keep things ticking along.

Coverage

The list

#	Family	Accepted name	Common name
1	Carabidae	Aepus marinus
2	Carabidae	Agonum emarginatum
3	Carabidae	Bembidion guttula
4	Carabidae	Bembidion mannerheimii
5	Carabidae	Calodromius spilotus
6	Carabidae	Ocys harpaloides / tachysoides agg.
7	Carabidae	Paradromius linearis
8	Carabidae	Pterostichus diligens
9	Carabidae	Pterostichus niger
10	Carabidae	Pterostichus strenuus
11	Carabidae	Trechus obtusus
12	Carabidae	Trichocellus cognatus
13	Chrysomelidae	Altica lythri
14	Chrysomelidae	Chrysolina staphylaea
15	Chrysomelidae	Phaedon tumidulus	Celery Leaf Beetle
16	Chrysomelidae	Phyllotreta nigripes	Turnip Flea Beetle
17	Coccinellidae	Chilocorus renipustulatus	Kidney-spot Ladybird
18	Coccinellidae	Coccidula rufa
19	Coccinellidae	Coccinella septempunctata	7-spot Ladybird
20	Scirtidae	Cyphon variabilis
21	Silphidae	Silpha atrata	Black Snail Beetle
22	Staphylinidae	Anotylus rugosus
23	Staphylinidae	Lathrobium geminum
24	Staphylinidae	Quedius curtipennis
25	Staphylinidae	Rugilus orbiculatus
26	Staphylinidae	Stenus bifoveolatus
27	Staphylinidae	Stenus canaliculatus
28	Staphylinidae	Stenus clavicornis
29	Staphylinidae	Stenus flavipes
30	Staphylinidae	Stenus fulvicornis
31	Staphylinidae	Stenus impressus
32	Staphylinidae	Stenus juno
33	Staphylinidae	Stenus similis
34	Staphylinidae	Tachinus rufipes
35	Staphylinidae	Tachyporus chrysomelinus
36	Staphylinidae	Tachyporus hypnorum
37	Staphylinidae	Tachyporus obtusus

Orange spots but no lemons says Poland and Clement

It's the 9th of February. At this point in the year most botanists are in hibernation awaiting warmer climes - at least after a brief reverse-diapause for the New Year Plant Hunt. Sadly, I'm not smart enough to do that. Got to keep busy. Fortunately, I've been able to record 274 species of vascular plant in NT18 already. The unsung hero of this is the magnificent Vegetative Key of Poland and Clement. 

It's impossible to speak too highly of this book. When I got the first edition a few years ago it took me an age to key out any plant, and I had to check the glossary on every couplet. It was botany by immersion. Slowly, though, I started to learn the meaning of botanical terms, and got familiar with the sort of info I would be asked for. The fact that I now recognise commoner plants in a vegetative state even while walking past them is something that's entirely attributable to this book. I also learned that the promise of the book - to allow keying a plant in minutes - is in most cases a realistic one.

Probably I've had this out every day of this year (and the Winter Twigs book, which is starting to look just as good). Yesterday I learned again just how good it is.

I came across a plant in the woods at Townhill which sort of had the feel of maybe a Veronica beccabunga, but I knew that I didn't fancy it for that, or anything else I'd seen before. As P&C have taught me, I noted that the leaves were simple (no leaflets), entire (no funny business on the edges), opposite (not alternate) and that it was prostrate and rooting at the nodes. That's a lot of narrowing down when it comes to plant ID - you've removed a lot of possibilities.

I squirrelled away a bit for later perusal. Last night I picked it out and keyed it through. In a few minutes I was in the wrong bit of the key. It should have failed. It didn't though - because P&C already knew I would botch it and had prepared a safety net. I'd failed to notice that the leaves had orange spots. Luckily they knew I would fail to notice that so the plant keyed out anyway! Then there was a warning that I should look at the correct part of the key. Only then did I really grill the leaves and find that there were, indeed, orange spots. I would have sworn that there weren't. Only under the right light at the right angle there were spots like a Tom & Jerry measles outbreak.

The plant in question is Creeping Jenny, Lysimachia nummularia. Lysimachia is a genus that's acquired a number of species, like Chickweed-wintergreen, Scarlet Pimpernel and Sea-milkwort, in Stace IV (AKA "The Book of Stace", another book you can't live without). 

Three cheers for Poland and Clement! If you haven't got one, here's how to get one:

P&C at Summerfield

NT18 - Hill of Beath

 

Hill of Beath (in NT19) from the pond (in NT18)

monads with 2022 vascular plant records

Visited my old hometown, or at least the nearby countryside, and picked up Shrubby Cinquefoil.

Also added Cherry Laurel from yesterday, which apparently I haven't recorded before. Here's a terrible pic

In numbers:

963 vascular plant records in 65 families (my highest ever families for a year on iRecord!)

32 (of 81) monads visited

273 spp. in NT18

9 spp. new to hectad

NT18 - Lathrobium geminum new to VC85

From a tussock at the end of a hedge and ditch on the edge of woodland and arable land, east side of Townhill Country Park. NT11398985. You can actually see the tussock here. I only cut out about 2.5"/10cm square and there's another first for VC85 still to confirm from the same section.

Male and female. Relationship status: unknown.

aedeagus

 

NT18 - "What the hell am I doing here..."

"I'm a creep ... ing Comfrey". A rare plant in Fife, according to the flora, but a nice extensive patch in Townhill Woods today. I really only went to grab some beetles, but since it was an unexplored bit of plant territory I had my eye out anyway. If I hadn't clocked the flowers I would have really been struggling, but after seeing them there was only one section of plants to look at.

Area covered during lunch

Symphytum grandiflorum. NT1089:

Obviously ...

NT18 Beetles

Went big-game hunting today down by the seaside and added a few new beetle species to the year list. I haven't been looking at them during January, for fear of repeating last year's results and boring myself. No such fear should have been entertained - out of 20 beetle species this year 5 of them have been new to me.

Today's haul included Rugilus orbiculatus (2), Coccidula rufa, Aepus marinus (2) under a rock as usual, Paradromius linearis, Calodromius spilotus, Tachyporus chryomelinus, two un-named as yet Stenus and some seaweed specialist flies (Thoracochaete zosterae) - 1.5 of them featured here. Aepus is always good to see - there aren't many ground beetles smaller than the abdomen of a Stenus! I still haven't found the other Aepus species, though it has been recorded from the area. Maybe it inhabits a different niche and I keep looking in the marinus one.

 The Calodromius was new to me, and wasn't featured in the 2006 Fife beetle list. It does, however, appear on NBN, so must have been found subsequent to 2006.

Paradromius and Calodromius

Aepus

The five species new to me have come from only 26 records of 20 species, so a remarkable hit rate. Maybe the benefit of spreading myself out a bit rather than sticking to the same places. Here's the spread so far:

The two Stenus specimens, as yet un-determined, are likely to be new for the year, too (edit: Stenus clavicornis - 21 spp.)