Finally I got out in the field yesterday. The target species for the day was
Lithospermum purpocaeruleum, as rumour had it we might be able to still see nutlets at this time of year. When we found the first (known) population it soon became clear that any nutlets had long vanished, but the new spring leaves were on their way.
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| Lithospermum purpocaeruleum - purple gromwell |
We moved on to another site where
Lithospermum has not been recorded since 1999. It was clearly not the ideal time of year to refind a population, but we were hopeful that we might have "got our eyes in". It was lovely to be in a limestone wood in early spring, with violets and wood anemones giving a hint of the spring flowers to come, but unfortunately we did not refind the
Lithospermum. Perhaps later in the year.
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| Anemone nemorosa - wood anemone |
You were unlucky I think with the nutlets. I remember being puzzled by them early in the year in Cheddar Wood years back. They made quite a show. I have just a few in the garden at the moment...
ReplyDeleteBut yes it's frustrating trying to find things just yet - we were trying a Paris site last week - no luck.
Interesting to have that from you as a second source. Do the flowering shoots persist longer than vegetative ones? This population was not seen flowering during several visits in 2012 (though not visited in 2013). So perhaps there never were any nutlets to see here. Raising a question of whether the management should be changed - tree cover reduced perhaps - to encourage more flowering?
ReplyDelete