Eyebrights in old hay meadows

The hay meadow survey season has come around again. My job at this time of year is to survey lots of upland hay meadows in the north Pennines (the bits of the Pennines in Durham, Cumbria and Northumberland), to advise on their management and to find species-rich meadows to use as a source of 'green hay' for introducing seed to other meadows being restored nearby. Species-rich upland hay meadows ('MG3b' in the NVC) differ from southern or lowland meadows in having lots of wood crane's-bill and other northern montane species.

Wood crane's-bill in an upland hay meadow in Weardale

In a lot of the meadows the sheep have only been put out about 2 weeks ago and this week more and more species have been coming into flower. The meadows will probably be at their most colourful next week. The picture below shows a close up of a fairly common type of vegetation that we get in the north Pennines meadows. This is what I call MG6+. It is semi-improved and so lacks the special northern montane species. It is often quite herb-rich with more than 60% cover of herbs, but it is not really species-rich, being dominated by a few common species like red clover, buttercups, pignut, ribwort plantain and often a lot of yellow rattle. This vegetation is a bit too rich to fit in to standard MG6 and not rich enough to be called MG3 or MG5 so I call it MG6+.

Colourful MG6+ vegetation in a meadow in Weardale

Just before the season started this year I got my eyebrights determined by the BSBI's eyebright expert Alan Silverside. My job gives me the opportunity to access lots of meadow on private land most of which may never have been visited by a botanist. So, it is worth making the effort to try to work out some of the critical groups or at least to collect specimens so that an expert can identify them.

Euphrasia arctica arctica

It seems that the eyebright I have been finding most frequently in these meadows is Euphrasia arctica arctica. This is an 'old hay meadow' specialist. Until a few years ago it was thought that this sub-arctic taxon (whose main stronghold is the Faroe Islands) was confined in Britain to Orkney and Shetland. However it turns out that it probably occured throughout the range of Euphrasia arctica in Britain (i.e. most of the northern half and upland areas in Britain) but has largely died out in most places due to both loss of old hay meadow habitat and being hybidised out by the more competitive, 'weedy' Euphrasia arctica borealis.

A stand of Euphrasia arctica arctica near Blanchland in Northumberland

As with other eyebrights, hybrids are common which makes identification a bit of a nightmare! I can't distinguish between true Euphrasia arctica and hybrids so I collect specimens and allow the expert to identify them properly. In the field I can only split the upland hay meadow eyebrights into 2 main groups - The Euphrasia arctica types and the Euphrasia rostkoviana (officinalis) types which are much rarer. Last year I found Euphrasia rostkoviana montana (Euphrasia officinalis monticola) 4 times out of about 250 meadows surveyed. It has very large flowers for a Euphrasia and has long hairs with tiny glands on the end.

Euphrasia rostkoviana montana

This is now a UKBAP species as it has suffered a massive decline and grows only in upland hay meadows which have themselves suffered a massive decline. Its current range in Britain is Wales, Yorkshire Dales, north Pennines, Cumbria and the Scottish Borders. Alan was delighted to see this again as there had been no authenticated records from the Pennines for about 30 years and he thought it may have gone completely extinct in the Pennines. I will be looking out for it carefully again this year.

John

... and more meadows ...

Highlights from last week's meadow surveys. Surveyed 10 meadows on a farm in Westgate, Weardale and Alchemilla acutiloba was abundant in 8 of them! The leaf lobes didn't look as distinctive as I expected so I actually recorded it as Alchemilla xanthochlora in the first field and only realised what it was half way through the second field.

Recorded Euphrasia rostkoviana in 2 fields near Wynch Bridge in Teesdale where Margaret Bradshaw's Upper Teesdale Botany Group also found it a couple of weeks ago. In one of the fields it was quite abundant throughout the field.

The absolute highlight of the week was visiting a meadow near Garrigil in South Tynedale with a very large and varied and very species-rich bank in the middle. I didn't have my camera with me so no photos I'm afraid. Linda Robinson discovered the site last year and introduced us to it. We saw 2 spikes of small white orchid which is a very nice plant (for an orchid), also a few Gymnadenia conopsea ssp. borealis. The bank also has Crepis mollis which wasn't flowering and we couldn't find it. We also could not find Alchemilla glomerulans where it was growing last year at the edge of the meadow. Most bizarrely of all was the Vulpia bromoides growing along the top of the bank, probably many miles away from its next nearest site.

Here are some pictures,

John

A typical MG3 community growing on a strem bank within a SSSI meadow in Allendale

Meadow foxtail flowering

rare hay meadow plants

My day-job is working on an upland hay meadow restoration project for the North Pennines AONB. This involves surveying lots of hay meadows between the last week of May and the first week of July. Last year in 133 meadows I didn't find any real rarities, but this year I've already found two in the first week!
I have not attempted to identify Euphrasias up to now but decided to give it a go this year as there are some species that are very good indicators of unimproved meadows. The first Euphrasia I found this year turned out to be E. rostkoviana subsp. montana. Check this link for a distribution map http://www.bsbiatlas.org.uk/map_page.php?spid=797&sppname=Euphrasia%20rostkoviana%20subsp.%20montana&commname=Eyebright. I found this in a meadow near Slaggyford in South Tynedale.
Yesterday while surveying in Allendale I found an Alchemilla with hairs on the upper surface of the leaves, which didn't look right for A. filicaulis. The sinus was almost closed and the bottom lobes pointed upwards - characters typical of A. subcrenata. On closer inspection some of the hairs in the stem and petioles were deflexed and Margaret Bradshaw (the BSBI Alchemilla referee) confirmed that she thought it was A. subcrenata. It had not been found outside of Teesdale and Weardale before so this is a new record for Northumberland. Margaret was the first person to find this species in Britain in 1951 and she is still going strong!

John