2021 County Report for Fermanagh

Robert Northridge

Hannah and I spent most of our recording activities in Fermanagh getting post 2020 records for the more interesting plants in Fermanagh, especially on the scarps in the SW of the county and on Cuilcagh Mountain.

We refound Orthilia secunda, Asplenium viride, Asplenium marinum and Polystichum lonchitis  but did not find any Pyrola minor or P. media which seem to have declined drastically since Praeger's time in the early 1900s.

We refound Equisetum hyemale in this area having feared that it was extinct due to being overgrown by Luzula sylvatica.

On Cuilcagh we found an area which we had not come across before with numerous plants of Saxifrage stellaris, and also a new site for Diphasiastrum alpinum.

At Legacurry, on the limestone pavement above Florencecourt, we refound a patch of Equisetum hyemale growing in a most unusual habitat for the species. We first found this species at this site in 1987 and had feared that it had been lust in a fire in the 1990s.