2022 County Report for Derbyshire

Dr Alan Willmot

As the Derbyshire Flora Group, I organised a series of 8 outdoor day meetings in the county to record plants and improve the botanical knowledge of the participants. Individual members of the group also recorded plants such that by the end of the year we had between us submitted some 20,000 records for the county. These were virtually all at the monad level or better. These records involved around 1020 types of plant which included 27 taxa new to the county. One of these is potentially new to Britain; this is Aizoanthemopsis hispanica (Aizoon), which was found growing in the pot of an Olive tree imported from Spain in Hudson’s Plant Centre, Duffield (SK3244). This, and other Olive pots, in the Centre proved a particularly fruitful hunting ground for records of unusual species. Ultimately 12 were found including other new county records such as Parietaria officinalis (Eastern Pellitory-of-the-wall) and Parapholis incurva (Curved Hard-grass). The remaining new county records were mainly casuals and garden escapes although there were a few which could possible be counted as native, such as Rorippa islandica (Northern Yellow-cress) and Taraxacum inopinatum (A dandelion). The 20,000 records also included a number of significant refinds. The most notable of these were Ranunculus parviflorus (Small-flowered Buttercup) not recorded locally since about 1950 and Trifolium ornithopodioides (Bird’s-foot Clover) not recorded since about 1850. These were both found on a newly constructed roadway of permeable pavers on the flood-relief dam at The Avenue Country Park, Clay Cross (SK3868). They were probably imported with sandy material used to bed the pavers down on the dam wall.